Editorial: We Are Still in a Pandemic

As of today, Tuesday March 15th, the student body received an email from “Interim President Wendell Pritchett.” In the email, it was announced that Penn will drop its indoor mask mandate for all non-classroom indoor spaces, effective immediately. This means students will no longer be required to wear masks in libraries, residential halls, dining halls, etc.

Are you out of your fucking mind?

COVID–19 is not over. 

The thing we have come to know as something as big as life – covid, coveed, the rona, the Kung Flu, Wuhan Virus, however you want to call it – is still there. And guess what? It will never go away.

Surrender. 

The coronavirus is not just tenacious or persistent. The coronavirus is being itself. It’s not a dasein; it is the existence that makes any dasein able to exist at all. The coronavirus is more towering than Gaia herself and more eternal than the Seven Buddhas of Antiquity. The coronavirus will continue to exist even after the last God destroys the last universe. On the last night in heaven, the coronavirus will be the only one at the dinner table.

So put those goddamn masks back on.