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ys explain the arization. Although not all of these decisions are up to individuals, many of them are. And during a pandemic, when your options seem more limited than ever, making a choice can be empowering. Even if you're not in a position to help scientists find a cure or a vaccine, you can still choose to wear a mask, stay home if you're feeling sick, and postpone your big parties. It is unfortunate that in some places, especially in the United States, people have resisted making choices that will keep them and their families safer. I don't agree with these choices, but I also think it's unhelpful to simply label them "anti-science," as so many people do. In her book On Immunity, Eula Biss looks at vaccine hesitancy in a way that I think also helps explain the resentment we're seeing toward other public health measures.1 The distrust of science is just one factor, she says, and it is compounded by other things that trigger fear and suspicion: pharmaceutical companies, big government, elites, the medical establishment, even male authority. For some people, invisible benefits that might materialize in the future are not enough to get them over the belief that someone is trying to pull the wool over their eyes. This all took place in a period of strong political polarization. It didn't help that, when COVID first hit, there wasn't enough evidence to weigh the costs and benefits of different measures. It was especially hard to make the case for painful measures like closing businesses and schools. Many of these steps hadn't been widely used since the 1918 pandemic, and while the costs associated with them were predictable and immediately apparent to anyone who thought about it, the benefits--especially given that we were dealing with a new pathogen--were not. <~?~Insert art 019_Gate_9780593534489_art_r1> Red Cross volunteers in Boston, Massachusetts, assemble masks made from gauze to prevent the spread of influenza during the 1918 pandemic.