I think at this point you have to compare death tolls though. The US is rounding 200k dead (and yes, I know many had underlying conditions, but I’d wager most of those 200k lives were cut short… whether it’s a year short or decades short, it still matters imo). Yes, this virus could’ve been handled much better. I agree there were panicky moves that were counterproductive. However, the greatest threat to handling it is incompetence and denial. Now because the US went half-assed with its measures it’s going to stew there at a low to medium boil until there’s a vaccine… instead of almost being eliminated as it is in Australia/ NZ and many Asian and European countries where it was once a big problem. This is going to have an outsize impact on the economy/job market, whereas if the US went full measure the pain would’ve been brief and in the past by now.
Gee, perhaps the fact I would have to do quarantine for two weeks in each country (so 4 weeks in total) and I can’t exactly abandon my job and wife and kid (wife also has a job here and kid goes to school, so they can’t just pick up and leave either) for a month and a half. I’m also not 100% confident I could get back into Taiwan if I left. C’mon man, don’t ask silly questions.
I predict people will get so fed up with all the bullshit that the politicians will be forced to declare the crisis over.
Interpretations and theories will adjust to the new public opinion reality. To a lesser extent, the data will be adjusted as well. All these adjustments will attempt to save face for the politicians, but be unsuccessful in that regard. The very notion of “data driven” policy will be seen as a joke.
If BS means people not complying with reasonable distancing precautions and thereby prolonging the medical and economic impact of Covid-19, I agree that it is BS. Public opinion is already driving state actions more than it should, so my pandemic-ending prediction is that public opinion will finally recognize that a brief period of severe measures is preferable to a prolonged period of what we have now. At least in the US. No-maskers will be viewed as public smokers are now. But still of course preferable to shopping cart non-returners.
When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.
I predict 3/7/21 will be the beginnings of mass vaccinations and then it will die down quickly. After a great summer and fall there will be a resurgence in winter with the vaccine seemingly being ineffective for many. Then a second vaccine will finally end it in middle 2022.
Panic is getting thrown into water and flailing about wildly, uncoordinated by reason, while sinking. Not panicking would be treading water while awaiting rescue, or swimming to shore. The amount effort may be the same, but the effects and outcomes differ.
But there will be no tutting and shaking of heads. Humanity has, so far, learned precisely nothing from this. We didn’t learn anything from previous health scares, either. We’ll carry on doing the same old shit until Nature deals out the Big One. Then there will be tutting and shaking of heads, albeit very few, cos most people will be dead.
Does it really matter? It matters to people who lose family members. I guess it matters to people who die. But to humanity at large, does it matter? The US background death rate is about 9 per 1000. Same in the UK. 2.7 million people die as a matter of routine every year in the US, 600,000 in the UK (supposedly, 41,000 were due to COVID-19 this year). Statistically, 80% of those COVID-19 victims were past their dead-by date anyway.
Compare that with WW2 (to which COVID-19 is endlessly compared) in which nearly everyone lost a relative, friend, or neighbour. Some people lost literally everything. And yet the watchword was “keep calm and carry on”. And people did.
It’s not the same as a war. In a war you have no choice but to fight to the death, with a pandemic you have a choice to control it or not. Also people in WWII sent their kids into the countryside and also had to deal with restrictions at night etc.
With coronavirus people are keeping calm and carrying on that’s all they can do. If the government is changing their recommendations constantly that’s not the people’s fault.
With the pandemic you have different choices, expand health services or have varying scales of social distancing and quarantine. Many countries don’t have the health service capacity so they are forced into more drastic measures than they wish to pursue. The coronavirus would mean you can’t provide any health services to others as so many health workers or hospitals are infected and occupied . There’s a choice there but it’s nothing to do with panic.