It’s not just leaders, but constituents as well who propped up the overly heavy-handed/authoritarian response to COVID. Even pointing out just the flaws inheren

It’s not just leaders, but constituents as well who propped up the overly heavy-handed/authoritarian response to COVID. Even pointing out just the flaws inherent to relying on skewed CFRs from limited testing would result in friends/colleagues viciously attacking me for not being “compassionate” or speaking out of turn for not being a public health expert. Some of this behavior I observed may have been due to our proximity to Kirkland (the early nursing home breakout), but there was an element of mob mentality, a perfect storm of ignorance + fear + reliance on authority, that I was shocked and dismayed to experience. After a short while, I just stopped discussing COVID with anyone because of the utter inability of people to calmly discuss complex issues and engage in a joint truth seeking mission. Unfortunately even with all we know now, I don’t think people have revisited how COVID should be managed or how the risks should be perceived, in part due to politicization of the issue and in part due to anchoring bias. Our leaders are supposed to lead the masses through such events without such flaws, but for all the claims from leaders about “listening to science” and “looking at data”, they’ve simply failed us as you pointed out.