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I don't think the grief of losing someone to the virus is any greater or less than losing someone to an overdose or suicide. A death is a death and always tragi

I don't think the grief of losing someone to the virus is any greater or less than losing someone to an overdose or suicide. A death is a death and always tragic. I'm sure the mother grieving her sons suicide is just as sad as the person grieving the death of an elderly parent. (Of course in reality people care less about addiction deaths because many still mistakenly see it as a moral failing rather than a disease). The focus needs to be on controlling the disease while also limiting the collateral damage as much as possible. Don't forget: most of us are likely to get this disease at some point anyway, even with a vaccine it will mutate. The important point has always been to slow the spread. Preventing it completely is near impossible without very extreme measures.

jacobolus 6y ago
> most of us are likely to get this disease at some point anyway If you live someplace like South Dakota with grossly irresponsible leaders at every level of government, this is probably true. If you live somewhere with decisive and responsible leadership like South Korea, New Zealand, Finland (among many successful countries around the world, rich and poor), or Vermont, then probably not. Notice that multiple effective vaccines are here. We just need to hold out through this winter, so that production can spin up enough to start getting a substantial proportion of the population vaccinated.
- overgard 6y ago
  The flu also has a vaccine and yet we have never managed to eradicate it, and this is even more contagious.
  - jacobolus 6y ago
    It will be quite hard to “eradicate” Covid around the world, but with luck vaccines will provide lasting immunity, enough to end the pandemic, return life to more or less normal, and prevent tens of millions of deaths. Empirically, SARS-CoV-2 mutates much more slowly than influenza viruses, and if a new strain eventually pops up that the vaccine and people’s antibodies do not work on, the current vaccines should be faster to modify than to recreate from scratch.

jacobolus 6y ago

> most of us are likely to get this disease at some point anyway If you live someplace like South Dakota with grossly irresponsible leaders at every level of government, this is probably true. If you live somewhere with decisive and responsible leadership like South Korea, New Zealand, Finland (among many successful countries around the world, rich and poor), or Vermont, then probably not. Notice that multiple effective vaccines are here. We just need to hold out through this winter, so that production can spin up enough to start getting a substantial proportion of the population vaccinated.

overgard 6y ago
The flu also has a vaccine and yet we have never managed to eradicate it, and this is even more contagious.
- jacobolus 6y ago
  It will be quite hard to “eradicate” Covid around the world, but with luck vaccines will provide lasting immunity, enough to end the pandemic, return life to more or less normal, and prevent tens of millions of deaths. Empirically, SARS-CoV-2 mutates much more slowly than influenza viruses, and if a new strain eventually pops up that the vaccine and people’s antibodies do not work on, the current vaccines should be faster to modify than to recreate from scratch.