First of all, I don't get my news from those places. It has taken over a decade, but after flipping the bozo bit on dozens of news media firms, I feel I am a bi

First of all, I don't get my news from those places. It has taken over a decade, but after flipping the bozo bit on dozens of news media firms, I feel I am a bit closer to having some idea of what's going on. If all you have is e.g. NBC News, then assuming that all the "wishful thinking" (which at times is over half of the content: "this time we've found a war we can win!") is exactly wrong will get you pretty close. Second, you don't have to read the news to know that people are dying. In vulnerable populations, the increase is impossible to hide, especially since no one has gotten the flu this year. Old physicians and researchers who aren't trying to build their personal brands all agree (and have agreed since February last year) that masks and isolation are the ways to cope with respiratory pandemics. I'm hopeful for the vaccines, but I fear they won't deal well with the mutations that have never been conclusively ruled out. At the very least, vaccines are unlikely to harm people who don't have some sort of weird precondition. Besides which, unlike 99% of USA healthcare, they're free.