> I agree that there's going to be an ambient level of anxiety from knowing that there's a nasty disease out there, but are you really saying that not being abl

> I agree that there's going to be an ambient level of anxiety from knowing that there's a nasty disease out there, but are you really saying that not being able to see your friends and family, or losing your job, or having to scramble to work from home while managing your children's remote "learning" has no additional impact? Of course it has an impact. If we didn't have social restrictions and consequently had much higher rates of infection, death, and long term disability, that also would have an impact. There's no world where, given a global pandemic, there are no severe impacts. Most arguments against social restriction that I've seen don't acknowledge this though. I mean, the other reply to my comment said "why not put some of the blame on the millions of people who died from this thing, who probably could have lived through it had they lived healthier lives", to which I can only reply "what?" For at least the most vocal opponents of social restrictions, they seem to have a radically different understanding of how respiratory infections work than I do. >Lockdowns aren't binary. We're allowed to consider the costs and benefits of individual measures Absolutely. It's not the people who are able to do nuance I'm taking issue with here. > it is not at all clear that stronger measures lead to better Covid outcomes. Well, I think the evidence is pretty clear that taking either none or very few measures has led to worse outcomes. Among places that have taken measures, I agree it gets hazier as you then have to go from the general "lockdown or freedom" argument into "which specific measures work best." The latter discussion is where we should be; the former one is, to my mind, based on an unrealistic set of assumptions.