3 ms·

Attributing the rise and fall of it to "christmas", "super bowl", "sturgous rally" or "beachgoers" is a fools errand. It's a monument to the arrogance of humank

Attributing the rise and fall of it to "christmas", "super bowl", "sturgous rally" or "beachgoers" is a fools errand. It's a monument to the arrogance of humankind. I think future civilizations are going to study this period and laugh at how foolish and naive we are thinking we have any kind of real control over this virus. The idea that outside pharmaceutical interventions mankind can somehow control a respiratory virus will be mocked by future generations the same way we mock past civilizations that sacrificed goats to appease the rain gods. The truth is the virus is gonna do what virus do: Virus. It's just part of mother nature and we don't really have any say over its behavior. Outside vaccines and treatments we can control it just about as much we can control earthquakes, tornadoes or volcanos.

bspammer 6y ago
New Zealand has had the virus under control without pharmaceutical help for 9 months now. Many East Asian countries are doing totally fine, with extremely low case numbers and local quarantines for outbreaks. The difference is pure culture: individualism vs collectivism. In China, not wearing a mask in public makes you a pariah. There’s no such social pressure here in the west.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Not only was there no social pressure to do the right thing in the West, but there was widespread politically-charged COVID denial and downplaying, and hand-wringing about the "costs" of taking even modest steps to reduce transmission. We never really had a chance, with the amount of people actively flaunting public health guidance, downplaying the disease (just the flu, bro) and trying to sabotage efforts to contain it. Once the disease got politicized, it was game over. One side took it seriously, therefore the other side had to not take it seriously, because heaven forbid you agree with your political opponent about something.

bspammer 6y ago

New Zealand has had the virus under control without pharmaceutical help for 9 months now. Many East Asian countries are doing totally fine, with extremely low case numbers and local quarantines for outbreaks. The difference is pure culture: individualism vs collectivism. In China, not wearing a mask in public makes you a pariah. There’s no such social pressure here in the west.

ryandrake 6y ago
Not only was there no social pressure to do the right thing in the West, but there was widespread politically-charged COVID denial and downplaying, and hand-wringing about the "costs" of taking even modest steps to reduce transmission. We never really had a chance, with the amount of people actively flaunting public health guidance, downplaying the disease (just the flu, bro) and trying to sabotage efforts to contain it. Once the disease got politicized, it was game over. One side took it seriously, therefore the other side had to not take it seriously, because heaven forbid you agree with your political opponent about something.