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How about the biggest dishonesty - lack of admission that not everyone is at the same risk and that lockdowns have significant irreversible costs for low risk i

How about the biggest dishonesty - lack of admission that not everyone is at the same risk and that lockdowns have significant irreversible costs for low risk individuals and for society? Young children are not getting critical development years back. Healthy 20 somethings only have limited time to date, party and have fun before being saddled with adult responsibilities forever. Most of shattered local businesses are not coming back. While pandemic was not the only reason for BLM and Jan 6 riots, all the young men not being kept busy and receiving stimulus checks to support unproductive activities was certainly a contributing factor - and the fallout permanently damaged trust we have in each other. What of all the deaths of despair - suicides and drug overdoses? Mixed cancer diagnoses because people were scared to go to see doctor? Plummeting birth rates? All of this adds up to the fact that optimum precautions for an obese 70 year old guy is not a same as for a healthy 19 year old woman, and individuals should have a role in deciding what's right for them. While vast majority should take a vaccine, there may be a small group for whom it's a reasonable choice to hold off. Say you are a 19 year old healthy make and your risk from serious vaccine side effects is largest while your risk from COVID-19 is smallest. Plus, you already recovered from COVID during the time Delta variant was common. Are you really bonkers for making a decision either way? Above all, society must not sacrifice its young for those of us who had a chance to live for quite a bit already.

rootusrootus 5y ago
My goodness, what a selfish take. God forbid 20 somethings miss out on some party time. Meanwhile, people who need medical care (many of them not elderly) can't get it because the hospitals are choked with covid patients.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  Gen X and older don't have the moral high ground when it comes to selfishness. You know what's selfish? Selling the nation's economy to boost the stock market and pad your nest egg while collecting social security, then writing article after article ad nauseam about how spoiled Millennials are because they dared to eat an avocado with their breakfast. The lockdowns and mandates are just one more example of generational warfare where the powers that be force the younger generations to sacrifice for the older generations that have already sucked dry every resource they possibly can. I am so sick of Boomers and their ilk destroying the environment, destroying the economy, undermining democracy, defunding education, sending us into a two-decade war without a strategy or exit plan while collecting dividends from war profiteers, enslaving us in Ponzi schemes masquerading as social safety nets, forcing us into unemployment while racking up national debt we will have to pay back, and unconstitutionally placing the entire country under house arrest without charges, counsel, trial, or jury, all while brazenly lying to our faces about masks ("the typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus"), lockdowns ("two weeks to flatten the curve"), the origin of COVID ("Clearly Not a Lab Leak"), conflicts of interest ("NIH never funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan") and so many others it's impossible to keep track. Western liberal democracy was founded on the simple premise that freedom is inherent, not merely a privilege doled out by the government — that we shall die on our feet before living on our knees. The nations of the world seem to have forgotten this these past two years, and forced — sometimes with violence — their own citizens to sacrifice their freedom with no end in sight. Wanting to feel loved is not selfish. Wanting to work is not selfish. Wanting to see your friends, your family, is not selfish. Stealing the right to pursue life — real life, not just the continuation of breathing — that is what's selfish.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    > Gen X and older don't have the moral high ground when it comes to selfishness. I wasn't talking about an entire generation, just what you wrote. I know plenty of younger folks who don't feel like they need to wish death upon boomers (and now Gen X) because they perceive that those earlier generations have somehow deliberately screwed them. And if you aren't watching carefully, please note that millenials are quickly moving into the same every day choices that people before them made. This isn't a generational thing, there is no conspiracy.
- concordDance 5y ago
  Honestly, that "party time" should not be trivialized. A year of lost mating opportunities is a really big deal to a mammal.
whimsicalism 5y ago
> lockdowns have significant irreversible costs for low risk individuals and for society Sure, but let's keep in mind what they can do when they are effective. China averted the deaths of 2.5-3 million people with an effective lockdown program. That's incredible. I'm not confident I can really think of any policy proposition that would save more lives off of the top of my head. The fact that we failed to do the same will go down as a tragedy of massive magnitude. e: The jingoism here can be a bit too much. Any praise of any Chinese policy gets downvotes, even if one recognizes them as a despotic, racist regime. It's nativistic ignorance, plain and simple.
- sjwalter 5y ago
  The goal of a meaningfully-lead life is not to lengthen it as much as possible. The goal of the government is not to minimize the number of deaths at any cost.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    > The goal of the government is not to minimize the number of deaths at any cost. Maybe not at any cost, but yeah I think there should be a pretty strong presumption towards improving people's welfare and not killing them.
    - sjwalter 5y ago
      There's a difference between "not killing them" and "protecting them". Especially during this pandemic when so much low-hanging fruit has been intentionally left on the table--for instance, if "protecting people" was ever a goal, why has there been literally zero focus on vitamin D deficiency in the general population? This is simple, cheap, efficient, and a potent inhibitor of sars-cov-2, and yet the ruling class has seen to it that it has never been publicly pushed at all. All of the ruling class's ideas happen to align with profit for pharmaceutical companies and greatly increased social control. Is that a coincidence?
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
spookthesunset 5y ago
The fact that to this day people still trot out “4% kill rate” and make their kids wear a mask for a disease a kid isn’t even remotely at risk for… my trust in public health is below zero. Not once have these people done anything to calm people or tell them good news. Not a single time. It is disgusting how horribly these public health “experts” treat us.
- detaro 5y ago
  > people still trot out “4% kill rate” Which health authority or public health expert is claiming that today and hasn't shared updates with better data (=good news)? Yes, some people still bring that, but that's not because evil experts hide the true data from them.
  - Covzire 5y ago
    I think you discount the idea of "evil experts" too quickly. The day Joe Biden took over the presidency, CNN stopped listing death counts for COVID. The deaths increased in 2021 precipitously, had it been Trump you know they would have probably used bigger fonts, colors etc to drive the narrative. There are evil people and some of them are in control of various parts of the narrative and they use that control for their own ends.
    - concordDance 5y ago
      The problem here is treating partisan news sites as experts.
  - spookthesunset 5y ago
    The “experts” don’t say “4%” but they also don’t even bother to give an actual IFR. Why haven’t they? We’ve known it for quite some time.
    - detaro 5y ago
      Media reports about updated risk estimates are easy to find? I guess it's not so much one catchy number anymore and instead goes in more detail regarding age/risk groups, but that's a good thing given how vague an average number is over such a large span? And I'd argue easier to understand what it means than the average number. I guess you can always argue "but it's not properly explained and people don't understand it!!!", but so much information people keep claiming is hidden is just there and repeated in news reports once you read past the headlines. And at some point people need to deal with the fact that data is messy and not all numbers agree or mean the same thing and that that has reasons. I feel that goes back to the title of the submission here.
aemreunal 5y ago
> Young children are not getting critical development years back. This sentence alone is true, but it misses the fact that a) young children suffer from this disease too, b) these young children live with older people that are at more at risk, hence they can bring something back from their schools that may cost the lives of their parents (I don't think losing your parents when you're a kid is great for your development), and c) there's always the risk of more deadly variants emerging due to more transmission. > [...] individuals should have a role in deciding what's right for them. For matters that only concern them, yes. For matters of public health, where you can transmit something to others without their consent and potentially cause their death or long-term disability, no, you don't have that luxury. None of us do. Same reason why a single nation can't/shouldn't just pollute all the seas and cause tons of greenhouse gas emissions and kill the world for everyone. We may not like it but we [have to] live together and being in a society means looking out for each other. You are free to not wear a mask or party by yourself, in your house, away from society.
- dd_roger 5y ago
  >You are free to not wear a mask or party by yourself, in your house, away from society. Or you could frame it the other way. Instead of suppressing everyone's freedom, people who are too scared to resume a normal life could watch us live a free life through their window, from the security of their home. I'm not aware of any country that had a democratic consultation to ask the people which way they wanted it.

rootusrootus 5y ago

My goodness, what a selfish take. God forbid 20 somethings miss out on some party time. Meanwhile, people who need medical care (many of them not elderly) can't get it because the hospitals are choked with covid patients.

torstenvl 5y ago
Gen X and older don't have the moral high ground when it comes to selfishness. You know what's selfish? Selling the nation's economy to boost the stock market and pad your nest egg while collecting social security, then writing article after article ad nauseam about how spoiled Millennials are because they dared to eat an avocado with their breakfast. The lockdowns and mandates are just one more example of generational warfare where the powers that be force the younger generations to sacrifice for the older generations that have already sucked dry every resource they possibly can. I am so sick of Boomers and their ilk destroying the environment, destroying the economy, undermining democracy, defunding education, sending us into a two-decade war without a strategy or exit plan while collecting dividends from war profiteers, enslaving us in Ponzi schemes masquerading as social safety nets, forcing us into unemployment while racking up national debt we will have to pay back, and unconstitutionally placing the entire country under house arrest without charges, counsel, trial, or jury, all while brazenly lying to our faces about masks ("the typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus"), lockdowns ("two weeks to flatten the curve"), the origin of COVID ("Clearly Not a Lab Leak"), conflicts of interest ("NIH never funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan") and so many others it's impossible to keep track. Western liberal democracy was founded on the simple premise that freedom is inherent, not merely a privilege doled out by the government — that we shall die on our feet before living on our knees. The nations of the world seem to have forgotten this these past two years, and forced — sometimes with violence — their own citizens to sacrifice their freedom with no end in sight. Wanting to feel loved is not selfish. Wanting to work is not selfish. Wanting to see your friends, your family, is not selfish. Stealing the right to pursue life — real life, not just the continuation of breathing — that is what's selfish.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  > Gen X and older don't have the moral high ground when it comes to selfishness. I wasn't talking about an entire generation, just what you wrote. I know plenty of younger folks who don't feel like they need to wish death upon boomers (and now Gen X) because they perceive that those earlier generations have somehow deliberately screwed them. And if you aren't watching carefully, please note that millenials are quickly moving into the same every day choices that people before them made. This isn't a generational thing, there is no conspiracy.
concordDance 5y ago
Honestly, that "party time" should not be trivialized. A year of lost mating opportunities is a really big deal to a mammal.

whimsicalism 5y ago

> lockdowns have significant irreversible costs for low risk individuals and for society Sure, but let's keep in mind what they can do when they are effective. China averted the deaths of 2.5-3 million people with an effective lockdown program. That's incredible. I'm not confident I can really think of any policy proposition that would save more lives off of the top of my head. The fact that we failed to do the same will go down as a tragedy of massive magnitude. e: The jingoism here can be a bit too much. Any praise of any Chinese policy gets downvotes, even if one recognizes them as a despotic, racist regime. It's nativistic ignorance, plain and simple.

sjwalter 5y ago
The goal of a meaningfully-lead life is not to lengthen it as much as possible. The goal of the government is not to minimize the number of deaths at any cost.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > The goal of the government is not to minimize the number of deaths at any cost. Maybe not at any cost, but yeah I think there should be a pretty strong presumption towards improving people's welfare and not killing them.
  - sjwalter 5y ago
    There's a difference between "not killing them" and "protecting them". Especially during this pandemic when so much low-hanging fruit has been intentionally left on the table--for instance, if "protecting people" was ever a goal, why has there been literally zero focus on vitamin D deficiency in the general population? This is simple, cheap, efficient, and a potent inhibitor of sars-cov-2, and yet the ruling class has seen to it that it has never been publicly pushed at all. All of the ruling class's ideas happen to align with profit for pharmaceutical companies and greatly increased social control. Is that a coincidence?
    - whimsicalism 5y ago

spookthesunset 5y ago

The fact that to this day people still trot out “4% kill rate” and make their kids wear a mask for a disease a kid isn’t even remotely at risk for… my trust in public health is below zero. Not once have these people done anything to calm people or tell them good news. Not a single time. It is disgusting how horribly these public health “experts” treat us.

detaro 5y ago
> people still trot out “4% kill rate” Which health authority or public health expert is claiming that today and hasn't shared updates with better data (=good news)? Yes, some people still bring that, but that's not because evil experts hide the true data from them.
- Covzire 5y ago
  I think you discount the idea of "evil experts" too quickly. The day Joe Biden took over the presidency, CNN stopped listing death counts for COVID. The deaths increased in 2021 precipitously, had it been Trump you know they would have probably used bigger fonts, colors etc to drive the narrative. There are evil people and some of them are in control of various parts of the narrative and they use that control for their own ends.
  - concordDance 5y ago
    The problem here is treating partisan news sites as experts.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  The “experts” don’t say “4%” but they also don’t even bother to give an actual IFR. Why haven’t they? We’ve known it for quite some time.
  - detaro 5y ago
    Media reports about updated risk estimates are easy to find? I guess it's not so much one catchy number anymore and instead goes in more detail regarding age/risk groups, but that's a good thing given how vague an average number is over such a large span? And I'd argue easier to understand what it means than the average number. I guess you can always argue "but it's not properly explained and people don't understand it!!!", but so much information people keep claiming is hidden is just there and repeated in news reports once you read past the headlines. And at some point people need to deal with the fact that data is messy and not all numbers agree or mean the same thing and that that has reasons. I feel that goes back to the title of the submission here.

aemreunal 5y ago

> Young children are not getting critical development years back. This sentence alone is true, but it misses the fact that a) young children suffer from this disease too, b) these young children live with older people that are at more at risk, hence they can bring something back from their schools that may cost the lives of their parents (I don't think losing your parents when you're a kid is great for your development), and c) there's always the risk of more deadly variants emerging due to more transmission. > [...] individuals should have a role in deciding what's right for them. For matters that only concern them, yes. For matters of public health, where you can transmit something to others without their consent and potentially cause their death or long-term disability, no, you don't have that luxury. None of us do. Same reason why a single nation can't/shouldn't just pollute all the seas and cause tons of greenhouse gas emissions and kill the world for everyone. We may not like it but we [have to] live together and being in a society means looking out for each other. You are free to not wear a mask or party by yourself, in your house, away from society.

dd_roger 5y ago
>You are free to not wear a mask or party by yourself, in your house, away from society. Or you could frame it the other way. Instead of suppressing everyone's freedom, people who are too scared to resume a normal life could watch us live a free life through their window, from the security of their home. I'm not aware of any country that had a democratic consultation to ask the people which way they wanted it.