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The standard for something "working" is very much up for debate though, even if it is carefully avoided. "Slowing the spread" is not a good enough argument in

by oliv__ 5y ago

The standard for something "working" is very much up for debate though, even if it is carefully avoided. "Slowing the spread" is not a good enough argument in my opinion. Everyone wants to slow the spread, the only question worth asking is: at what cost? At what point do you deem something effective and worthy of sacrificing your freedoms for? 1% efficacy "slows the spread". Is that worth it? Where do you draw the line? 20%? 50%? Life is risky, everything is a gamble, yet somehow with COVID, all nuance has disappeared, life is not worth living until we can be 100% sure that there is no risk at all.

spookthesunset 5y ago
The cost is something absolutely nobody wants to discuss but it is vital to do so. Yeah “slowing the spread” is important in a vacuum where we live with no friction and spherical cows but here in the real worth that one goal competes with literally everything else. Asking society to myopically focus on nothing but “slowing the spread” of one very specific illness for years on end is, quite frankly, madness. There is vastly more to life than just living it to slow the spread of exactly one disease. At some point in the near future, perhaps right today, people need to acknowledge that Covid and all its variants past present and future will be around forever. They can either learn to return to full normal 2019 life or piss an entire generation of people away on a battle that cannot ever be won.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Well said. Any of the measures we have only delay the inevitable. They may have worked at the start to eradicate it but they didn't. Now it's pretty much guaranteed we will all get covid, and probably multiple times. Any of the tools we have now will not prevent that, just delay it. I'm not recommending dropping them altogether but we'll need to find a balance. To go from crisis mode into discussing long-term strategy.
gfodor 5y ago
I don’t disagree that is why I used the term risk-adjusted

by oliv__ 5y ago

spookthesunset 5y ago

The cost is something absolutely nobody wants to discuss but it is vital to do so. Yeah “slowing the spread” is important in a vacuum where we live with no friction and spherical cows but here in the real worth that one goal competes with literally everything else. Asking society to myopically focus on nothing but “slowing the spread” of one very specific illness for years on end is, quite frankly, madness. There is vastly more to life than just living it to slow the spread of exactly one disease. At some point in the near future, perhaps right today, people need to acknowledge that Covid and all its variants past present and future will be around forever. They can either learn to return to full normal 2019 life or piss an entire generation of people away on a battle that cannot ever be won.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
Well said. Any of the measures we have only delay the inevitable. They may have worked at the start to eradicate it but they didn't. Now it's pretty much guaranteed we will all get covid, and probably multiple times. Any of the tools we have now will not prevent that, just delay it. I'm not recommending dropping them altogether but we'll need to find a balance. To go from crisis mode into discussing long-term strategy.

gfodor 5y ago

I don’t disagree that is why I used the term risk-adjusted