It’s not anti-social, it is pro-social. To stand for the right of people to live freely, for children to get an education and to socialize with their peers, for businesses to serve their communities and provide jobs for people to feed their families.
You are the anti-social one, who would condemn entire populations to house arrest based upon dubious-at-best ideas. In my city, even outdoor gatherings of more than five people were prohibited. It was so absurd as to be almost comical, if the consequences weren’t so tragic.
Are you truly blind to the damage wrought by shutting down the entire world at the flip of a switch? Children are in crisis, inflation skyrocketed, people cannot afford to live, buy homes, start a family, get an education… and you have the nerve to call me anti-social?
And what did it accomplish? Did it actually save lives? I think not, especially when compared to targeted protection and support of vulnerable populations (elderly, immune compromised) rather than a blanket shutdown of the entire country.
Once this issue became a red vs blue thing, everyone collectively turned their brains off. The above commenter is a prime example.
Basic logic here: the things you’re defending only work when the people who make them possible aren’t getting knocked out by uncontrolled spread.
Kids don’t get an education if teachers and staff are sick. Businesses don’t serve communities if workers are out in waves. Families don’t stay afloat if workplaces shut down because too many people are ill.
You can absolutely critique the execution and the results. Plenty of it was messy. But pretending that doing nothing was somehow pro social ignores the obvious: collective safety is what keeps all those freedoms functioning in the first place.
Early on , it was clear the rate of covid complications did not merit the lockdowns. I was an early supporter of lockdowns and an even earlier supporter of ending them. It was a cold... Can we say that now? A relatively moderate flu like cold for the vast majority of people. It did not merit shutting down or slowing global trade
Early on, there wasn't any lockdown, so instead we could see whole villages and regions being in emergency state, with the military handling the logistics of moving coffins around, because there were so many. The lockdowns after 2 years were avoidable, but the first one absolutely wasn't. I'm quite content with my governments actions in the beginning and I'm not alone, the governmental approval during the first lockdown absolutely skyrocketed (>10%).
When did I say that doing nothing was the correct course of action? Oh wait - I didn’t! But it sure makes a convenient straw man for you to argue against since you are incapable of addressing my actual position, which I contrasted hamfisted lockdowns against: the targeted protection of vulnerable groups such as the elderly or immune compromised people, rather than the blanket shutdown of the entire country.
> Kids don’t get an education if teachers and staff are sick. Businesses don’t serve communities if workers are out in waves. Families don’t stay afloat if workplaces shut down because too many people are ill.
Do you not realize that the virus is still out there in the world? And that we’re not locking down? And hardly anyone is wearing a mask, social distancing, or getting vaccine boosters?
And yet, somehow, we don’t have piles of dead bodies being cremated in the streets by FEMA workers in hazmat suits. Curious, isn’t it?
It couldn’t be any more obvious that the lockdowns were totally unnecessary and a giant mistake. Just take a look around.
It almost seems like the truly dangerous epidemic is of people forming such strong attachments to emotional dogma and propaganda that they are unable to perform kindergarten-level logical deduction.
Being against lockdowns from day 1 wasn’t some principled pro social stance. Day 1 was when we had no vaccines, no immunity, no treatments, and hospitals were already buckling from basic spread. Opposing mitigation at that moment wasn’t foresight, it was ignoring exponential math.
You can absolutely argue the execution was messy and the fallout was real. Lots of people agree with that. But holding up early blanket opposition as if it was the reasonable position is just rewriting the conditions we were actually in. The only reason things look manageable now is because immunity and treatments exist. Day 1 without them didn’t magically support the world staying fully open.
> Being against lockdowns from day 1 wasn’t some principled pro social stance.
As much as people like you want to position yourselves as objective arbiters of morality, you’re anything but.
> we had no vaccines, no immunity, no treatments
So? Covid is simply not that dangerous for otherwise healthy people.
> hospitals were already buckling from basic spread
That speaks more to how brittle, under-resourced, and plagued by perverse incentives our healthcare system is, than to the threat posed by covid.
> But holding up early blanket opposition as if it was the reasonable position is just rewriting the conditions we were actually in.
You’re saying that opposing the total annihilation of societal norms, behaviors, and patterns is… unreasonable? Do you hear yourself? It’s so painfully obvious that your “thinking” is purely motivated by your desire to be morally and intellectually superior than those you bitterly attack. I can’t fathom how your self awareness is so poor that you can’t see it.
> The only reason things look manageable now is because immunity and treatments exist.
Pure bullshit. The virus was simply never that big of a threat to a healthy person, full stop. You live in a filter bubble-fueled alternate reality where you indulge your most basic and animalistic emotions of fear, anger, and hatred of “others”.
Get a grip! Practically nobody is getting vaccine boosters or any other anti-covid measure. If your fallback is to point to herd immunity, then you’re effectively aligning yourself with the Swedish approach.
Your comment above was sufficient, nothing here added additional meaningful information, it's not worth your time or the parent's to go down this road. It wasn't believed to be a flu in the beginning and I think the excess death stats bear that out. Once the people tracking it think it's equivalent to the flu, rigid policy makes less sense.
I wish people would just accept that public policy need not align with what's right for them personally based own their health own situation. I can simultaneously understand why a public policy of lockdowns on Day 1 makes sense, while at the same time fight for exceptions to the rules due to my personal situation. Everyone I think is aware that the future is personalised medicine, that we're at the very beginning of that awareness, and that the current state of the art in medicine is very crude from that perspective.
Hell, if we had infinite money we should have just sent anyone 60 plus or in ill health to Florida, Texas, SoCal and Mexico for a 6-months/year vacation and mandated that they try to spend most of their time outdoors.
This isn't about the later stuff. My statement was that being against lockdowns is an anti-social viewpoint and that you were rightly attacked for being against them. Nothing you've written challenges that. In a spherical vacuum of a society with no left right blue or China, no Epstein files, a pathogen has been introduced to your society. You don't know anything about it at all. It could be Ebola, it could be a total nothing buger. What do you do in response? Do you stay open and infect your populace, or do you lock down? It's a huge disruption, to everything and everyone. In the face of the unknown, what do you chose to do?
In the face of not knowing something, do we try and be safe, or do we say YOLO and fuck everyone who's role puts them in harms way?
> Nothing you've written challenges that
Apparently your reading comprehension is low
> You don't know anything about it at all. It could be Ebola, it could be a total nothing buger.
Except that’s just not true. You’re just inventing scenarios to scare yourself and others. Covid is a respiratory coronavirus, they are extremely thoroughly studied and well understood. We didn’t “know nothing” about it. That’s just a total fabrication that you invented because you’ve been thoroughly trounced in this debate.
> What do you do in response?
For the last time, TARGETED PROTECTION OF VULNERABLE POPULATIONS.
> Do you stay open and infect your populace, or do you lock down?
False dichotomy, see above paragraph where I once again spoonfeed you basic common sense.
Locking down is the extreme position, and should require an extreme amount of evidence advocating for it.
Don’t bother responding. You’ve made zero interesting points, and rely solely on sensational rhetoric, accusations, false dichotomy, straw men, and ad hominem. There isn’t an ounce of logic or maturity in any of your comments. Thus, I’ve grown bored of walloping you.
But you must admit it was a gamble at the time. My mother got Covid early, before lockdowns. She spent a week in the hospital and almost died. She then had a stroke, she can no longer walk. She also got cancer, and now can barely talk. Please don't tell me it was not deadly dangerous to older folks.
If the bird flu comes, and with it a mortality rate of 50%, and there is a vaccine, everybody will be locked down and forced to take the vaccine. It wont matter what anybody's opinions are about the possible harmful effects of lockdowns or vaccines.
