NY Magazine (and the world): The covid lock downs were an unmitigated disaster
"Too many people were simply unable to judge risk rationally — a problem due in part to unwillingness of government officials to talk honestly about COVID-19"
I remember the first bits of covid news coming out of China before Christmas 2019. As now, I wrote about daily news developments (at that time for AC2 News) and stories of an emergent virus went from a few tweets to big time news. Soon there were videos of Chinese emergency services spraying empty streets with disinfectant (or something), bodies stacking up in morgues, and tales of sick people being forcibly sealed off from the world. In some cases having their apartment doors welded shut by authorities.
Soon the virus hopped across the South China sea. Soon after that it hopped oceans. I remember that Newt Gingrich was stranded in Italy as that country freaked out.
Everyone thought that this was the beginning of an outbreak movie. But the thing was, even in March of 2020 the data were showing that young people were probably going to be fine and that the most at risk were the sick and the elderly. If you smoked, were obese, lacked vitamin D (sadly many people in nursing homes who were rarely exposed to the sun), and you were old, you were at significant risk. But for most people, even those who were not terribly healthy under the age of 60, the risk of death was a fraction of a percentage point. And a small fraction at that.
So, as the virus made its way to North America I asked, “why don’t we just quarantine those at risk, and let the rest of the population gain a herd immunity?”
Oh my. Some people did not want to hear that. How could I suggest such a thing? Had I no empathy? No, this was something we all had to go in on. We all had to wear our masks. We all had to get on board collectively.
“Why?” I asked. “Protect the people who are at risk, but life can go on. Why would we abandon our freedoms and liberties for a virus that for most people was like a bad flu?”
Well, obviously my opinion did not win out. The whole world (almost) went into lock down. What hitherto had been unimaginable in the United States gave way to a compromised government leadership that stoked fear instead of leveling with the public.
Fauci should have said, “Look if you’re fat, unhealthy, old, smoke, etc., you’re likely to have a very hard time in coming months. Stay indoors. Get someone else to do your shopping.”
But no. He sold apocalypse to a largely ignorant and scared public. (And this absolutely includes many policy makers.)
The lock downs, as explained in the attached article, and presumably in the author’s new book, were a cataclysmic disaster for society in general, for the economy (small and mid-sized businesses particularly), for children (the teachers unions have a lot to account for here), for Western liberal democracy, and on. Governments at practically all levels instituted draconian policies, often in violation of the law, out of a mix of ignorance, greed (many people made a lot of money during the pandemic), and just a petty desire to regulate more of our lives.
This last bit is not appreciated enough.
For some people covid was the “revolution” they’d long been waiting for. It is harsh to say so, but for some people covid represented an opportunity to move society toward an even more centralized structure. There was talk of “the great reset” and other craziness. The Modern Monetary Theory people encouraged the flooding of the economy with new money - which soon thereafter created a horrible inflation with which we are still dealing. That the Floyd riots happened in the midst of the pandemic makes sense.
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