Posted by bbonb on November 1, 2023, 14:08:32, in reply to "100% agree with this"
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Of course we could have changed course sooner, but everything’s always easier in hindsight. But people (yes, very heavily only old people and those with conditions), but people nonetheless, were still dying from it regularly. It’s hard to turn that public policy ship while that’s still happening, while you’re still trying to reach vaccination goals that are lagging, while still fighting a PR battle, etc.
As always, similar to other geopolitical things happening currently, the world is complicated. Public policy is complicated. Things aren’t black and white in real time. There don’t have to be winners and losers and donuts on this shit. It’s something you look back on in 10 years and just go remember that crazy time? That was fucked up. The last novel virus pandemic like that was 1918 or whatever? No one knew how to deal with it. Everyone was flying by the seat of their pants.
I think there were lessons learned and if the next one happens less than 100 years from now where people who experienced this one are still alive for that one, people will have a better idea of how to react.
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...of course when things were unknown, humankind needed to protect itself. Of course.
Of course once it was figured out who was and wasn't affected, we needed to push back to normal as quickly as possible. Of course.
The long term effects will be ongoing for years. We will never turn back a fair number of young people who lost formative social years. We will never turn back housing prices. We will never turn back auto prices.