Quote:
Originally Posted by SailinAway
Let's say your priorities in the pandemic are one or more of the following: - To end the pandemic as soon as possible
- To not die of Covid
- To not lose anyone close to me to Covid
- To be free to do what I want, when I want, where I want
- To not have the government force me to do something I don't want to do
- To not have to wear a mask
- To not have to get vaccinated
- To get businesses fully open as soon as possible
- To not get sick
- To restore the economy
- To not be inconvenienced
- To not make anyone else sick
- To follow the beliefs of my political party and its leader
- To get all the kids back in school
- To not have to work at home anymore
- To not be exposed to unmasked, unvaccinated sick people
- To get the whole country vaccinated
- To not lose my job
- Etc
Here's the problem: You can't have everything on that list at once. So you choose your priorities, realizing that when you choose certain things, other things aren't going to be possible. If freedom is my top priority and I won't budge on that, then I'll be giving up everything on the above list except for freedoms. You can't be 100% free and end the pandemic quickly, restore the economy, get kids back in school, keep your job, not get sick, avoid dying, and not lose anyone close to you to Covid. If protecting everyone and ending the pandemic as quickly as possible is your priority, you will be giving up the freedom to whatever you want, when you want it, without government interference.
We each have to make this choice individually, but the pandemic is not going to end until most of decide we really want it to end. If you make freedom your top priority, you're saying in effect, "Ending the pandemic quickly, restoring the economy, and saving lives are not my top priorities." I would just ask you to imagine how you personally are going to be affected if this pandemic goes on for years because not enough people want to end it. There's no way you will be able to hang onto the life you had before the pandemic, unless you live off the grid and are 100% self-sufficient.
You make trade-offs and sacrifices every day of your life. You obey the speed limit so you don't end up in jail. You pay your property taxes so the town doesn't seize your house. You may feel resentful of those things you're forced to do, but you have the good sense to realize that the payoff for doing them is worth it. You don't let your emotions overrule your intelligence.
It's the same with the pandemic: it's a simple, rational calculation of sacrifices versus benefits. Sure, we all have strong emotions about the pandemic and we all resent it, but it's rational thinking that's going to get us where we ALL want to go: an end to the virus, fully reopening businesses, and no more restrictions on what we can do in public. |
While I genuinely appreciate your efforts here, but I think we just see too many things too differently to come to agreement on this matter.
I feel like your conclusions are wrong and too many of the items you cite are what you have been told, but that they are not actually reality.
From my seat I feel like many others in that the "pandemic" should be reduced to some lower level concern. The term pandemic has been hijacked and is now a political term used for political and other purposes, but no longer applicable given the number of people who have been vaccinated and/or contracted COVID and have immunity, plus we now know so much more about how to treat infected patients that the death rate is greatly improved.
I guess my biggest disagreement is that most of what you cite on your list and reference as being contingent on vaccination and mask wearing, I believe that this is a false premise.
I expect COVID will continue to be a problem for an indefinite period like influenza. Some will continue to be sickened and die and as a whole we will be best served by the more exposure we all get to it and then build natural immunity against it. Now mind you exposure does not mean infection and infection does not mean hospitalization and hospitalization does not mean ICU and being in the ICU does not mean you will die. And in the overwhelming majority of COVID cases, people didnt even know they had it.
As a COVID survivor I was not quite so fortunate as most people, but I must confess to that of all the people I know and the hundreds of people I work with, I only know one person that was hospitalized and he said he really didnt need to be, they just did it as a precaution. And I dont know a single person that has died of COVID.
So for me I see no need to panic, I see no need for kids not to be in school and without masks, I see no need to wear masks in most places ( a few, but not many) I see no need to buy chinese masks, and I see no need to fight about all this.
If you wish to stay glued to the media and worry about it, I feel bad for you, I would say ignore it and live, but thats your choice.
But please dont impose your fears and conditions on me. Protect yourself, I'll do the same where I feel necessary, and if I believe I am at risk of exposing anyone else because I am sick or I know that I came into contact with someone else that was sick, I will quarantine. But what I wont do is live the remaining time I have in fear and take every possible precaution to reduce my exposure to near zero. I dont believe that is how our ecosystem works or our biology works best, and I dont see the impact/benefit ratio value to such actions.
Remember it was the most knowledgeable scientific minds that said the world was flat and it took a naysayer to prove they were wrong, and it was the best scientific minds that said bloodletting was the best cure for whatever medical problem you had and it took naysayers to show simple things like soap and water were better treatments, and it was the best engineering minds that said we could not make it to the moon and it took naysayers to show you that you could sit on top of a Saturn V and survive the trip.
So please consider that all the media and the politicians and the experts of today might say may not be 100% correct. But in the end make the choice you can live with and respect the other persons god given right to do the same and we will all get along fine.
ATB