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Notes -
Biden: Pandemic is over
Of course, for all important purposes, pandemic has been over in most of the Western world for most of this year - ie. sure, there's a disease going around, but the "pandemic mentality" is gone, and so have at least the most visible and onerous restrictions - but this sort of a declaration, offhand and qualified as it is, seems like a point in the general development.
It's already evident in social media that COVID doomers - the ones who would still want to mask up, keep up restrictions etc. - are angry and frustrated, as they've been for months, but I also wonder how the sort of "reverse doomers" who declared a year ago that Western world is never going to declare the pandemic over and give up restrictions, either out of stupidity or out of a malignant conspiracy, are interpreting it.
I'm something of a "reverse doomer", in the sense that I was pleasantly surprised when my country dropped the vaccine passport and all masking requirements. For much of 2020-2021 I thought the West was speeding at a breakneck pace down a slippery slope into a China-style social credit system, and was relieved to see my country pull back from the brink.
I still argue with pro-lockdowners a lot about the efficacy of lockdowns as a virus suppression method (arguments which tend to get very heated very quickly). At some point in the argument they usually come out with some variation on the following: "What are you still mad about? You got what you wanted, the lockdown's over."
No I did not get what I wanted. The lockdown may be over, but the general consensus in my social circle (and, from what I can tell, among thought-leaders and policymakers) is that lockdowns were a necessary evil without which Covid deaths would have been at least an order of magnitude higher. It will not surprise you to learn that I disagree with this belief absolutely. People have learned the wrong lesson from lockdowns, and they've stubbornly ignored the growing mountain of evidence coming from e.g. Sweden, Florida etc. indicating that it was always entirely possible to manage the pandemic without shutting down the country and destroying one's economy in the process.
Yes, the Covid lockdowns in my country are over and are exceptionally unlikely to be reinstated for this pathogen or any variant thereof.
What I'm worried about is in five years' time when the next pathogen arrives, and everyone thinks "well, lockdowns worked last time, guess we've got to do them again."
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