Ashfordian wrote:It's just a shame that the country collectively lost its mind and rationale over Covid and that we needed scheme like EOTHO, etc
I'll tell you what, IMO, is fundamentally wrong with your argument here. It seems to me to be based on a basic, simple, but unrealistic assumption:
That, in a pandemic, there is one ideal, simply determined, 'sweet spot' or solution that minimizes the total harm.There may be such a 'sweet spot'.
There may not be such a 'sweet spot'.
There may be more than one such 'sweet spot'.
Even if there is such a 'sweet spot' nobody may know how to realistically determine it.
Even if there is such a 'sweet spot' it might not be determinable, even in principle.
Even if there is such a 'sweet spot' it might change over the course of a pandemic.
There is much to criticise in our government's response to the pandemic. However, any government would have been faced with a situation where it would have been impossible to hit the exact spot that minimised overall deaths and long term harm, other than by blind chance. (And, if they had, we wouldn't even know it.)
Welcome to the world of pandemics.