Sunnypad wrote:
The worst thing for them, by a mile, has been lockdown. I'm sorry to say they are very much in the position I am in - increasingly isolated as they do not support the restrictions. Increasingly worried about their children and what kind of society they will live in.
I'm horrified every time I hop on this board. People are becoming more and more obsessed with "fighting the virus".
I completely agree.
A large part of the population (not just on this board) seem to have completely lost all sense of perspective.
People's fears and hysterias in relation to covid seem to have lost all perspective in relation to the real risks we were taking every day, all the time pre- sars-cov-2
There do however seem to be two distinct camps...
1. Hysterical zombies, who have no idea about the science at all, and are just falling for the media generated hysteria... like a woman interviewed on the street by the local news earlier where I am (reet oop north england), who said she thought it was too soon to relax, because she too, thought we still needed to be all out fighting the virus ... though it was abundantly clear she had no idea of the science or the data, and her position was entirely emotional. But opinion pieces in the media (TV, papers, etc) have recognised that people are lapping up the fear mongering, etc, and so are going even more hysterical. And it seems to have reached a self sustaining escape velocity for a while now, where opinion pieces are stoking fears, which gets readers hooked, which then makes the opinion piece writers give the readers more of what they want.
2. Armchair, amateur scientists who are completely focussed on the numbers and nothing but the numbers. These reductionists feel it's an academic game against the virus, and have lost sight of balance... they rarely (I'm being generous; I mean never) put the numbers dispassionately in context with related numbers from how we were quite happily, as a society, living with risk and death pre-covid. This is why I call them reductionists, because, as you say they are obsessed with fighting the virus - and that is all they consider. Worse still, these people seem to pigeon hole anyone who doesn't share their OCD reductionist stance as being Trump-esque covid deniers, anti-vaxxers, etc. As has just been illustrated on another thread on this board where someone simply provided an observation of the current situation re. covd deaths in vaccinated vs unvaccinated individuals, without comment or judgement, and needless to say, at least two of the responses appear to be making assumptions that the poster is either claiming vaccines don't work, or things along those lines.
I'm also horrified at the flawed conclusions being drawn, even by some seemingly otherwise intelligent contributors. I hope any covid inquiry doesn't fall into such flawed reasoning.
Things like claiming (legally mandated) lockdowns 'work' - with the implication the legal mandate is necessary, and has allegedly been proven. Which is utter nonsense. The virus doesn't know about legalities, what matters is chains of infection. And it does a huge disservice to the average human to presume that without legal mandate that they would continue to behave totally as normal, not even adapting their behaviour in response to rising deaths and such like.
Ironically, the very hysteria that we are seeing at the minute with so many still wanting to legally mandate face nappies, in itself shows how the population is adapting their behaviour. The very fact that there are so many hysterical people demanding mandatory face nappies, shows that if anything, the general public would be quite likely to over-react if they were given responsibility without legal compulsion.
Right now, I'm up in the lake district. Normally I avoid it at this time of year, expecting it to be absolutely crammed with people. And more so this year with everyone having been locked down the past 12 months, foreign holidays a bit risky, etc, I expected loads of people up here.
I've been amazed at how quiet it is... at least relative to what I expected. We went for a walk today in one of the central areas that we would normally expect to be busy, and only saw around 5 or 6 other people on the path we took.
I get the feeling that the media generated hysteria, focussing on the risk of virus spread related to the football match and such like ... which is only affecting probably a small % of the population ... is having the effect of moderating the behaviour of the substantial majority of the population, with a lot of people still not willing to risk doing things - even like going for walks outside (even when the virus is known not to particularly transmit outside) - all demonstrating that the bulk of the effects in managing the virus are coming from people's own individual decisions, and not the legally mandated aspects.
The whole pandemic seems to have induced a psychosis in the population whereby everyone believes that everyone else is an irresponsible jerk who would act like an unflinching, brain dead zombie who would never, ever moderate their (wild, irresponsible) behaviour, were their actions not constrained by law.
Rather akin to how the majority of drivers think they are better than average, it seems that the majority of people think that they themselves are better than average when it comes to social responsibility, it's just that everyone else needs the mandates. And this is where the (flawed) belief that legally mandated lockdowns were necessary, is arising from.
Take a look at Sweden....
"Sweden
Unlike most countries, Sweden has relied mainly on voluntary measures to stem the spread of infections, ......
Since the spring, cases have continued to fall steeply...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-57796133"
But as always, those lockdown fanatics will just dismiss it, and it won't take long for someone to conflate them with Trump and Bolsonario, and round the loop we go again...
