'novel' is a perfectly cromulent term for covid-19. what's not cromulent is the unreasonable and extraneous reaction to a 'new' cold virus. every new virus will have outsized effect until we settle into steady-state (which depends on the dynamics of the virus).
what leadership needed to do was identify the dynamic threat--mainly to the elderly & immune deficient--and mitigate for them, not run around screaming like discombobulated chickens promoting throw-everything-against-the-wall safetyism. we could have had highly targeted mitigations and minimal disruption to our lives; instead, we got incessant debates over useless masking, lockdowns, and vaccine mandates.
even including the elderly and immune deficient, over 99% of people get covid and recover just fine. this isn't the black plague by any stretch of the imagination.
> every new virus will have outsized effect until we settle into steady-state
No, this one killed more people than anything in US history, more than wars, prior pan-/epidemics, etc. In my lifetime, no 'new virus' has had any sort of similar effect at all, by orders of magnitude.
the flu kills ~36K/year, so if you're ~22+ year old american, then the influenza virus has killed more people in your lifetime than covid.
we don't know yet what steady-state looks like, but note that medical/epidemiological organizations don't generally keep death statistics on colds (caused by rhinoviruses, coronaviruses, etc.) because they're not a significant number. colds can be a contributing factor in death for folks with deficient immune systems, just as it is with covid, but is generally not the sole cause.
again, >99% survive covid just fine. for people with multiple co-morbidities, it's much more serious (whole percentage death rates), but that's because they're teetering on the brink already, and covid (or any number of respiratory diseases, really) can push them over the edge. our mitigations should focus on the aged and unhealthy, not everyone (especially not children).
That's not a good survival rate, though the number sounds big.
> it's much more serious (whole percentage death rates), but that's because they're teetering on the brink already, and covid (or any number of respiratory diseases, really) can push them over the edge. our mitigations should focus on the aged and unhealthy, not everyone (especially not children).
The people at risk are not nearly all "teetering on the brink", nor have they died at this astounding rate from other causes. We could save their lives.
People are dying; and we can save them, and we could have saved many more. Blood is on the hands of the those who stood in the way.
99+% is a big number no matter how you try to slice it. people on the brink should assess and mitigate their own risk, with reliable, honest information and help where needed, not paternalistic overreach. people are dying, full stop, every single day, day in and day out. why weren't you so concerned about the millions who have been dying all along? why weren't you sounding the alarm like this about the flu that has killed more people in your lifetime than covid (which likely always will be the case)? let go of the mediopolitical propaganda and move on.
what leadership needed to do was identify the dynamic threat--mainly to the elderly & immune deficient--and mitigate for them, not run around screaming like discombobulated chickens promoting throw-everything-against-the-wall safetyism. we could have had highly targeted mitigations and minimal disruption to our lives; instead, we got incessant debates over useless masking, lockdowns, and vaccine mandates.
even including the elderly and immune deficient, over 99% of people get covid and recover just fine. this isn't the black plague by any stretch of the imagination.