The liability-free fast tracked vaccine that doesn't actually mitigate transmission greatly restored my belief that we might survive the next large event. It was rolled out quickly, and it actually greatly reduced mortality. Reducing transmission would've been epic, but we can't win them all.
The CDC's ever changing guidelines were good, but their not admitting that at some point the had been wrong or worse were flat out lying did hurt societal trust a lot. The fact that social pressure on our neighbours and government recommendations failed to such an extent that we needed extra policing just to get people to keep to reasonable curfews sucked.
I don't know where you pull the "effortless militarization of common citizens .. who attack" from, but a. that didn't happen, and b. it was the people who did not follow government recommendations and social pressure that were out there militarizing and attacking their neighbours.
People are asking questions, that's how science works. But basing laws and regulations on established science and expert advice, that's how society is supposed to work. You can be angry about the state of science, or about the corrupting influence of pharmaceutical companies, but don't throw out the baby with the bath water. The fact that we've been able to respond swiftly based on expert advice and on established science is a good thing. Maybe next time we'll make sure those experts and scientists have more competence and better alignment to our ethical values.
Imposing mandatory curfews was never reasonable. That was never justified on an evidence-based medicine basis, and it violated the fundamental human right of free assembly. Those involved in policing such policies should be ashamed of themselves.
Shame this gets downvotes. If we are following the science there should be ample reproducible research out there (conduced before the pandemic) showing that curfews had enough benefits to justify their extreme costs.
But there is nothing. There is no research that lockdowns would be worth their cost either but here we are…
What mortality rate does the virus need to have before you accept that people's right to survive a plague temporarily overrides your right to free assembly? And by the way, lockdowns absolutely do work at stemming virus spread, China, New Zealand and other countries are evidence of that.
The CDC's ever changing guidelines were good, but their not admitting that at some point the had been wrong or worse were flat out lying did hurt societal trust a lot. The fact that social pressure on our neighbours and government recommendations failed to such an extent that we needed extra policing just to get people to keep to reasonable curfews sucked.
I don't know where you pull the "effortless militarization of common citizens .. who attack" from, but a. that didn't happen, and b. it was the people who did not follow government recommendations and social pressure that were out there militarizing and attacking their neighbours.
People are asking questions, that's how science works. But basing laws and regulations on established science and expert advice, that's how society is supposed to work. You can be angry about the state of science, or about the corrupting influence of pharmaceutical companies, but don't throw out the baby with the bath water. The fact that we've been able to respond swiftly based on expert advice and on established science is a good thing. Maybe next time we'll make sure those experts and scientists have more competence and better alignment to our ethical values.