Yet the media always wants to portray this as a war between two sides: The die-hard anti-vaxxers who refuse to do anything versus the totalitarian pro-lockdown people who want society to grind to a halt until the virus disappears. Yes, it’s true that if you go searching for them it’s not hard to find internet extremists who fall into either camp. They may even come out of the woodwork if you post the right bait on social media.
But in my experience, the vast majority of people in the real world are somewhere in the middle rather than gravitating to extremes. They understand that some measures are necessary, some risk is inevitable, and there are no magic billets. Yet everywhere I look we’re giving headlines and attention to the smaller minority of people who want everything to be an extremist, one-sided debate.