It’s Time to Contemplate the End of the Crisis | Hacker News Reader

It’s Time to Contemplate the End of the Crisis

theatlantic.com

13 pointsRickJWagner11 comments

I have a feeling politicians won't end it. It will end when enough people stop caring about it and go back on their own.

Hopefully the Virginia election and fear of the upcoming midterms will convince the left that they've squeezed this hard enough and we can go back to reasonable preventative measures.

haha the Biden administration literally just today (the day after getting annihilated in VA) codified the previously announced OSHA regulations requiring "large" employers to mandate the vaccine to employees under the threat of hefty fines.

They clearly planned the timing of this release to avoid negatively affecting Democrat chances before election day. They know it's a losing subject among moderates and independents. They know it's a loser for the economy because they further delayed enforcement until after the holiday season. They don't care about any of that because in the end it's all about power and control.

Or is it is the right thing to do regardless the inevitable political cost?

This is a virus new to the human biome. We know nothing about its long-term effects on the human body. We know that the CCP took political and economic risks in trying to shut it down in the big cities in early 2020–actions that indicate this virus is a phenomenal threat. We know that in a fair few countries, the virus is chewing through the population and overwhelming hospitals and morgues.

All signs point to this novel virus being some really bad news for human lifespans. It…fucks the body up in quite a few ways, in quite a few people. It’s not a harmless new virus.

So maybe it’s just me, but I can see a POV where it’s not about “power and control”, it’s about preventing a staggeringly huge number of people from being incapacitated or impaired or relatively short-lived.

> it’s about preventing a staggeringly huge number of people from being incapacitated or impaired or relatively short-lived.

I mean if you want to keep believing this nonsense, you're welcome to all the booster shots in the world.

Now tell me how climate change will soon kill us all until even more of our rights are stripped for the greater good.

Those are the most stupid two sentences I’ve ever read on HN.

As the article mentioned, politicians in several countries have already ended all restrictions. I don’t know where you live, but I fully expect my local people to do the same thing.

i'm pro public health but it does seem like a number of things like mask wearing aren't really providing enough value to justify the effort (before you cite a bunch of papers to me: I've done the research. I'm a PhD biologist who can read literature. I also know how poor research quality is).

Oregon is one of the last places to have a mask mandate in nearly all public settings. However, a lot of businesses are not enforcing it, even for their own employees. People are done done done with it.

Today I went to a dunkin donuts in Medford, MA and a Mexican restaurant in Medford that both had mask mandates and enforced them. I also swung by a po box in Somerville in the same boat.

If you live somewhere more logical than Boston consider yourself lucky.

I wonder which governments will be smart enough to prepare for the next pandemic.

E.g. we know it takes about a decade to make enough N95s for the global population, at about the cost of one f22.

These also store well for a decade and maintain their built-in static charged fiber properties (they could also be resold like what is done for other strategic reserves to reduce waste).

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