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Comment by dinvlad | Hacker News Reader

Just got demotivated to get one. Is there a reason why they do all that? Is that because of Covid or something else? I've been kinda under the rock on this..

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COVID was the original reason but it's not clear why they're keeping it this way. At least what I've read has been pretty vague/weak justification.

I guess there was some legitimacy to the concerns that heavy-handed COVID restrictions might actually never be lifted.

COVID still exists. We are still in a pandemic.

Yes, and we are all going to die.

It’s endemic now, meaning that due to a number of factors (including that it is dormant in wild animals), it will exist forever at some baseline.

This is analogous to how HIV is endemic and kills ~1M per year worldwide.

I think once vaccine rollout was widespread it was time to lift many of the restrictions. But regardless of your opinions on this, MIT is not claiming the restrictions are still there because of COVID. They are outright saying they are keeping the closed campus as other restrictions are lifted, for security reasons.

The biggest danger with regards to Covid is not the formal restrictions or mandates, it's its convenience as a scapegoat for various shortcomings or reductions of service level.

Even 2 years down the line I'm still seeing businesses blaming Covid for various issues instead of blaming themselves and their inability to run/manage a business properly.

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