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> Expensive energy may have killed more Europeans than covid-19 last winter

What is the point of this comparison?

To promote an agenda and misleadingly. It's trying to push cheaper energy (either by more negotiation with suppliers, or by way of reducing policies against it in regulations or taxes/tariffs), and it's trying to frame that need by comparing it to something that you might think is a huge killer (which Covid wasn't in the winter of 2022-23, anywhere.)

No, the point is that we all collectively shit ourselves over COVID, absolutely turning society upside-down. But we shrug at so many other existential threats because they are already by accounted for (like traffic fatalities) or happens to “someone else” (like drug dependency).

COVID was dangerous, and ignoring it completely wasn’t an option. But it is a reasonable rhetorical gambit to wonder why we responded to COVID so aggressively while ignoring other risks and threats.

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