Thread by @GidMK

I have great respect for people willing to take on the difficult question of balancing direct COVID-19 harms against the damage that control measures can do

I have no respect at all for people who minimize the harms of COVID-19 in order to make this argument

Yes, there are harms to disease-prevention measures. We should certainly be weighing these against the potential harms that unmitigated epidemics do and think carefully about our choices

But pretending that we can largely ignore COVID-19 without cost is just a disingenuous and nonsensical position that flies in the face of all evidence gathered to date

Also, if you are ignorant enough to ignore the secondary BENEFITS to COVID-19 restrictions (e.g. influenza deaths) in your assessment, then I would say your argument is entirely political and has no basis in science

This is not to say that secondary benefits are likely to be enormous, but the point is any meaningful cost-benefit is not nearly as simple as preventing COVID-19 on one hand and getting kids back to school on the other