The terms ‘safe’ or 'unsafe' appear often in discussions of COVID threat, but they're vague, subjective words. What level of risk vs disruption is acceptable in long run (whether COVID or another disease)? 1/
As an example, I spent a chunk of my childhood paralysed and unable to walk thanks to a post-infection condition (GBS). Lingering effects for years. Not nice at all. But what should we as a society sacrifice to prevent a given level of risk? 2/
Vaccination is massively reducing COVID risk (at least in the countries that bought up most of the doses). So at what point are specific disruptive measures (whether at local or cross-border scale) no longer justified? 3/
If countries had less COVID, COVID would be less of a problem. But vague suggestions about long-term elimination/eradication obscure the less palatable details of how countries get to (and stay at) that point from where they are now. 4/
These sorts of discussions about risk are inevitably rather uncomfortable (and so easily get toxic on Twitter) because there’s not a neat 'correct' answer - it’s about values, trade offs, and what countries want their societies to look like in the long term. 5/5
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