It remains unclear to me whether there is a path forward in the big Blue cities out of Covid myopia. Most of these cities have extremely high vaccination rates--certainly anyone that wants one has received it--yet only 20-30% of workers are back in offices.
1/8
New York City has not even recovered half of the ~1.1m jobs lost due to the lockdowns.
2/8
Having spent time in these cities myself over last yr or having friends/family residing there, you could effectively use the below (job losses) as a ranking for Covid monomania (though I think SF worse than NY. DC is Covid crazy but of course has thrived during the madness)
3/8
Compare restaurant reservations in SF and NYC to both Miami and other International cities. Miami way above 2019 levels; Toronto & London basically back to normal.
SF and NY have plateaued and no light at the end of the tunnel.
4/8
Despite the popular narrative being that voters support the lockdown measures, people vote with their wallets and data would suggest otherwise. SF rent has collapsed, NY and DC are just getting back to normal, and Florida has surged. I thought everyone had died there?
5/8
Allowing tourism to return would certainly be helpful to these areas while we await triple boosted, triple masked, 20 & 30-something office workers feeling "safe" to come back to the office. Although tourists would have to be confident they would not be shot or stabbed.
6/8
I guess we can just keep borrowing infinity $$. It will ultimately fall not on the Boomers doing the borrowing but on kids anyway, and they won't know any better since we deprived them of education and human connection for 2 years despite being at literally ~zero risk.
7/8
None of these "measures" were necessary or made a diff. other than to decimate urban areas primarily impacting the already disadvantaged. Entire response has been a complete & utter disgrace
COVID was always sadly here to stay. Its time to get back to life
If not now, when?
8/8
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Even in the Zerocovid police states of Australia& NZ, pediatricians talk more sense than those in USA regarding child Delta:
"Its important to note that many [child hospitalizations] were for social reasons..so hospitalisation statistics do not provide a good marker of severity"
We "would like to reassure children and their parents that while the COVID delta variant has shown that
children are able to be infected and transmit COVID-19, COVID-19 is and generally remains a
mild infection in children."
"children are affected by...restrictions causing impacts on education and mental health.”
"Although one death has been recorded, the child in question was a 15-year-old boy who
was being treated for pneumococcal meningitis"
When COVID hit, I began hearing rumblings of a book called Unrestricted Warfare, written by 2 former Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) senior colonels & published by PLA
In short, it describes what war will look like in a post-nuclear, mutually assured destruction, age
1/17
I read the book cover to cover and I thought you might be interested in some quotes/passages I highlighted, which I encourage you to read w current events in mind.
“the media has become an immediate and integral part of warfare”
2/17
“China can pump propaganda into the American media while restricting American media’s access to the Chinese media landscape”
A non-military attack could “cause the enemy nation to fall into social panic, street riots, and a political crisis”
1. Many argue over the cost-benefit analysis of COVID measures (eg lockdowns, masks). This is jumping the gun: first, an actual benefit must be established, which has not occurred for either masks or lockdowns. So all we have are the immense costs.
2. "Odious debt" is a legal theory that sovereign debt incurred to oppress a population is unenforceable
Govts have spent $trillions locking ppl in their homes, promoting an environment of fear, closing schools & businesses, & banning worship, dating, & visitation of the ill 🤔
3. If Im being pessimistic, it strikes me we r basically in same place as 18 mths ago despite having implemented catastrophic lockdowns & administered billions of vax doses: w a virus that hits the elderly/comorbid very hard but which all others overcome w minor, if any, symptoms
Biden and the US left's continuing demand for masks on kids in schools is a complete world outlier. There is ZERO evidence of effectiveness (let alone cost-benefit analysis). It's pure sunk cost fallacy at this point given how rabid the debate has been.
3/4