Thread by @webdevMason

The media has gone absolutely schizophrenic on omicron, just totally unable to draw a coherent narrative or practice any patience where it’s owed — and even the most forgiving portion of its audience seems to be tired of getting pulled through the panic/blame shredder

A key phrase I’m seeing a lot is “giving ammo to the anti-vaxxers,” which IMO can reasonably be parsed as a frustrated expression of that which cannot be stated plainly: the people committed to following institutional advice are tired of being kept in a coercive state of panic

There continue to be really encouraging signals re: omicron, still room for concern (for example, how will regions compromised by recent delta waves fare?) but the bottom line is that people seem ready to return to a state of affairs where their medical decisions belong to them

If the people who’ve assumed an almost divine authority over individual pandemic response and medical decisions want to get 3rd and 4th shots in arms on their desired pace, they’re going to need to be a little more humble and a lot more transparent

There was decent public support for mandates when “fully vaccinated” meant something a lot of people already qualified for, but I think they’re slowly developing a degree of concern about their employment being contingent in the long term on what they do at the doctor’s office