It's really depressing me that we've mostly decided to turn a public health crisis into an apocalyptic choose-your-own-covid-adventure game.
The short-term and long-term impacts of this virus won't be felt privately.
I totally get that COVID-19 can no longer be contained, but giving up entirely on mitigation when 1) kids under 5 still can't be vaccinated and 2) we still don't know very much about the long-term effects of this virus seems like a really, really bad plan.
Believe it or not, mitigation policies keep 1) hospitals from being overwhelmed, making them dangerous for everyone who has an emergency, 2) schools from being closed due to sick staff, 3) flights m being cancelled or becoming super-spreader events due to sick flight attendants,
4) exposing vulnerable and immune-compromised people to COVID-19 positive "essential workers" in hospitals and care facilities, increasing their likelihood of death, 5) the collective social burden of caring for children whose parents die or are permanently disabled from covid,
6) the grief, the grief, the grief of so much loss, 7) allows people to have some sense of a return to normalcy. knowing that there's a very low risk of losing our sense of smell or taste or ability to exercise or breathe well every time we go out to buy some milk,
8) dying people from having to say goodbye to a loved one over facetime, 9) birthing people surrounded by folks who can support and attend to them, 10) And this is huge for me -- keeping mitigation policies in plan help strengthen our ability to manage future crises that will
undoubtedly emerge. I'm depressed about our response (or inability to adequately respond) to COVID because it reflects a larger inability grapple with big issues that will put our survival to the test. We can't neoliberal our way out of every public crisis.
Like this, this is outrageous at this point in the pandemic (except we've only had a president who GAF for not even a year)
https://twitter.com/oni_blackstock/status/1475275273885073409
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