Thread by @Friesein

People don't want to shatter the fragile coping they've set up for themselves.

Pushing past it would force them to acknowledge that they're harming themselves/their children with every reinfection. The mental burden is too heavy.

So they hide behind a thin veil of ignorance. 🧵

https://twitter.com/broadwaybabyto/status/1814478534359777629

As a parent, I'll openly admit that accepting the reality of COVID's long term effects is extremely difficult.

Working from there, if you're being responsible, you can either seek to reduce or remove the risk. Removing the risk is not an option for many.

So they ignore it.

This is where the conversation often stops for parents, sadly.

Rather than acknowledging that there's an unsolved problem which requires government intervention to solve, they revert to thinking about COVID with a pre-2019 mentality.

But Pandora's box is already open.

Make no mistake, stopping the conversation short of holding government accountable is intentional.

They engineered a milieu of personal responsibility, framing COVID something that can only be avoided through one's own actions.

They manufactured consent, implying it was mild.

So can COVID only be addressed through personal responsibility?

No!

That couldn't be further from the truth. Other aspects of safety and hygiene are regulated too.

Workplaces have standards in place for clean water, sanitary bathrooms, safe handling of hazardous materials, etc

COVID has not been factored in as an externality that organizations need to deal with yet.

Uncontrolled COVID chips away at the quality of life of every employee and patron. Eventually, orgs will recognize that the cost of doing nothing is much worse than doing something.

Let's take another example.

The first gas-powered car was introduced in 1886. Until Wisconsin introduced a seatbelt law in 1961, there was no requirement for car manufacturers to add them.

After decades of further litigation it eventually became a standard.

With COVID, we don't have the luxury of waiting 75 years for governments and organizations to get their act together to reduce transmission.

The society-altering effects of COVID are drastic and rapid.

So we'd better start having those uncomfortable conversations now.

If there's one point I could make to a person who recoils at the mere mention of COVID, it's this:

Infrastructure can reduce viral transmission drastically. With minimal changes to their lifestyle, they could have significantly less infection risk.

https://x.com/Friesein/status/1700195740205617370

Should we encourage people to wear respirators? Of course!

But we should also be pushing to improve the ventilation baseline of buildings to reduce CO2 levels and make infection less likely in the first place. By default.

https://x.com/ukhadds/status/1783753568953970926

So when a person avoids thinking about COVID out of frustration or sheer desperation, gently remind them that it doesn't all have to land on their shoulders.

Our governments have a key part to play in this... but only if we hold them accountable.

For that, we need a consensus.