Some risk of living with COVID-19 will become normalized, as some risks of speeding have been normalized. People will follow the rules more or less, increasingly less.
I do understand the commentary here and agree with much of it.
Now, having said that... I worry that the restrictions that are currently imposed upon us might become permanent.
For example, masking. Many people say that masks are nothing at all. I respectfully disagree; no, I violently disagree. You see, I have trouble breathing with a mask. As a result, I wear a face shield, a cumbersome, awkward piece of hardware.
For example, vaccine passports. I am fully vaccinated and scheduled to get shot for the third time two days from now. I am eligible for a vaccine passport and have been ever since they were "issued" by those idiots that rule us. I refuse, however, to get a vaccine passport on philosophical grounds as I don't EVER want to live in a society where some 18 year old (or whatever age) twerp can demand to see "my papers." Silly? Maybe, but that is - or used to be - within my rights as a citizen.
Oh, I can go on all day with my examples but I really reserve my scorn for governments and health officials who have taken this very serious illness as a way to become arbitrary rulers of my life.
So, to summarize, this pandemic has become endemic and we need to treat it much as we would influenza, that is, a serious illness that does sometimes cause death but which most of us will get from time to time and from which we will then recover. And, yes, I am of an age and have underlying health issues that will possibly mean that I will be one of those to succumb but I do know that I am going to die sometime so perhaps that will be the cause.
An “Open secret” is still a secret to some. It allows the police to pull over a person of color for going 5kph too fast. Also, government communication has not been clear and concise. It’s been confusing and contradictory and the worst of it is that by calling some people “essential,” it implied that the rest of us were “inessential.” Our governments are still failing us. We are being sold out…
In April, Cole Hartin was arguing "while the restrictions to human freedoms are immoral in a general sense, when we take into consideration competing goods like community safety in the context of a pandemic, it is permissible to impose them to stop a genuine threat."
Congratulations for finally joining those of us who were skeptical then about all these supposedly well-intentioned infringements of our rights. Better late than never.
I see it almost the opposite way. I notice that exploding case-counts in lying-fascist-government places like India and Brazil, will go down, after getting bad enough, despite the government never calling for any lockdowns.
People get scared when they see full ICUs in the news, and modify their behaviour whether you restrict them or not. You don't need speed signs if there's flaming wreckage on the highway every other kilometre.
There's a steady-state coming, for sure. We may already be there in BC, which has daily cases about where they were a month ago. But the balance won't be "whatever's allowed plus a margin small enough to keep me from getting arrested" but rather "whatever feels safe", which for a lot of people, may be less than the allowed.
Certainly for older people; it'll be years before you see many of them in theatres again.
Absolutely. It's similar to what those of us who went through the AIDS pandemic experienced: You either chose celibacy, or lived your life assessing degrees of risk. (And that was over two decades with 100% mortality for the first.)
Speaking as someone from Western Canada who travels regularly to Central Canada (Ontario and Quebec) the ludicrously low speed limits in those places coupled with the wanton disregard of them is not something that is common in the rest of the developed world. That's a weird cultural quirk in Central Canada.
Context is important when it comes to restrictions/public health orders, as well as personal experience. The main reason we have restrictions is to manage healthcare capacity. My coworker's Dad suffered a heart attack about two months ago. While he was admitted to hospital right away, the required surgery (four stents and a repair to the aorta) was postponed twice because there was a lack of nurses/rooms for the operation, due to the number of people in ICU, most of them battling COVID-19. He was monitored but at elevated risk of death for 6 days. That is not acceptable, in my opinion.
Masks... Culture here plays a role. They are commonly used in Asia, and it is logical to think that if you have symptoms of an upper respiratory infection (whatever it may be), wearing a mask indoors would help reduce transmission. Vaccine passports seem to be a lot more challenging because it is effectively creating different access abilities based on vaccination status. (Full disclosure I am fully vaccinated and the second I can get a booster, I will!). And what about Singapore? Are we okay if we ditch vaccine certificates but if you end up in hospital, are not fully vaccinated and need to use the system you have to pay out of your own pocket? Is that better than vaccine passports? I do not know.
The moral hazard still exists. If people with conditions such as a cardiac event or an accident or a stroke receive substandard care because we are letting our collective guard down... Is that okay? On the other hand vaccines are reducing the risk of hospitalization and death by 90% or so, and we have pills waiting Health Canada approval which will further help people recover at home. So at certain point we should be back to what it was, o close to it.
So instead of being tired or thinking about going 10% above the speed limit, the indicator should be capacity in the health care system to treat every patient with the expediency that is required and deserved. Postponing non-emergent surgeries, having to delay critical ones because we don't like to wear a mask or we want to get together with friends seems to me a bit selfish.
What we are lacking are clear goalposts: for example if ICU capacity goes back to 80% pre-pandemic and surgeries are not postponed and 9% of the entire population is fully vaccinated, then we can get rid of all mandates. Make it a clear goal linked to the common good.
I do understand the commentary here and agree with much of it.
Now, having said that... I worry that the restrictions that are currently imposed upon us might become permanent.
For example, masking. Many people say that masks are nothing at all. I respectfully disagree; no, I violently disagree. You see, I have trouble breathing with a mask. As a result, I wear a face shield, a cumbersome, awkward piece of hardware.
For example, vaccine passports. I am fully vaccinated and scheduled to get shot for the third time two days from now. I am eligible for a vaccine passport and have been ever since they were "issued" by those idiots that rule us. I refuse, however, to get a vaccine passport on philosophical grounds as I don't EVER want to live in a society where some 18 year old (or whatever age) twerp can demand to see "my papers." Silly? Maybe, but that is - or used to be - within my rights as a citizen.
Oh, I can go on all day with my examples but I really reserve my scorn for governments and health officials who have taken this very serious illness as a way to become arbitrary rulers of my life.
So, to summarize, this pandemic has become endemic and we need to treat it much as we would influenza, that is, a serious illness that does sometimes cause death but which most of us will get from time to time and from which we will then recover. And, yes, I am of an age and have underlying health issues that will possibly mean that I will be one of those to succumb but I do know that I am going to die sometime so perhaps that will be the cause.
Much to agree with here. Though I do hope that masks are like the seatbelt - understood for what they do, and almost universally used.
An “Open secret” is still a secret to some. It allows the police to pull over a person of color for going 5kph too fast. Also, government communication has not been clear and concise. It’s been confusing and contradictory and the worst of it is that by calling some people “essential,” it implied that the rest of us were “inessential.” Our governments are still failing us. We are being sold out…
In April, Cole Hartin was arguing "while the restrictions to human freedoms are immoral in a general sense, when we take into consideration competing goods like community safety in the context of a pandemic, it is permissible to impose them to stop a genuine threat."
Congratulations for finally joining those of us who were skeptical then about all these supposedly well-intentioned infringements of our rights. Better late than never.
I see it almost the opposite way. I notice that exploding case-counts in lying-fascist-government places like India and Brazil, will go down, after getting bad enough, despite the government never calling for any lockdowns.
People get scared when they see full ICUs in the news, and modify their behaviour whether you restrict them or not. You don't need speed signs if there's flaming wreckage on the highway every other kilometre.
There's a steady-state coming, for sure. We may already be there in BC, which has daily cases about where they were a month ago. But the balance won't be "whatever's allowed plus a margin small enough to keep me from getting arrested" but rather "whatever feels safe", which for a lot of people, may be less than the allowed.
Certainly for older people; it'll be years before you see many of them in theatres again.
Absolutely. It's similar to what those of us who went through the AIDS pandemic experienced: You either chose celibacy, or lived your life assessing degrees of risk. (And that was over two decades with 100% mortality for the first.)
Speaking as someone from Western Canada who travels regularly to Central Canada (Ontario and Quebec) the ludicrously low speed limits in those places coupled with the wanton disregard of them is not something that is common in the rest of the developed world. That's a weird cultural quirk in Central Canada.
Context is important when it comes to restrictions/public health orders, as well as personal experience. The main reason we have restrictions is to manage healthcare capacity. My coworker's Dad suffered a heart attack about two months ago. While he was admitted to hospital right away, the required surgery (four stents and a repair to the aorta) was postponed twice because there was a lack of nurses/rooms for the operation, due to the number of people in ICU, most of them battling COVID-19. He was monitored but at elevated risk of death for 6 days. That is not acceptable, in my opinion.
Masks... Culture here plays a role. They are commonly used in Asia, and it is logical to think that if you have symptoms of an upper respiratory infection (whatever it may be), wearing a mask indoors would help reduce transmission. Vaccine passports seem to be a lot more challenging because it is effectively creating different access abilities based on vaccination status. (Full disclosure I am fully vaccinated and the second I can get a booster, I will!). And what about Singapore? Are we okay if we ditch vaccine certificates but if you end up in hospital, are not fully vaccinated and need to use the system you have to pay out of your own pocket? Is that better than vaccine passports? I do not know.
The moral hazard still exists. If people with conditions such as a cardiac event or an accident or a stroke receive substandard care because we are letting our collective guard down... Is that okay? On the other hand vaccines are reducing the risk of hospitalization and death by 90% or so, and we have pills waiting Health Canada approval which will further help people recover at home. So at certain point we should be back to what it was, o close to it.
So instead of being tired or thinking about going 10% above the speed limit, the indicator should be capacity in the health care system to treat every patient with the expediency that is required and deserved. Postponing non-emergent surgeries, having to delay critical ones because we don't like to wear a mask or we want to get together with friends seems to me a bit selfish.
What we are lacking are clear goalposts: for example if ICU capacity goes back to 80% pre-pandemic and surgeries are not postponed and 9% of the entire population is fully vaccinated, then we can get rid of all mandates. Make it a clear goal linked to the common good.