Covid is back (and nobody cares)

let's just take a moment to acknowledge something that sort of matters but you won't see a lot of videos about it right now which is that covid-19 is kind of rampant at the moment and you know what no one cares in the US the summer surge has seen thousands of people hospitalized with nearly 700 dying in one week in Late July now those are smaller numbers than the height of the pandemic for sure but not so different to the times that as the pandemic was on the way out when people were still being hyper sensitive about it all one thing that apparently both the Republican and the Democratic conventions that we saw recently had in common is that both of them turned out to be rather impressive super spreader events for covid for example star on kamla Harris's campaign reporters other convention goers were all infected during that week when 2,000 people were all crammed together into one space as a by The Bu other conferences have seen the same I notic that the science fiction World con which was held this year in Glasgow also saw lots of stories about covid Carnage amongst the delegates there heck even Olympic athletes were spreading covid to each each other several of them managed to win medals in spite of it although I guess if covid affects young healthy people the least you would expect athletes would be well positioned in that regard but still we have made the transition to this being considered a normal part of life when bad stuff can happen and is one of the things you accept when you step outside your front door hence few people at these events were doing the things that were seen as required of all decent people just a while ago wearing masks and all the rest of it the thing is that citizens when pulled as to the issues they care about as they are being daily by the Trump and Harris campaigns in America are not bringing up covid at all they don't want to talk about it they're bored of even hearing about it and you see that reflected in the campaigns now Trump will occasionally complain that he didn't get credit for the rapid reaction to covid that hammed under his watch in terms of the development of vaccines but since many of his voters actively turned against the vaccines it's not aign that he spends a great deal of time on the Biden White House's former covid response coordinator Ashish Jah said this for most people covid is less about getting an infection and more about a period period of time when our lives were super disrupted and that is behind us this kind of raises the question about how much of that disruption was necessary which is not to suggest that none of it was some of you might remember I did a video comparing the societal response to the 1957 Asian flu pandemic with the 2020 response to covid the point of course that in the case of the former no one saw it as being reliably within the government's power to protect people from a virus from a pandemic it therefore wasn't seen as a political issue at all the government did take action in terms of boosting the speed of production of a vaccine but schools weren't closed down life went on much as before there was some health advice on how to reduce your exposure that was pretty much it and that's with a pandemic that was within sight of being as serious as covid although not identical in its features now the seriousness of covid has declined since the first wave although the latest strain isn't held to be a particularly pleasant experience of course people with vulnerabilities remain a risk and a shout out here to Friend of the channel Vlad vexler who chronic me has meant that his first brush with covid is hitting him hard but we seem to have attained the same mindset as we had back in 1957 with the Asian flu it's been accepted that something bad can happen that probably won't be terribly bad but you're unlucky if it is and that means that yes it may be a public health problem but it's not a governance problem it's not a major societal problem would it have been possible to respond in the same vein throughout the entire pandemic probably not because that first wave was more serious and people's propensity to politicize everything and to expect higher levels of protection from their government that long now predates the arrival of covid our societies have changed would our societies have come through in better shape if our responses have been a bit more like our current attitude and that 1957 attitude and a little bit less Panic with governments trying to shut down debate on covid policy on social media with all the loss of trust that brought about and some of the frankly absurd overreactions that various institutions indulged in almost certainly that would have been better because look here we are the nature of covid has got better but there is no reason rationale why nobody can cares today whereas it was all Panic yesterday hence You can conclude that we did inappropriate things because and the because Clauses are numerous because we didn't know what we were dealing with and we were scared it would turn out to be worse than it was fair enough because the whole thing got stupidly politicized and how you behaved was then more about your political identity than it was about rational decisions about your Health less good if the parties were hoping to win some sort of electoral advantage in all that they largely didn't realize it in the end the separate bragging campaigns on who handled covid better didn't really cut through with the electorate which let's face it is a good thing because it reduces the incentives to politicize Public Health again in the future which is helpful and we've obviously now learned a key lesson we've mentally shifted our thinking about threat risk about what we're prepared to do numerous reports are now to be found showing that what many people are doing for example when a family member gets symptoms say just before you go on holiday is that they specifically and deliberately avoid testing for covid as if not knowing rationalizes normal priorities and assumptions but testing and finding covid would then force them to change so no surprise that sales of testing kits have plummeted the idea that you should test that you should isolate all of those things are now out of the window that's a mental shift one that can easily be criticized because it's kind of irrational to say so long as I don't see it it's not there but nobody's really analyzing and evaluating that shift and working out what it means for our situation now or indeed how we should respond to a new situation tomorrow we still haven't learned the lessons and let's be clear how we respond to a pandemic should always be wholly situational if a virus is more powerfully infectious more reliably deadly it would be an idiot who decides what they think happened previously with covid should dictate what they do in that next situation and let's hope such a problem doesn't arise anytime soon cuz I rather suspect a lot of people would do exactly that simply transfer all their presuppositions and conclusions and opinions from the one to the other in the meantime let me make a small suggestion of my own a better strategy than avoiding testing and pretending that means you can just do everything is taking personal responsibility this was always my argument during the height of covid tell people what they should do and then let them make their judgments for when it applies when there should be exceptions due to circumstance and so on there are still people in my life probably possibly in yours as well who remain immune or compromised or otherwise would really not enjoy catching covid some of those are elderly relatives now some of those elderly relatives are brim and healthy but others of whom are starting to get frail and vulnerable if you're not prepared to make adaptations to fit their situation that doesn't just mean we're in normal times it actually means you're a bit of a dick normal times is being responsible for your actions for government doesn't force a behavior on you which is good so you take notice in your life of what a reasonable person would think was the right thing to do sometimes that means a little bit of personal sacrifice because being a good friend a good neighbor a good son or grandson or granddaughter or whatever sometimes entail such things if you are watching this while suffering with the latest wave of covid or indeed any other condition for is giving you unpleasant times my very best wishes to you as always here's hoping for a rapid recovery for you all