[risaacs99]

I always find it interesting how people can think completely differently about this topic depending on how they frame it in their mind. If you think about it from the perspective of personal risk, then young people bristle at being told what to do. If you think about it from the perspective of contagion and at risk people who want to be able to participate in society, you would have a different perspective.

Hopefully we can agree that years where we lose 100,000 people from influenza are tragic, even if we've become accustomed to it. The optimistic possible outcome from this pandemic is maybe that rapid, inexpensive in-home testing for common virus infections becomes widespread. That'd allow a responsible person to test themselves before they went to a sporting event.

It'd also be wonderful if we invested more in a universal influenza vaccination. That's been right around the corner for decades now.

[TheOtherHobbes]

A healthcare system that doesn't bankrupt hundreds of thousands of people a year would also be a good start.

It turns out to be very hard to handle health risks politically rather than medically. Most early deaths are caused by cancer and heart disease, and both are preventable. Covid is terrible, but in terms of death toll it's not in the same league as the regular killers.

When it comes to avoidable death, this supposedly enlightened and scientifically educated culture actually operates at Victorian levels of public health. Obesity and poor nutrition are at epidemic levels and there's barely any formal cultural awareness of the political and social problems caused by emotional stressors, personality disorders, and other forms of psychological illness promoted by toxic workplace conditions and both social and mainstream media.