Heart disease and cancer combined kill four times as many people every year, than what covid-19 has done this year.
About 10% of all the people who died in the US this year will have died from covid-19. Why are those 10% of deaths so much more terrible, so unimaginably horrible, that we're focusing exclusively on those, and completely ignoring the remaining 90% of deaths?
Because it's an infectious disease spread through droplets in the air; because it's abnormal and therefore new and scary; and because it's more deadly than our other regular disease, the seasonal flu.
Tell that to the family that lost their job and is now homeless. Tell that to the people who've lost love ones to suicide, overdose, alcoholism. (see I can be snarky and unhelpful, too)
The broader point is that it's not clear that lockdowns are beneficial or necessary. They have real costs. Nobody is talking about how we weigh those costs and benefits. And despite the lockdowns, California still has a swamped medical system.
To move the conversation forward: people will never give up their sacred cows. The lockdowns were never about COVID, they're about control and rewarding political allies. Texas tried to ban abortion. California tried to ban religion. And nobody cares if the lockdowns work or not.
About 10% of all the people who died in the US this year will have died from covid-19. Why are those 10% of deaths so much more terrible, so unimaginably horrible, that we're focusing exclusively on those, and completely ignoring the remaining 90% of deaths?