[wheels]

It's been very interesting to me listening particularly to American podcasts and the extent to which the American left equates Covid rules to piety. You can here that there's significant genuine resistantance to the idea of letting go of the restrictions as they've become part of identity.

I'm American, but I've lived in Germany for the last 20 years. Here, vaccines are being used as the carrot to be able to get rid of the restrictions (like mask wearing, limiting of contacts, etc.). It feels like everyone wants to get rid of the restrictions here, and it's more of a fight about who gets to do that first and why.

[hef19898]

My impression, as a German still following US politics post-Trump more than I should, is that US governors, especially the GOP ones, never put real restrictions in place and were among the first to get rid of them. Examples include Texas and Florida.

In Germany everything Covid turned political last fall, with Laschet being anti-restrictions and Söder being pro-restrictions. In both cases to score political points for their campaigns to become the conservative's candidate for chancellor.

Everybody wants back a normal life, some people simply have trouble accepting that it will take a while still. And that doing it prematurely poses a significant risk.