[valachio]

It ends when people say it ends.

There will always be natural disasters, whether it's earthquakes or viruses. If it's a new virus, yes people are going to die, yes hospitals are going to be overwhelmed (in fact I would be surprised if hospitals aren't overwhelmed when a new virus hits, which just means that hospital was over-funded and has too many idle staff).

The virus was a creation of nature (conspiracy theories notwithstanding), but the lockdown and all these governmental restrictions are man-made.

Even if the virus went away, the lockdown can continue if people want it to go on. It can go on for the rest of human civilization if we want it to. Or it can end right at this moment, if the people go out and tell their government that it's time to stop.

[SheepSlapper]

Hopefully people are waking up to this, because it's been true since the beginning. If enough people say "kick rocks" when new restrictions appear from on high, there's nothing a government can really do.

Maybe this will open some eyes, and next time a government comes around saying "stop earning a living, stop being social, listen to us and everything will be fine" we can collectively shrug our shoulders and get busy living. There WILL be instances where the kind of response we had over the past 2 years is justified, but COVID wasn't one of them.

[spookthesunset]

It’s basically this. “Science” cannot tell you when Covid is “over” and the people who told us to be afraid will never say it’s truly safe. Moving on from Covid is a simple is not being afraid of it anymore. That’s it. All that is required. It’s all in peoples head.

[aakresearch]

Prior to 2020 I didn't know and din't care who was the Premier of my state in Australia. I was very proud to have spent a decade and half in Australia and quite glad to see my kids becoming true Aussies. Fair dinkum! Team Australia, team Victoria! No one in my family watched any news, occasionaly we'd look through a free local newspaper pulled from postbox, despite huge "please no junk mail" sign on it.

March 2020 started the first "lockdown". I though it did make sense, praised the JobKeeper program our federal govt introduced and was a bit disappointed in my employer trying to make a claim, as I thought we didn't really need it, as we didn't bear much losses. But it's a par for the course, I guess, whenever a financial support for business is made available it makes sense to claim a need. Worst case it will be refused.

By May 2020 Victoria was the last state to be getting opening up again. By then I already knew the Premier's name, but my only problem with him was that he appeared a bit too cautious (which is forgivable), and his rhetoric was the one of a kindergarten teacher - very patronizing, but not a big deal. The bigger distrust started when I've heard him saying literally "I am scared of this thing and you should be scared too". This was like a red rag for a bull for me. Since then every word out of collective govt mouth, every article, every slogan and every "order" was about drumming up fear, by all means. And those who did not want to fear were sent all sorts of "messages" and promised all sorts of punishments and executions. We've seen people handcuffed for posts on fb, pregnant lady interrogated for daring to sit on a park bench ("not one of the allowed reasons to leave home"), people arrested for sitting on a beach (more than 5km from their house), police in full riot gear, "kettling" of random people, drone surveillance, pepper spray and rubber bullets deployed liberally. It was more wild than response to political unrest in the proven dictatorship of Belarus! The fearmongering continues today with the same fervor, double vaccinated are new unvaccinated.

So yes, it was and still is all about being afraid. Sorry, this is something I cannot take from anyone. My willingness to collaborate on any issue is completely lost on govts of all colors. From now on I think it is absolutely ok to seek any possible loophole in any govt initiative, avoid paying dues as much as legally possible and generally comply with regulations in the most destructive and sabotaging ways - but all legal, of course. By the way, such was the recommendation of US or British counter-intelligence to German people sympathetic to Allied cause and wanting to contribute to counter-nazi effort without being implicated. I wonder whether the thought of such possibility crossed the enlightened minds of our new feudal lords?

[Animats]

“This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, this is just perhaps the end of the beginning.” - Churchill.

That was November 1942, with victory almost three years away. By that point, the Allies had stopped Axis advances, but were not yet taking back ground.