[joshuahughes]

"stock up and stay home while the virus dies off"

Given the existence of animal reservoirs, short-lived immunity, asymptomatic carriers, continued transmission after vaccination, and the genetic instability of SARS-CoV-2, this seems like an incredibly naive view.

The only virus we've been able to eradicate — smallpox — was a VERY different beast because it had none of the issues listed above.

[dang]

Hi there - it looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle for a long time now. I had to go back 2 years to find anything else! That's not a legit use of HN, regardless of what your positions are, because it's not in keeping with the intellectual curiosity this site is supposed to be for. In fact, it's destructive of it. For that reason, we ban accounts that are using the site this way. I don't want to ban you, so could you please fix this?

Further explanations are at these links if anyone wants more:

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[Kye]

We've spent trillions on all kinds of naive nonsense. What's the worst that could happen, people get a month off and the line goes up thanks to all the stimulus? Oh, the horror.

Mindless cynicism is not the virtuous alternative to optimism. We can do nothing and watch as our health care system continues to collapse or do something. Maybe this isn't it, but you haven't offered a better idea.

It's easy to tear people down for standing up to make a suggestion.

[tapas73]

Not all ideas are worth pursuing. Continuing as-is most of the time (like 99.99%) is the appropriate choice. Do you move every time a stranger on TV/street suggests that?

[Kye]

Continuing as-is will mean the nearly full ICU beds will fill up and the already overwhelmed and too-short supply of medical professionals will dry up as they seek other careers. Every doctor I know who hasn't quit is in or approaching a burnout.

The curve of deaths from omicron in the US is already above delta's peak in much less time. Do you imagine this will just pass by without completely overwhelming the health care system? It's too late to do anything for this strain, but I don't want to gamble on it being the last or worst.