> In the US, roughly as many vaccinated people in the US die from COVID every day as there are total deaths across the country in motor vehicle accidents.
It's truly shocking that we're not doing more to reduce car dependency.
So here's what the pandemic should've made patently clear: people weigh up human lives against inconveniencce all the time. What is wearing a mask? it's an inconvenience. It clearly reduces transmission rates and would thus save lives but many don't want to be inconvenienced.
Even taking the vaccine is merely on the level of inconvenience. After billions of dollars, the scaremongering horror stories about "side effects" and "long term effects" have of course never eventuated.
Road deaths? We choose the convenience of driving (sometimes at unsafe high speeds, sometimes drunk) over the deaths that result.
Even guns. The very idea that someone with mental health issues shouldn't be able to just go and buy a semi-automatic assault rifle is an inconvenience deemed too onerous.
Gambling? For a small segment of the population gambling addiction is really devastating. Yet we're OK with casinos.
Same for alcoholism.
But 3,000 Americans die in a terrorist attack and we collectively absolutely lose our mind, launching two wars, directly and indirectly killing hundreds of thousands and spending trillions of dollars in the process.
3,000 people is about the peak of how many were dying to Covid every day during the height of the pandemic.
Yes, suspended, but then resumed once it was determined the risks were very low and suitable techniques were established to handle the adverse reactions.
Moderna remains banned in the Nordics for boys/men under 30. NHS does NOT give AZ boosters, only mRNA. NHS will not give AZ for those under 40, only mRNA.
Neither of those links back up your claims. The pause on administering Moderna was originally set to expire December last year - I can't find any suggestion it was extended after that (wikipedia claims it's still restricted in Finland, but the source is an article from December). At any rate the risk was identified as extremely rare, and I'm yet to see any indication it has caused deaths in anyone under 30 in the many countries it's definitely used.
Use of AZ as a booster I understand to be unadvised due to efficacy concerns.
- you need a license
- you usually need insurance
- there are a large amount of laws dedicated to driving
- there are often dedicated police to enforce those law
- cars themselves have a huge number of mandated safely systems
Etc
It's normal that something causing so much death would have a large amount of regulation
Do they magically appear at your house with no addition driving involved?
(Sorry, that came off snarkier than I intended. Online ordering of food just kind of outsources the driving, doesn’t reduce it. Different maybe for delivery trucks that serve multiple houses per trip.)
The DOT almost certainly tracks "real" delivery drivers (think: semi trucks, etc), but who knows how much gets reported from fly-by-night outfits like Uber and Doordash.
So what's your plan then for groceries to magically appear in someone's house without driving or delivery?
And if you say walk or bike or bus you clearly have very different shopping than I do - let me see you carry 2 cases of 15 bottles of seltzer, and a cart full of groceries on any of those.
I don’t really have a plan, just pointing out how it just moves around who is driving. One option is to buy in bulk vast majority of stuff to make fewer trips and then have delivery trucks do fresh/perishable groceries, like the ol’ milkman. Which, of course, is already a thing but a bit different from the newer grocery delivery model.
Also, while I like the sidewalk robot pod things and flying delivery drones, I legitimately like the idea of delivering stuff with PVC pipes and little electric pods. A little on the small side for groceries, but seems pretty doable without adding congestion or noise (to surface streets or the air). https://i.pipedreamlabs.co/
When a supermarket is only a 10 minute walk away (20 minutes round trip), you just go more often and carry smaller amounts. Even if you suddenly needed 30 bottles of seltzer in the same day, you can just walk there and back twice.
If the supermarket is only 0.5 miles away, it's going to be quite small.
Normal sized supermarkets are in the range of 5 or so miles apart.
I am not interested in living in a place where tiny stores are my only option.
Also, why would I want to waste my time walking 20 minutes multiple times a week, plus time in the store? That sounds dreadful, why would you want that?
That's my point, if you had better transportation system it'd reduce car dependency, but you can't create economically viable public transportation system for suburbs, which were designed to maximize roads. Not be pessimistic, but it'd take efforts along the line of fighting a new world war to fix this. People who live in suburbs suffer with a form of stockholm syndrome and really thing they are living the best life. Yet they end up spending most of their lives isolated and in traffic. Cities should be designed that things you need daily/weekly/monthly are close to you. Let's see what do I need, or have needed in last two weeks: Pharmacy, medical specialists, grocery stores, hardware store, barber shop, food shops, accountant, library, park... and I've walked to all of them. For each one of these I'd have to make potentially a separate trip in a car, if I was living in suburbs.
I'm well aware of that (and have written at length about that on this site in the past). Your comment just seemed like it was saying "you can either reduce car dependency OR have good public transit, not both," which was probably a misreading on my part.
that's hilarious.. but here is a thing lot of people grew up entirely dependent on cars in suburbs, so they think that's the best. They really have no other perspective, only context they have is really bad buses in really bad neighborhoods. And obviously if you are drawing your conclusion based on that limited experience you will conclude that I'd never pick to be in there. Same with suburbs, people who were born there, grew up there and now are living there will come up with bunch of reason why it's SOO GOOD to be there. But they don't know the ease of being in walking distance of doctors, pharmacy, gym, grocery stores, chain food stores, public transportation, parks, school, etc. I who has lived in NYC, had to live in a suburban area due to job for a year. And I finally understood things about USA culture that I couldn't get before..
- Why in movies college is seen as peak of life? Because if you live in a suburb that's the last time you are going to be around new people in general. Rest of your life is going to be in isolated house, isolated car, and some workmates.
- Why car was/is seen as a symbol of freedom? Need to buy milk? drive 10 miles in that direction, need to go to gym? drive 8 miles in that direction.
- Why guns are so valuable? If you live in middle of nowhere cops aren't coming on time..
- Why going to church is so big? Well that's the last place left to socialize after college, that and walmart.
Even taking the vaccine is merely on the level of inconvenience. After billions of dollars, the scaremongering horror stories about "side effects" and "long term effects" have of course never eventuated.
Road deaths? We choose the convenience of driving (sometimes at unsafe high speeds, sometimes drunk) over the deaths that result.
Even guns. The very idea that someone with mental health issues shouldn't be able to just go and buy a semi-automatic assault rifle is an inconvenience deemed too onerous.
Gambling? For a small segment of the population gambling addiction is really devastating. Yet we're OK with casinos.
Same for alcoholism.
But 3,000 Americans die in a terrorist attack and we collectively absolutely lose our mind, launching two wars, directly and indirectly killing hundreds of thousands and spending trillions of dollars in the process.
3,000 people is about the peak of how many were dying to Covid every day during the height of the pandemic.
Think about that.