Caution vs. paranoia in the COVID-19 pandemic
The Cult of COVID still exists, and will continue damning any and all dissent as heresy and blasphemy for years to come.
The COVID-19 pandemic was indeed very dangerous and resulted in the deaths of over 1.2 million people in these United States alone. It was important to mitigate the risk of the pandemic, especially to vulnerable populations, in order to save lives. However, it was a mistake to inflate the risks of the disease. Before the vaccines were available, the survival rate for COVID-19 for people under 50 was 99.98%. The survival rate for those under 19 was 99.997%. The paranoia was never justified. Caution was obviously justified. Paranoia was not.
Here is a screenshot from the Centers for Disease Control website in September of 2020. The link no longer works, but it is in the Wayback Machine. For more recent data, the National Institutes of Health website reported as of August 15 that "The median IFR was 0.0003% at 0–19 years, 0.002% at 20–29 years, 0.011% at 30–39 years, 0.035% at 40–49 years, 0.123% at 50–59 years, and 0.506% at 60–69 years."
When I pointed out these statistics on Meta Threads and explicitly said that "caution was justified," angry Leftists damned me as a murderer and a sociopath, attacked my faith and filled my replies with obscenities. This was not because I said nothing should be done, or COVID-19 does not exist, but because I said caution was justified while paranoia was not.
What does "caution" mean? Well, that's where the rubber meets the road, and many people (including both experts and policymakers) will have different opinions over what pandemic mitigation policies should be (or should have been) implemented. Personally, I thought that temporary, limited quarantine orders were justified while public health authorities tried to get their bearings on a brand new virus. I supported and defended mask mandates. I wore a mask every time I was in a public place until the spring of 2022. I am fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
But pandemic mitigation never had to be "all or nothing." We could allow younger, healthy people to go back to work and allow children to go back to school while still protecting vulnerable populations, including older people and people with compromised immune systems. The ability to work from home was very useful for those who could take advantage of it. That is still useful when someone is sick and can work, but does not want to risk exposing people to a cold, influenza or something else.
"Stay at home" orders were not without risk. We saw a spike in alcoholism, suicide and drug overdoses, commonly referred to as "deaths of despair." For those who avoided those things, depression can have serious impacts for someone's physical health. Quality of life matters. The damage done to children's educational attainment by closing schools was immense. Claiming that lockdowns were all about "lives vs. money" was always a lie. It was always about lives against lives. The question was never whether to save lives, but how best to save lives.
Pointing out the survival rates for people under 50 and under 20 does not mean and has never meant that senior citizens do not matter. Claiming it does indicates an "all or nothing" cult mentality that demands 100% total and complete submission. It is also a simple-minded mentality that is totally lacking in charity and nuance. The fact of the matter is that there was never a single survival rate for COVID-19. There are multiple survival rates based on age and comorbidities. Some people required more protection than others.
After five years, one would think that the "all or nothing" cult mentality among "Branch Covidians" would have mostly vanished by now. I learned last week that is not the case, and that the cult will continue damning any and all dissent as heresy and blasphemy for years to come. There is absolutely no charity or ability to recognize that those who disagree could be doing so out of good motives. If you are anything less than paranoid, you are evil and you want people to die.
When even the slightest deviation from your theology results in thunderous damnation of the "heretic," you are not a sincere person of faith. You are part of a cult that demands 100% complete and total compliance. I will not join your cult, I will not worship your "god" and I will not venerate the Holy Prophets of Teh Science. I will remain a heretic and a blasphemer.
