Bret Devereaux

Maybe if this weren't also happening in the midst of massive epistemic crisis, but knowing already that most people won't ever really understand or admit that this is what happened...it's a genocidal race and class war happening outside of history and it's utterly maddening

I'm not sure that I agree with that assessment. Sure, there's a lot of selfishness going on here, but a good deal of the spread is the result of relatively humble people ignoring desperate efforts by the scientific jet-set crowd to get them to do things.

And the sort of publications that speak to the elites have generally been pretty concerned and wanted more substantial measures than what has happened. Clearly, there's been a leadership failure here and it isn't hard to locate it.

And like all leadership failures, it hits the folks with the fewest resources hardest. Which is bad, to be clear!

This is pretty straightforward: if "elites," collectively, really wanted more decisive measures taken, than they would have been, because elites control the state, both personally and as an interest group. The elites who have been saying since March that we need to keep things...

...open for the sake of the economy are not somehow any less elite than the elites who have been stroking their chins in great concern in the pages of the Economist or whatever.

And even sincere concern on the part of some elites doesn't become existential, worth taking drastic action, so long as they're not personally at meaningful risk. It's just a Matter Of Great Concern.

Thinking about 'elites' collectively like that is a mistake though. There are clearly multiple camps of elites on this issue and they are very frustrated with each other. Also, in many cases, elites have tried greater measures and been restrained by non-elites.