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5) There are some internally consistent strategies for COVID. For instance, "the whole world locks down super hard until it's gone", or "don't bother ever locking down", or "soft lockdown until there's a vaccine". We didn't take any of those.

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6) So, where _are_ we? Well.... a) the world has been mostly shut down for 1.5 years (!) b) the world still isn't really opening up (!!) c) the vaccine exists d) but only 5% of people are vaccinated (!!!) e) the vaccine is massively overdosed and has nontrivial side effects

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7) How do we know this is a bad outcome? Because it's worse than the simple ones. So far the world has locked down for 1.5 years, had 4m deaths, inflated monetary supply, and there's more to come.

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8) If we had *all* locked down really hard for 2 months, COVID would have died out. Maybe that's unrealistic, though. Ok, what if we had ignored COVID? Then ~1% of the population would have lost ~8 years of life, and another ~30% would have lost ~1 week to sickness.

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9) That would have averaged to about 30 days per person, which is frankly a fair bit better than 1.5 years of lockdown + massive inflation + also we're not done yet. And how about the third obvious option--sorta lockdown, like we did, until we get the vaccine, and then open up?

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10) Well this one we could still kinda sorta maybe achieve! But we're not. Have you ever walked somewhere without a mask and when prompted said "I'm vaccinated'? Trust me, it doesn't work. They still make you wear the mask. Which is seriously fucked up.

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11) A while ago it was in vogue to say "it's evil to ignore COVID protocols, but once there are vaccines it's your right to be free". People said that to justify lockdowns. Now the vaccine is here. Where did those voices go?

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12) (And, before you point out not everyone is vaccinated: at least in the states, most people who are planning to get vaccinated have already: twitter.com/NateSilver538/)

Quote Tweet

Nate Silver

@NateSilver538

Apr 20, 2021

Somewhat worrying numbers on vaccine hesitancy from the new Axios/Ipsos poll. 56% of US adults say they've gotten at least one vaccine dose already—great! But there aren't many Americans left who *haven't* gotten vaccinated but plan to do so. Just 14% fall into that category.

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13) And it gets worse. You know what _another_ option would have been? Search "when was the COVID vaccine developed" and you'll find lots of articles bragging about how FAST and QUICK it was. Because it only took a year to get to the public. The vaccine was ready in a month.

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5:48 AM · Jun 17, 2021Twitter Web App

14) Seriously! The mRNA COVID vaccines were ready in February. February 2020, that is. The next nine months were clinical trials. Meanwhile those who weren't dying were locked in their rooms.

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15) Seriously, fuck whatever systems decided that was a good tradeoff. We could have had it out in March; a simple trial on 1,000 participants would have been plenty to prove it was safe and effective.

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16) (People will decry the unprecedented money printing this year. It had bad effects! But also the economy would have been shit otherwise. We shut down the world for a year. IDK whether the monetary response was good or bad. Needing to do it in the first place was bad.)

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17) So, again, where are we now? We're lost, really. No one knows the plan, because there is no plan. We're opening back up, maybe, kinda, not really. Maybe this is the new normal.

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18) And that's the scariest part. Not that we fucked around for a year with a vaccine ready. Not that we all gave up 1.5 years of lockdown, and counting, along with inflation and businesses closing, for 30 days of life. No, the worst part is that we gave up on the future.

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19) There are various phrases the US likes to say, sometimes. New Hampshire is the Live Free or Die state. And maybe that's an exaggeration. But what the world has shown in the last year is the opposite.

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20) We're willing to permanently give up our livelihoods, friends, and freedom, slowly and passively falling into the "new normal", without really much of a second thought. Policy keeps shifting under our feet, moving the goalposts further and further away. "Meh", we respond.

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