This is perhaps the most pernicious idea about lockdowns: that there are no real consequences. For many well-to-do folks like Rachel, it’s just an extended work-from-home period.

That isn’t the experience millions of Americans are confronting. (1/6) https://twitter.com/natsechobbyist/status/1328342935503560704

More than half of Americans sheltering in place have reported negative mental health consequences. Suicides (particularly for the young) and drug overdoses are spiking. Anxiety and depression have seen troubling jumps. (2/6) https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/health/pandemic-could-be-contributing-to-spike-in-us-overdose-deaths/2020/11/06/8c23c8be-13be-11eb-bc10-40b25382f1be_story.html%3foutputType=amp

While these results are tragic, they shouldn’t surprise us. We knew going into this thing that social isolation has serious negative consequences for mental and physical health. Studies have shown loneliness is as dangerous as smoking or obesity. (3/6) https://www.hrsa.gov/enews/past-issues/2019/january-17/loneliness-epidemic

This is before we get into the more systemic problems - businesses shutting their doors, job losses & economic anxiety, millions of students “learning” online. Lots of these are tied not to the virus itself but the lockdown. These consequences could continue deepening. (4/6)

But we don’t talk about them. And one of the big reasons we don’t is because the consequences aren’t borne evenly by everyone. Well-to-do people like Vindman are removed from a lot of the harm, which disproportionately impacts poorer people and people of color (5/6).

That’s why we’ll lock down again in cities & states across the country. Not because we should - not because anyone did some kind of cost/benefit analysis - but because no one talks about the harm. And it seems clear that we aren’t because the ones talking aren’t harmed. (6/6)

PS - this result is as tragic as it is unsurprising.

Those who cover the news see the world the same way that Vindman does, as do their social circles. It’s all just another outcropping of the saw phenomena the media briefly recognized in 2016: they’re hopelessly out of touch.