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Some responded to this report by claiming that the US is in its current crisis *because* it employed a harm-reduction approach. This is both an ignorant and dangerous position to take. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-07/coronavirus-stay-home-messaging-la-harm-reduction
What has distinguished the US is a *lack* of a unified approach. To the extent it has had one, especially at the federal level, we can say that its goal has been making the US safe for capitalism. But that's not the same as a genuine harm-reduction approach. It's the opposite.
Harm reduction recognises that, short of extreme constraint imposed by the state, people will engage in risky activity no matter what. It responds to *reality* and tries to engage it with it by mitigating the consequences of inevitable risky behaviour.
The other reason it's vital is because the alternative--shame and stigma--are pandemic accelerants. If getting the virus is popularly viewed as a moral defect, as the result of individual failing, people don't come forward. That nixes contact-tracing. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/nyregion/coronavirus-victims-immunity.html
If a shame-centric approach actually *worked*, Twitter would be all the vaccine we need.
Regrettably, that's not the world we live in, and as counterintuitive and unjust as it seems to some, the right approach is one that reduces stigma.
Harm reduction essentially says, "if you're going to do this damn silly thing, don't do it in this damn silly way." But nicer. The damn silly thing is going to happen whether you like it or not. How do you respond to that reality?
What is killing us is the *lack* of a unified federal response, the lack of structural remedies--from improved contact-tracing to managed isolation and quarantine, leaving a messy patchwork of responses at the state and county levels.
And the point made by others, that contradictory policies oriented around protecting profit undermine public confidence, remains solid. *That* is the cause of our misery in the US right now. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/pandemic-restrictions-no-logic/617204/
