i feel like setting the debate up between "you should never be able to hug anyone again" and "let all the young people catch it" is a very brainless way of handling public health https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/1360181880319078403

I hate to be a centrist but this is an absolutely atrocious way of handling a pandemic lol

also i feel like now that we're in a mass vaccination programme our conception of risk has changed implicitly with very little acknowledgement?

like we've gone from "we need to cut down cases because there is a material risk of healthcare system collapsing and death" to "we need to get cases down because there is a risk that it might mutate to a form that might reduce vaccine efficacy which might lead to increased cases"

"...which might lead to healthcare system collapsing and death". the issue there surely is that the risk inherent in the former is clear and obvious. the risk in the latter is significantly more indirect and i'm not sure it's been acknowledged that cost-benefit is very different

and to that end pretending that the risks are equivalent is, i think, dishonest. the levels of risk are very very different and more indirect and treating them as equivalent doesn't really help anyone.

clearly there remains a risk, at this moment in time, of the health service being overwhelmed without lockdown. but once mass vaccination has proceeded i think more work needs to be done to justify the balance of risk averseness given the layers of uncertainty have now changed.

basically once mass vaccination has been undertaken i would need a lot more convincing that our appreciation of risk and the balance of measures we consider appropriate and proportionate will remain so

also i do not think the tendency of presuming people going "hm maybe restrictions should be kept around a little longer" mean "lockdown forever suckers", or that people going "i think these restrictions are bad and need loosening" mean "KBF end lockdown today" is healthy.

people really have a tendency of assuming worst faith possible on this from other people that is not good or healthy or productive

basically tories and SAGE people feeding extreme lines one way or the other to the press, flying kites on the reaction it gets, is a fuckin' disaster