> do you prefer the world as it is under coronavirus restrictions?

What present restrictions are you referring to? Could you list a few of the most onerous ones? I know there mask mandates in lots of places currently, and I know earlier in the pandemic there were severe restrictions on gathering indoors and such (and I'm not here to defend or condemn them), but what restrictions are there besides mask mandates that are currently causing you grief? I actually don't know. (Are you in the US? or is this about another country?)

I've been trying to guess them from the things you listed, but it's not clear to me, e.g. I don't quite know what restrictions are imposed on you that prevent you from having dinner with friends.

I am in the US. Where I live masks are required indoors under all circumstances regardless of vaccine status. Indoor dining has been allowed for a few months now but there’s talk of introducing restrictions again.

It’s not so much how it is today, it’s the damage yesterday had done. And it’s the sword of Damocles that hangs over us all at the whisper of a new variant

I would move to Arizona, COVID was only there for a few weeks. Phoenix is over it completely.

Your mask isn't fitting right if it is fogging your glasses. Check for tips on fitting or other solutions like medical tape over nose bridge.

There are also masks that come with additional foam gaskets or have a fully moldable outline, not just the nose piece.

I had a problem where the masks either leaked at the nose or right where the nose wire ended no matter what I did. Got some of them with foam gasket, no problem anymore

Okay that changes things a lot then. I'm sorry for everything you had to go through, and I'll try to respond to your main points, but just note that I don't fall neatly into whatever side of the issue you might imagine (regardless of what it might look like from my brief replies here):

> Where I live masks are required indoors under all circumstances regardless of vaccine status.

I assume there are extremely reasonable constraints you haven't mentioned (e.g., I don't imagine you have to wear masks in your own house, nor would I guess the government is forcing you to wear masks when you visit your friends' homes), so with that in mind:

My own take on indoor mask mandates is: no I don't like them, and yes fogging glasses is annoying, but I could say the same thing about red traffic lights. I hate them so much and find them frustrating, yet I still understand & respect both of them regardless, and try to move on with my life. In neither case do I find there to be so much burden that I can't tolerate living this life anymore, though I can understand that for people with e.g. breathing difficulties the case might be different (and I hope/expect they would have been able to been accommodated accordingly).

> there’s talk of introducing restrictions again.

I'm not sure preventing people from "talking" about restrictions would result in a better world, so I'm not sure what alternative you're proposing here. Yes it's frustrating, but that's what we get with democracy and free speech. All I can suggest is that tuning out the news would probably be helpful if you're finding it overwhelming.

> It’s not so much how it is today, it’s the damage yesterday had done.

Vaccines became available to most adults around April/May, and by June states had started lifting many restrictions. I think it was literally beginning of June where even in liberal Massachusetts a ton of people took off their masks in (crowded!) malls as soon as the mandates lifted. So I'm not sure during what time period you believe the government imposed unjustifiably onerous restrictions. If you're talking about those few weeks in the span of those few weeks, I don't think a few extra weeks made the difference here. If you're talking about afterward, I'm not aware of particularly onerous/lasting restrictions (see above). And if you're talking about before vaccine availability, no, I don't think many people liked that world, but I don't find it at all obvious that letting the pandemic just burn through the entire population would've been better, or that letting potentially infected people walk into ERs amidst other patients with compromised health would have been a wise decision. I know >700,000 people have died in the US so far due to the pandemic, and that number would've been far larger if they had let it grow exponentially, so that factor needs to be considered. (I'm sorry for your loss; I realize this is probably difficult to read. I'm just trying to reply since you were requesting that.)

Of course, if we had the same restrictions today as we had pre-vaccines, that would've been quite a different story.

This seems like an incredibly insensitive response. It's basically "come on, it's not so bad".

I agree with OP. These restrictions are incredibly disruptive to every day life and causing plenty of mental strain. If there was some end game, then people could put on a stiff upper lip. But it's clear there isn't one.

We've gone from "2 weeks to bend the curve" to "vaccines will allow us to return to normality" to "well the vaccinated are still getting infected" to "everyone needs a booster" and now "well, the vaccine might not work that well with the new variant, so hold tight".

We're coming up to the 2 year mark. It seems pretty clear to me that the present approach mean we we are likely looking at years of continuing restrictions that wax and wane. If you asked people what the summer of 2022 will be like, anyone who says they know is lying to themselves.

I'm guessing we'll still be dealing with masks, vaccine boosters, travel restrictions and disruptions to work and school 2 years from now.

> These restrictions

By the OP's own admission this is only "wearing masks" right now. That's what I was referring to. When you use "restrictions" so broadly you make the burden sound far more severe than what it is in reality to many people: "I have to wear masks indoors when in public."

I feel like even if you think mask mandates are actually a big deal and too much for a human to intolerable, you should be able to understand why others (like me) genuinely don't see them that way?

His description is clearly about more than masks. You can't say "what's the big deal with masks" all the while ignoring everything that's happened over the past 2 years and will likely continue into the near future.

> You can't say "what's the big deal with masks" all the while ignoring everything that's happened over the past 2 years and will likely continue into the near future.

No I'm not. You're the one ignoring the vast majority of what I wrote. I explicitly addressed the restrictions during the pre-vaccine, mid-vaccine, and post-vaccine periods. They did not all summarize to "it's not that bad"; only the present (i.e. the post-vaccine period) did, and that's what you addressed. Now you're clearly misrepresenting my comment while mixing them up and adding in speculation about the future, and this is pretty unproductive, so I likely won't be replying further.

> I hate that I’ve ideated suicide more in the past year than the previous 34 combined.

Ouch. What about a less "final" idea, like moving to the midwest or Texas?

Here we mostly don't care about such things, so it's business as usual!

I’ve considered it.

I’m not in any way thinking of moving from ideation to realization. But ideation is scary enough

first of all, i agree. it sucks. it wiped out my business, i have asthma and it feels like i can't breath wearing a mask. i live in washington state. my advice is don't move to washington state if you don't like covid-19 extraness.

you would not like it here. we still have a 5-10 person limit at many stores. basically tons of places look like people are waiting in line for a rock concert. as much as i love the mountains and the coffee i am thinking about moving to a less over the top state.

it's rough, hang in there and maybe try and move to another state if it keeps clawing at your mental health.

Hey, you are very much not alone. It sounds like these various aspects of isolation have really affected you a lot, and I'm so sorry to hear that how things were with your dad in the hospital. That's terrible.

You've written your question for people who you say err more toward caution than you imply that you do, saying that it is out of genuine curiosity, rather than out of contempt. I hope that's true. I'm sure there must be some especially introverted people who prefer the world the way it is with the most cautionary measures of 2020 in place, but I think most people who support these cautionary measures also dislike them.

Where does that leave us? You are allowed to resent the world, and the people who have imposed all of these measures, for harming you in the way that they have. We are all allowed to feel any feelings about anything, including people who have lost loved ones to covid and resent the non-mask-wearers for it. I don't know how to explain the difference between your feelings and many other people's feelings on covid restrictions. For my own part, they have felt difficult, but not unjust.

Hang in there. Exercise, even just a very little bit, if you are not already. It helps so much with everything, including perspective. Once the vaccines become approved for toddlers and hopefully older babies, I'm hopeful that restrictions will really start to ease.

Hope I haven't made you feel selfish or talked down to. That's not how I think of you based on your post.

It’s rubbish, isn’t it? But all that is past for most of us. I just came back from a bar in SF and I don’t think I wore a mask anywhere in it. Hung out with loads of friends. Had a great time.

SF is usually Restriction Central so it doesn’t seem like life is particularly bad now.

Personally, I rather like this interstitial time where the scared remain home and I am free to roam with my friends. Traffic and lines are better.

> "Personally, I rather like this interstitial time where the scared remain home and I am free to roam with my friends."

i've been saying all along that the default policy positions should have led directly to this outcome. everyone sorts themselves into risk profiles and everyone is happy with their risk exposure. but that doesn't appease political ambitions, so we don't get that.

Sounds like you’re having a rough time. I feel for you, pro or against Covid. There is definitely a cost to all this and it must be taken into account.

That said, there is a light at the end of this tunnel. Life in the UK, where vaccination rates are very high, is pretty much normal. Everything is open. Masks were optional until the Omicron scare, we’ll see how it goes. Nurseries, cinemas, restaurants all open, pretty much as normal (cleaner than in the past which is a win).

Maybe it will get worse again but let’s hope not.

Without making hyperbolic comparisons, life is much better net than it was under Bubonic Plague. We’ve seen the alternative to paranoid infection regimes, and it’s total chaos and overwhelmed hospitals. So we’ve been dealt a shit hand and trying to play is as best as we can.

> life is much better net than it was under Bubonic Plague

With all due respect, that's whataboutism. Life is much better than it would be under Ebola, too, but the issue here is that overall quality of life has deteriorated for most humans over the last two years due to the restrictions and interventions related to Covid-19.

> Life in the UK, where vaccination rates are very high, is pretty much normal.

In the UK, but also in many other previously liberal democracies the following are happening at present:

- Freedom of association and freedom of assembly are being made conditional or removed.

- Freedom to travel is being made conditional or removed.

- Freedom to just take part in daily life, e.g. go shopping is being made conditional.

- Freedom to protest is being reduced or removed.

The rule sets under which all this is happening are capricious, changing frequently, based on mostly political considerations with only a sprinkling of scientific reasoning. This removes agency from each of us.

Whether one becomes subject to a restrictive rule by the accident of becoming infected is mostly outside the control of any one person. So this, too, removes agency from each of us.

I see entire countries descending into learned helplessness, while political elites flout the rules they make for others and exploit the urgency of procurement caused by the pandemic to enrich themselves.

This is not a world I want to live in. Improved acceptability of WFH doesn't come close to compensating for all the above.

I agree with every single thing you said, but I don't have a cat. I could also tack on another dozen things I hate about all of this.

sorry to hear for your father. I do love remote meetings though, I can mute myself and go do something else.

It is hard to understand what matters most in life, I’m glad you’ve found what really matters to you.

> I can mute myself and go do something else.

That's exactly what Jeffrey Toobin said as well :P

hahaha, was worth google'ing it