> This is a lottery that's less fun to play
How exactly do you propose not playing? Lockdowns, social distancing, masking, etc. for life? We're eventually going to have to start treating Covid the same as we've always treated "the flu" and it definitely appears that once Omicron has run through the population, we'll have reached the time to do that.
Very few places did lockdowns at any point so I wouldn’t expect that to start now, butthe ones which did were successful in breaking spread. It doesn’t need to be continuous, but it’s clearly effective for preventing huge spikes.
Similarly, we’d save lives and billions of dollars if we established the same social norms which some Asian countries have about wearing masks when you’re symptomatic. It doesn’t need anything like 100% compliance or time to be useful – we appear to have lost an entire strain of influenza this way.
This is some grade-a gaslighting, plenty of countries had long brutal lockdowns where no-one was allowed outside unless it was "essential".
> butthe ones which did were successful in breaking spread.
No. Many of those places had worse outcomes than places that didn't do any sort of lockdown.
(When I say lockdown I mean stay-at-home orders. Do you have a different definition?)
There are a number of things going on in the world that fall into the "really bad" category of both thing and trend of thing.
There's space in between bland acceptance and incapacitating terror. At the very least have an honest, clear eyed view of where the risk bars are going, and it isn't in a good direction.
If you can't handle these things as a part of your life you're really not going to like what climate change brings to the relatively near future.
But you don't have to worry about arguing in forums, you've already won. Nobody respects lockdown, and never really did, even at the highest rate of infections I see people wearing masks beneath their noses, crammed next to people in airports. After omicron I can't imagine anyone caring at all even if we double our current death count.
Covid is here, it will stick around forever, it will probably be notably worse than the flu for years to come. But in a few more years that will seem like a quaint thing to worry about.
This one, omicron, seems to mostly infect nasal passages and upper respiratory tract. The next, maybe after spending 2 years spreading across all the weasels of upper winchester county, may affect the lungs again.
This is a lottery that's less fun to play...
(edited for clarity)