I kind of resent being lumped in with a politically motivated, black-and-white, feign ignorance kind of crowd. I try to assess the data as it arises, and the data about Omicron is markedly different than previous variants. I don't think I said anything in my comment that deserves this attack.

If anything, attacking anything that hints of "maybe we should reassess given current data" as being the same as the antimask/antivax rhetoric of the last two years is itself exactly what you are criticising.

We need a mechanism to separate academic inquiry from a political tactic that disguises itself as academic inquiry. Unfortunately, the courtesy of extending good faith by default has been heavily exploited, so out of strategic necessity many assume bad faith by default. Naturally, this assumption should be revised once somebody proves that they're actually interested in details rather than fighting. If we had alternative methods of proving "seriousness" (e.g. academic credentials in academic settings), we could sidestep the requirement, but here on the internet it probably has to be this way.

It's a pity, but no, it's not the same as antimask/antivax rhetoric.

I expanded on previous comments. Yours was 3 levels up. I wanted to make the exact point I did - a lot of black and white thinking is in fact manipulative.

Pretending that all those people don't understand does not help anything. Which is why I made that point.

It is repeated patten from the start of pandemic. If something is not 100% perfect, there is not point on doing it and anyone doing it is stupid sheep. No matter how full hospitals are, you are stupid sheep for doing small things that take chances down (like getting vaccine). Pretending that massive powerful media machine broadcasting these are just confused serves no one.