I find it interesting that this is the conclusion you draw from this. I won’t go into a discussion on the efficacy of the various mandates and policies in reducing spread of the disease. Rather, I think it’s worth pointing out that a significant portion of the proponents of these policies likely supported them not because of a desire to follow the authority but because they sincerely believed that a (for them) relatively small sacrifice in personal freedom could lead to improved outcomes for their fellow humans. For them, it was never about blindly following authority or virtue signalling. It was only ever about doing what they perceived as the right thing to do.

It is so easy to critique the response in hindsight. Or at the time.

But critiques like that ignore uncertainty, risk, and unavoidably getting it "wrong" (on any and all dimensions), no matter what anyone did.

With a new virus successfully circumnavigating the globe in a very short period of time, with billions of potential brand new hosts to infect and adapt within, and no way to know ahead of time how virulent and deadly it could quickly evolve to be, the only sane response is to treat it as extremely high risk.

There is no book for that. Nobody here or anywhere knows the "right" response to a rapidly spreading (and killing) virus, unresponsive to current remedies. Because it is impossible to know ahead of time.

If you actually have an answer for that, you need to write that book.

And take into account, that a lot of people involved in the last response, are very cognizant that we/they can learn from what worked, what didn't, etc. That is the valuable kind of 20-20 vision.

A lot of at-risk people made it to the vaccines before getting COVID. The ones I know are very happy about everything that reduced their risk. They are happy not to have died, despite those who wanted to let the disease to "take its natural course".

And those that died, including people I know, might argue we could have done more, acted as a better team. But they don't get to.

No un-nuanced view of the situation has merit.

The most significant thing we learned: a lot of humanity is preparing to be a problem if the next pandemic proves ultimately deadlier. A lot of humanity doesn't understand risk, and doesn't care, if doing so requires cooperative efforts from individuals.

You should study the prevention paradox.

"Nazi", "Fascist", etc are words you can use to lose any debate instantly no matter what your politics are.

I think the sane version of this is that Gen Z didn't just lose its education, it lost its socialization. I know someone who works in administration of my Uni who tracks general well being of students who said they were expecting it to bounce back after the pandemic and they've found it hasn't. My son reports if you go to any kind of public event be it a sewing club or a music festival people 18-35 are completely absent. My wife didn't believe him but she went to a few events and found he was right.

You can blame screens or other trends that were going on before the pandemic, but the pandemic locked it in. At the rate we're going if Gen Z doesn't turn it around in 10 years there will not be a Gen Z+2.

So the argument that pandemic policy added a few years to elderly lives at the expensive of the young and the children that they might have had is salient in my book -- I had to block a friend of mine on Facebook who hasn't wanted to talk about anything but masks and long COVID since 2021.

Never seen the attempt by governments to contain a global pandemic that killed millions and threatened to overwhelm healthcare compared to Nazism before, but why should I be surprised? Explains a lot about the sorry state of modern politics.

Great zinger buddy, you really showed off your wit.

That's a slightly odd way of looking at it. I'm guessing the people developing airplanes or whatever thought of a number of things including - hey this would be cool to do - and - maybe we can make some money - and - maybe this will help people travel - and - maybe it'll impress the girls - and probably some other things too. At least that's roughly how I've thought when I make stuff, never this will give a small group an advantage.

Vacuum cleaner -> sell appliances -> sell electric motors

But there was a clear advantage in quality of life for a lot of people too.

Automobile -> part of industrialization of transport -> faster transport, faster world

Arguably also a big increase in quality of life but it didn't scale that well and has also reduced the quality of life. If all that money had gone into public transport then that would likely have been a lot better.

Airplanes -> yes, definitely, but they were also clearly seen as an advantage in war, in fact that was always a major driver behind inventions.

Steam engine -> the mother of all prime movers and the beginnings of the fossil fuel debacle (coal).

Definitely a quality of life change but also the cause of the bigger problems we are suffering from today.

The 'coffin corner' (one of my hobby horses) is a real danger, we have, as a society, achieved a certain velocity, if we slow down too much we will crash, if we speed up the plane will come apart. Managing these transitions is extremely delicate work and it does not look as though 'delicate' is in the vocabulary of a lot of people in the driving seats.