Not sure if this is allowed here and I mean no disrespect to anyone’s views. However, I am curious how this transition was experienced by folks here.
In March 2020, it was quite taboo to ignore the guidelines in many places, and laws were strictly enforced. Now, the vast majority have essentially returned to “normal life”. Basically a complete 180 in right around 4 years.
Did you see this outcome coming?
Was there a tipping point?
Did your views evolve over time? Or diverge in specific ways?
As someone in the middle of the spectrum, the trajectory the pandemic took (in terms of how serious people took guidelines) seemed somewhat unsurprising and inevitable. Personally, I picked up a couple of good habits like being stringent with hand washing and never going into the office sick (regardless of illness).
Just interested in other peoples perspective on this if you care to share :)
Yes. Since the beginning the push was to not close down because "the economy." A better historian of the pandemic might've saved the numerous videos in early 2020 of various think tank ghouls going on live TV to suggest (paraphrased) "the amount of people we'll save is not worth it to shut down the economy." Spring 2020 I expressed to my sister the fear that Trump was going to stop testing because less tests=less covid. It was later that year he actually suggested it, and then of course this is what has actually happened throughout the Biden years.
I saw the current "just ignore covid and act like everything's normal" state of affairs coming from the start, but I think the biggest moment this became clear was when vaccines were announced. Like Spring or Summer 2020 my mom says "did you hear, they're aiming to have vaccines by the end of the year" and my heart just dropped. It was clear at that moment that how we were going to "get out" of the pandemic was a vaccine-only response. We'd hold together some semblance of covid restrictions until the vaccines were available, then we'd gradually remove any and all protections. And that's exactly what happened.
Yeah late 2019/early 2020 I really didn't care about covid. I thought the fears about covid were just anti-China propaganda (and in my defense a lot of the early reporting on Covid did amount to anti-China propaganda). My dad, and to a lesser extent my mom, was actually the ones who cared about covid first. That first week in March when we shut down I actually went to hang out maskless at my friend's place (of course we were still being told not to wear masks so of course I was maskless). I think later that week is when I had the sudden realization that oh shit this is a pandemic that's overloading our health care system, and that Covid was a big deal.
2020 was actually probably the time I felt best because most people around me also cared to some extent. Some people cared more than others, but it all sort of evened out to an okay equilibrium of my community as a whole caring about covid. However as everyone has decided Covid no longer matters, I've had to correct in the opposite direction, becoming more cautious and more restrictive wrt what I do. If other people aren't going to take care of the community, then I need to pick up the slack to take care of myself.