A bizarre thing that just occurred to me is because of the Russia news, Covid response is effectively over now. We have completely stopped talking about it, and when we’re done with the Russia stuff, we are not going to start talking about it again.
Basically everything is already open and mask mandates at this point are essentially private business dress codes, so the only thing that was keeping any semblance of an actual mitigation strategy afloat with people talking about it, which we won’t do any more.
Not that what is happening in Ukraine isn’t a humanitarian atrocity but it will likely lead to far fewer deaths than have occurred because of Covid, a thing still killing thousands daily and we have all forgotten about in like 24 hours.
Same on the hypochondria. I'm only reading about this stuff because I've already gotten some degree of long covid from the first wave, and I need to convince myself that it still makes sense to do everything in my power to avoid getting infected again. That's been my gut feeling this whole time but the chorus of voices calling inevitable, inevitable, succumb to the virus has just been getting louder and louder.
I hope you stay healthy.
Thanks - you too!