03-27-2020, 07:09 PM
(03-27-2020, 05:37 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:(03-27-2020, 05:23 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: If you mean, completely back to normal, schools reopened, covid was like a passing dream, no, that's not going to happen.
For completeness, I'll present two theories for why things will get back to normal completely. I don't believe either of them, but they might serve as a good counterbalance to the doomsaying that's rampant.
Both of these theories rely on the fact that all covid epidemics that have risen to a problematic number of cases so far have peaked and gone away with a much lower peak that simple models of the disease would predict.
The first theory, which I saw in an article citing an Israeli scientist, is that the reason the peak is so low is because most people already have preexisting immunity. By this theory, I guess, most people have gotten immunity from other coronaviruses that cause colds. The epidemic only rips through the small fraction of people who don't have such immunity.
The second theory is that there are so many more cases than are detected that the visible peaks are just the tip of the iceberg, and instead of affecting only the 1% of the population that are identified to have disease, actually something like 50% of the population gets it, and the 1% are only the most serious cases.
I have reasons I don't believe either of these theories, but they aren't any more ridiculous than some of the doomsaying that's going around.
In no way is this criticism of what you say. There is a bear in the woods, so to speak.
Nobody knows how nasty COVID-19 is. Note well that people of advantage by world standards (which even includes most poor people in America and First World countries) rarely die of infectious diseases of the respiratory tract. One of the usual signs of underdevelopment in a country is that a significant larger number of people die of such diseases. Maybe such diseases kill people already dying of other causes or the pariahs of society (IV drug users, sex workers, prisoners -- see also HIV/AIDS)... but COVID-19 has killed people here and elsewhere of comparative privilege, including the mayor of a large city in China, an Iranian general, a retired Mafia-ravaging judge in Italy, and Spanish nobility. In America it killed a high-ranking cop, aged 63, in Wayne County (Greater Detroit), Michigan. If an infectious disease can kill such people it is killing people whom one least likely expects to die of such causes. Do I consider myself safe? Hell no!
COVID-19 is comparatively new to the world, so its prognosis is not as well known as might give one some comfort. I know well enough how to avoid HIV/AIDS even if I am no expert on any phase of medicine, but I cannot say the same about COVID-19. We all used to do things that would put us at risk of it, and we do not do the same things now even if we wanted to). We may be over-cautious, but we may be preventing a large number of pointless deaths.
It is not by coincidence that I used the death tolls of current and prior wars as potential analogues of the potential of mass death involving Americans. So far the big news of 2020 has been preparation for the 2020 Presidential election until COVID-19 made that much less pressing. The war that I highlighted was the War in Vietnam, a war that cost nearly 60,000 lives and served no desirable end for American diplomacy or foreign policy. (About the only good that one can find in it is that America got another model minority and some good, inexpensive restaurants). The death toll looks higher already (if it isn't there already, then it will soon be) to the consequences of the 9/11 attack that infuriated Americans across every usual divide.
It took us time to figure out what HIV/AIDS was doing, and protections against it (like not fornicating recklessly, using condoms, refraining from IV drug use -- and very early, testing blood and tissue samples for the virus) were easy to apply. Behavior that spread HIV/AIDS were mostly vices*, anyway. Ways that spread COVID-19 have been very normal behavior, and much of this behavior is denied to us for a considerable time.
...Things will get back to normal, more or less, with some habits changed permanently. The biggest change will be in the failure of some businesses that were already dying, especially in the restaurant and retail business. People obviously recognize the severity
of the situation and the abnormality of the temporary changes demanded of us. People are taking economic hits in stride as one never expected until recently (probably because Americans are ripe for Crisis mode as they were not, let us say in 2001. Getting back to normal? Who does not want that! he big question for many is whether they will survive to see life go back to normal.
Note well: there is no power grab, and so far few conspiracy theories are floating around. If anyone puts blame on anyone then it is for incompetence or neglect, which both can be as harmful as deliberate design in effect. We can trust that as more behaviors are deemed safe, then such behaviors that have been precluded to most of us will again be permitted.
*Homosexuality is not a vice in itself. Homophobia is.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.