(01-15-2022, 09:34 PM)tomh009 Wrote: So, let's assume we want to take this strategy. We build virus firewalls around hospitals, retirement homes, hospices, urgent care centres and other medical offices. That's a lot of firewalls, but let's assume it can all be done.
But, how do we protect and isolate the elderly people living alone? The homeless people? The indigenous? The chronically ill or immunodeficient that are still living independently? We can't build protections around everyone's residence, let alone their workplaces.
I understand the concept of what you are proposing, but I don't see how we would be able to make it work in practice. Is there a country out there that has successfully implemented this that you could point to as an example?
We truly can't achieve that IMO. The thing is, this pandemic threw everyone into some hyper reactive mindset. Suddenly, we want to protect the elderly, the immunocompromised, Indigenous and other minorities etc. But we cannot reach every single one of them. Sorry to say, but that's just philosophical pragmatism and reality. [Edit: We can and should be doing so much more to reach certain groups, such as the Indigenous or eldery who live alone. We can organize volunteer groups to reach out to them or blame public health for that, but indeed, we can be doing more for such people.] No matter what we do, we're going to have people impacted by this and some will die. If this was a war, well, there are only so many people you can fit into bomb shelters, meaning many are going to senselessly die. We can do our best to combat that, but there is only so much we can do before we start impacting the lives of others who may not have any risk from this virus/disease, but may find themselves homeless, taking drugs, starving, sinking into debt, finding their relationships failing and the entire economies of nations falling apart etc.
If we really cared about all lives, then we'd all be out there getting flu shots each season, but so many of us don't. I don't want to suggest we put certain people at risk - family members, others and even my own self know we are all at risk for one reason or another - but we're eventually going to hit a point where we have to accept that we cannot protect everyone by forcing everyone to do A or B. So we need to force the rest who will not cooperate to do C and D, so that the majority can return to normal life. The virus is likely going to be endemic for some time, so IMO we need to begin readjusting our strategies on how we deal with that reality on a long term basis.
I just think we're starting to hit a point where...we need to accept this virus is out there and uncontainable right now. It's not going to go away for a long time. We dropped the ball already and there is no fixing it at this point, but we likely could have...who knows, we haven't faced a virus of this magnitude in a very long time. There is so much more suffering happening that is not directly related to infection/disease but is still harming and even killing people. We need to start rethinking how we handle this as it continues that allows civilization to continue to function whilst protecting those remaining people who are predisposed to having poorer odds should they contract this and improving the lives of those who have already been infected by this (whether they got sick, lost a loved one, a business, ended up on the streets, addicted to drugs, fell into poverty etc).
We've got the short term strategies down alright - masks, vaccines, limitations - but it's time we think longer term to figure out how we deal with what is likely doing to be an endemic virus so we can stop curtailing freedoms everyone wants, otherwise, you're just going to alienate more and more people. The political divisiveness is already very extreme and may only worsen and I am not sure people really comprehend how much that matters to us as a nation/planet. The PPC and all these reactionaries aren't going to just go away when the WHO says this is over, for example. This will have serious, century long impacts on how we function as a civilization.