Participation in the ritual, which lacks pragmatic advantages and requires sacrifice, demonstrates that the collective is higher than the individual. For this portion of the population, it doesn’t matter whether the measures are absurd. Think of walking into a restaurant with a mask on, and removing it as soon as one sits down, for example.
The major conclusions drawn from this working paper are that lockdowns did very little if anything to help mitigate Covid-19 deaths, especially when you account for differences in demographics that give some states an advantage, and some a disadvantage.
What lockdowns and mandates have done to society is a painful truth, and one that we will be dealing with for many years. As much as we all just want it to go away, and as much as we all have great cause to celebrate this day, as much as the real of the mask mandate represents a symbolic end, no one should lose sight of the deeper problem: all of this happened to us, and not only to us but to billions of people the world over.
The last two years have confounded everyone who believed in the stability of American law, politics, public opinion, and the ideological attachments of both pundits and the general population. It’s all been turned upside down and inside out several times over. Anyone who thinks that we’ve all settled back into some mythical comfort bubbles of “liberals” vs “conservatives” is refusing to face post-pandemic politico-cultural realities.
Is liberalism a lost cause? Many say so. Many today dream that it would stay gone, forever doomed to be regarded as a failed experiment in a world longing for authoritarian control whether by the right, the left, the technocratic elite, or something else. Demoralized and depressed by so much “shock and awe,” and living in times of ubiquitous surveillance and unrelenting diktat, many others are inclined to give up the dream of freedom completely.
It’s possible that at some point down the line, Chinese authorities became convinced that their Wuhan lockdown actually worked, and that an aggressive level of nationalistic superiority was the reason that China justifies its position as the only country in the world to “eliminate” the virus through lockdowns.
Fighting mandates on college campuses is isolating and ostracizing. When faced with giving up your dreams, the coercion is unbearable. Many students have caved under the pressure.
The struggle against this darkness will surely take many years. Who and what will keep that struggle alive? What hurt will fuel the fight, keeping the fires of resentment burning, and what hurt – real as it may have been – will fade over time and hence be only a weak ally of the soldiers of the resistance?
For two years, the elite journalists, scientists, politicians, and health officials who speak for our most prestigious institutions have been conspicuously and vehemently deferential to the integrity of China’s Covid data.
Chinese Communist Party authorities are not fazed whatsoever by the human carnage they have manifested. In media appearances Monday, CCP leaders took to doubling down on “the measures” most admired by the Public Health cartel. They remain tethered to “Zero COVID” fanaticism, defiantly declaring that living with the virus remains off the table.
The Shanghai Catastrophe: Lockdown Ideology at Its Most Extreme Read More
Just as lockdowns showed very little concern for small businesses and the working classes, who were not in a position to move their lives to Zoom, and the vaccine mandates ignored population risk profiles and natural immunity, the push for contactless payment systems completely disregarded those who were not in a position to make the adjustment.
Covid restrictions amplified the issues by isolating me from the rest of the world, which caused me to forget some of the self-advocacy and socialization skills that I worked to develop throughout my life. Forgetting harms a differently abled individual’s ability to participate fully in community life. Many people do not know about or consider these problems.
