Originally, we were told that governments can assume unprecedented control over our lives, businesses, and even our own faces for the goal of not overrunning hospitals. A year later, as we come increasingly close to herd immunity, not only are hospitals in no danger of being overrun, but it turns out that people have likely contracted the virus at a rate that would have occurred without any of these restrictions – and their calamitous damage to society. Twelve months later, it's all pain and no gain.
We've always known that the number of confirmed COVID cases in a given region is only a fraction of the likely infection rate. Now, according to Great Britain's Office for National Statistics (ONS), 54.7% of people in England in a random sample of 30,000 have SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, which includes people who have had been infected or have been vaccinated. Those are the sort of numbers we were promised would happen only if we just "let the virus rip" without any non-pharmaceutical interventions, aka lockdowns and mask-wearing. But it turns out that the virus was always gonna virus, regardless of what hocus-pocus was thrown in front of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment