Over the Christmas holiday weekend, Shadi Hamid had a really stupid Twitter thread, blaming ‘liberals’ for anti-vaccination attitudes among conservatives. Leaving aside the Murc’s Law violation, one phrase that pisses me off is Hamid’s notion of “endless COVID restrictions”.

First, the places that have the fewest restriction–or don’t have any–are the ones that caterwaul the loudest about said restrictions. In most places, after June 2020, we haven’t really done any significant lockdowns, and outside of a few cities (the actual cities, not the larger metro areas), there have been few or no restrictions at all (and miss me with the ‘sometimes I have to wear a mask’ crap–the only adverse effects of mask wearing is melodramatic whining). Schools did have masks, but that was largely because kids couldn’t be vaccinated.

Which brings me to the second point: COVID prevalence still matters (as everyone but Hamid and other Thinky Thought Leaders realizes with Omicron). If you look outside and there’s a slight fog, you don’t even need an umbrella, but if there’s three inches per hour of rain, you seek shelter on high ground. Given that a reasonable estimate of the percentage of infected and likely infectious people is somewhere between one to four percent of the total population in hard hit areas (and two doses doesn’t seem to provide much protection against infection), we’re definitely on the three inches per hour end of the spectrum right now.

And it’s not unreasonable to want to avoid an infection that leads to a small but not trivial rate of long-term disability (hopefully, third doses diminishe that). You’re not being a hypochondriac. That’s normal.

Anyway, since I’m on semi-vacation blogging schedule, this is my way of saying Happy Fucking Tuesday.