Among the left-of-center PMC class, there is annoyance to outright fury at any suggestion that the most disastrous part of the pandemic might be over. It’s like the inverse of the “This is fine” meme.
Some of it might just be that people are interpreting the facts differently than I am. I try not to chalk up to ignorance or malice what could be explained by good faith disagreement. One might look at the current Omicron numbers and see no way for hospitals to avoid being utterly overwhelmed this winter, forcing people to cancel life-saving procedures to make way for Covid patients. Or they might anticipate that the sheer level of circulation guarantees that new strains will emerge that will be as contagious as Omicron and even more deadly than Delta. These, in my opinion, are not very good arguments, but they’re not made in bad faith.
But I can’t help but feel like the volcanic reaction from some quarters to any opinion that falls short of proclaiming the sky’s inevitable fall is fueled by something more visceral than mere disagreement on the merits. I have no proof of this and I could be wrong, but it seems like some people have a pathological need for the pandemic to continue. I’ve thought a lot about what could explain it, and I’m at a loss. I don’t even have a hypothesis. So I thought I’d smell test it here.
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