still think it's fucking WILD how many leftists are critical and disbelieve the gov't on everything, but totally buy the "covid is over" narrative
@charli_gremlin Iโ€™m not sure itโ€™s a COVID is over narrative so much as COVID is forever. We will never put that cat back in the bag, itโ€™s no longer an emergency because itโ€™s now the norm for both society and government.
@Siberian @charli_gremlin Normalising mass death and disability-- in the tens and hundreds of millions-- is not exactly a leftist position.
@anarchautist @charli_gremlin We have done so for heart disease and cancer, both of which killed more people last year. Cancer certainly is also in the running for disability as well. COVID is going to join those diseases as a normal cause of death and disability. This isnโ€™t a political position, itโ€™s reality, there isnโ€™t a leftist position - beyond the normal support for medical care for all.

@Siberian @charli_gremlin You're betraying how un-normal this situation is when you have to lump hundreds of diseases (re: cancer) together to surpass the death toll from ONE virus and disease.

No, this is not a normal situation, and it's completely avoidable.

@anarchautist @charli_gremlin As someone personally affected by cancer on multiple occasions I do not see it as hundreds of different diseases. Itโ€™s one.

If you truly feel the need to argue brain cancer is a different then lung cancer, different then thyroid cancerโ€ฆ well how many different varieties of COVID are there now? Hundreds?

@anarchautist @charli_gremlin Disease is part of the human condition, pandemics are as old as civilization itself. On a whole we have navigated this one fairly well. Not as well as we could have hoped, but not terribly. Spanish Flu killed 21M globally, COVID while deadly is only 1/3 of that.

@Siberian @charli_gremlin One, it's not over yet. Two, you're looking only at reported deaths. The excess deaths during the pandemic are 2-4 times higher than the reported deaths, which is on par (or higher) than the figure you cite despite medical advances.

Three, you're only looking at the acute stage of infection. The acute stages of infection of HIV/AIDS, HPV/cancer, polio, chicken pox/shingles, and EBV/MS are all very mild in comparison to the chronic stages.

Four, you're looking solely at (reported) fatality. You're not considering the impact of debility when 37-49% of infections result in long-covid 4 months later, and a huge loss of quality of life.

No one asked you to simp for a disease.