> Trying to strong-arm reluctant people into compliance with increasingly irrational protocols is not working.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, I've thought that our institutions are seriously lacking in their ability to influence human behavior. The only explanation I can think of for why we're trying to force people into compliance when we've got the largest and most effective propaganda machines in history is that the people at the reigns of tech companies have no incentives to invest in public health.
The problem is that all these tech companies profit off "engagement" and medicine-related skepticism, misinformation and the resulting arguing and anger creates much more engagement than if everyone just agreed with any single opinion.
As an alternative, try this: They believe in democracy, and that the existence of their technical power obliges them to not use it. Noblesse oblige in a modern way.
Is there any reason to believe that the National Review doesn't write this stuff because they want Trump back? I'm sorry that sounds political, but it seems like a pertinent question.
NR was a bastion, IIRC, of the largely failed and now also largely purged anti-Trump Republican faction, so its probably not that they want Trump. Though it could be virtue signaling to help get back in the good graces of the Trump-aligned faction, for whom opposition to COVID control measures has become a central issue of factional identity.
> NR was a bastion, IIRC, of the largely failed and now also largely purged anti-Trump Republican faction
As you say: Was a bastion.
And if the anti-Trump Republican faction is, as you also say, "largely failed and now also largely purged", then it seems at least plausible that it may be purged from the NR too nowadays.
The actual infection fatality rate in the US was never as high as 1.4%. The CDC estimated it at 0.6% back when almost no one was vaccinated. Now with vaccines and improved therapies the fatality rate is much lower.
The earliest IFR's were always around 0.3%, and nothing much changed since. Officially they inflated the numbers with tricks by factor 10 (ie reporting only the CFR). Statisticians were furious.
Severity changed drastically, with Delta suddenly targeting young people and long COVID. But people got vaccinated, IFR stayed low. Now severity is swinging down with Omicron.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, I've thought that our institutions are seriously lacking in their ability to influence human behavior. The only explanation I can think of for why we're trying to force people into compliance when we've got the largest and most effective propaganda machines in history is that the people at the reigns of tech companies have no incentives to invest in public health.