“…the truth is: humans have no choice but to live with viruses. We always have. I’ve lived with a potentially fatal one buried in my bone marrow for almost 30 years. I still test HIV-positive. Almost certainly, I will die HIV-positive. But I will not die of HIV. And that’s ok. As long as I can prevent it from wreaking havoc on my immune system and ruining and ending my life, I’m content to live with it. We’re almost friends at this point.
Viruses challenge the psyche, and the trick, it seems to me, is not to deny their power and danger, but to see past them to the real goal: the living of your life. If you are not careful, this one viral threat can crowd out all other perspectives, distort your judgment of risk, and cause you to be paralyzed by excessive caution and fear. But defeating a virus often does mean living with it. We already do this with infectious viruses like influenza, HIV, hepatitis, polio, RSV and many more. There’s no reason we can’t do it with Covid as well.
The key question here is: don’t we really want to get back to living? I do. So take the rational precautions — a solid vaccine — and go about your business as you always did.
Yes, I’ll wear a mask indoors if I’m legally required or politely asked. But, in a free society, once everyone has access to a vaccine that overwhelmingly prevents serious sickness and death, there is no reason to enforce lockdowns again or mask mandates or social distancing any longer. The healthcare system is not on the verge of collapse so the logic for lockdowns and masking has completely disappeared.
People are responsible for their own lives.
Our government cannot be held responsible for the sickness and death that continues to occur from COVID-19 if they have already provided the means to avoid it with effective vaccines. The government can do some things — like making vaccination mandatory for federal workers and contractors, and especially in the military as George Washington did in the Revolutionary War for smallpox. It could offer money — or entry into a lottery, as many states are doing. All good. But the most potent incentive for vaccination is, to be brutally frank, a sharp rise in mortality rates. The more people who know someone who has suffered and died, the likelier they will see the logic of taking measures to avoid the same fate and get vaccinated.
Those who live in denial, who have somehow convinced themselves that the virus is a hoax or a deep-state plot or a function of white supremacy or whatever, will experience what everyone in denial eventually experiences: reality. And reality is the most tenacious influencer I know…”
taken from “How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Live With The Virus”, by Andrew Sullivan
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