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When are we going to start putting all these efforts and resources into focusing on the vulnerable populations and not painting with a broad brush.
We know that lockdowns are too blunt an instrument which is why most of Europe is having to engage in ever more draconian measures. We are mortgaging our future here, without questioning the cost.
We don't need more of the same. It's not a question of willpower. It's a question of approach, and currently nobody is asking the hard questions.
EDIT It seems downvote brigade has arrived to ensure that any contrarian opinion is snuffed out. No rebuttal with data, just downvotes.
It's more complex than that. The UK is keeping things stable/frozen, but with nothing being produced, the value of their money is shifting.
You cannot keep paying people to do nothing. You have people in jobs where they are still employed, saving tons (because there's nothing to spend it on) and record buying of future e-waste (Going back to the 2000s, PS3 prices were back to normal two weeks before x-mas Christmas. PS5s are still $1000+ on eBay), and the income inequality is growing between those who happen to be in safe industries and those who weren't .. and it's arbitrary. Nothing has changed for the manager at a Wal-Mart, or a UPS driver or an engineer, but it has for the restaurant manager or someone who owns a small corner store in California.
The completely arbitrary and almost random lock-down decisions have crushed all small business, giving over their entire customer bases to large big box stores.
The people with their small businesses don't want handouts. They'll take it sure, but they want to work. Some have shifted and found new creative ways to make money. That's the nature of capitalism. You do what you have to, within the limits we've evolved over the past 100 years (no more child labor; pure capitalism without regulation is bad), to offer goods and services people want. But many are struggling.
In contrast, the earlier larger unemployment payments provided a perverse incentive to keep people from returning to jobs that had reopened. Lowering them a bit has helped those return to jobs that were there, but it's been devastating to those who have nothing to go back to.
We cannot just inject money. Social welfare has been a disaster in many respect. Only only need to watch modern documentary that break the bubble: "What Killed Michael Brown" and "Uncle Tom" to see how the perverse incentives from badly constructed government systems actually hurt a lot of low income communities and destroyed families.
There is a lot of talk about "A great reset," used in many countries to indicate a global agenda to fundamentally change economic models. Make no mistake, people at the top with influence are not going to give up or redistribute their wealth. Bezos, Gates and others at the top will hold on to their wealth. But reconstruction could destroy people under a certain income threshold if it's not done correctly.
People need merit and value, and the draconian COVID regulations have removed personal agency from the masses.
The response here in Washington State has resulted in permanent closure of more businesses than deaths with covid within the state.
Honestly, that's just good policy on all Apple updates lately. It seems that more and more of them have been plagued with issues and are trailed by hotfixes. I've learned to just wait a while. Other people can be the test guinea pigs!