Shoulda been a Tweet: a few links
Stat has an interesting opinion piece about COVID denialism. I think I needed to read that, a healthy reminder that most people do believe that the pandemic is real and is dangerous. I was losing sight of how much my perceptions were being shaped seeing and hearing COVID deniers online.
I don't agree with everything in that piece. For example, the authors claim that closing public schools was probably the biggest blunder during the pandemic. I think the authors are doing a little of what they're cautioning against. The closing of public schools is/was tragic, but it wasn't simply a blunder. Teachers were, understandably, concerned about the prospects of daily, long-term contact indoors with loads of people from outside their immediate household. Teachers were also concerned that their voices were being removed from the discussion. We could have used more patience and understanding and an acknowledgement that everyone wanted to see kids and teachers safely hitting the books. Instead we had people claiming that teachers' unions were happy to secure paid time off for their members. We ignore public schools and teachers until their absence interferes with our schedules.
The biggest blunder was at the top. Trump admitted to Bob Woodward that he knew about the dangers of the pandemic and intentionally downplayed them to avoid a panic. The virus was going to kill a lot of people no matter how we responded, but I'd sure like to have another chance for Trump to calmly and soberly warn us in February about the dangers and the need to take it seriously, free from politics.
Another good opinion piece in the New York Times by Paul Kolbe, who writes about the reality of cyber warfare. Some of our elected officials have been referring to the recent Solarwinds hack as an act of war, a modern day Pearl Harbor. I don't think it benefits anyone to pretend we're not doing the same thing.
This last link is a little more fun - Kroger's summary of what we've been eating and drinking during the pandemic.