Anecdotal post, with deeper philosophic closing points:
I saw my docs this week.
One said I was safe - the other said stay home until you have had your vaccination. Thanks. Medical Industry.
One said "unless you wear an N95, masking is a speed bump at best - nothing stops an airborne virus except herd immunity gained through exposures and vaccines and virus mutation. People wearing cloth masks and surgical masks put out plenty enough of airborne Covid to keep it spreading. Touching sneeze and cough droplets has never been the real problem."
Yes, it might keep rural hospitals from getting overrun, but nothing will keep a major city or regional hospital from getting overrun. Driving business to big-city or regionally-dominant hospitals in "normal times" has unintended consequences during a pandemic.
Not gonna look it up, but I suspect history shows that every disease with an overall survival rate of 98-99+% (like Covid) will still have a much lower survival rate for folks over 70 and folks with pre-existing health problems before they caught the new one. I would bet that - in the end - the Covid numbers will not prove to be different in a statistically-significant way.
Likewise, history will show that all diseases also have non-lethal complications rangeing from minor to severe in a small percentage of cases, some unique, some driven by other health conditions. The jury is stillout on the rates/consequences of Covid, but again I would bet that - in the end - the Covid numbers will not prove to be different in a statistically-significant way, or prove to be unique in this regard either.
The main difference about Covid is not a medical or scientific difference. The disease has progressed like all others before it. But Covid has been politicized more than any other past pandemic or epidemic - due in part to the prevalance of developed-world social media. After living through it, it is easier to understand how a government which controls the message could convince its people to believe almost anything. Easier to understand how a 1920-30's Germany convinced its people to target Jews and Slavs. Easier to see how even a US government can - and soon will? - convince its own to attack a segment of its own, to see how one segment turns on another. Radical Islam is not the only group than can radicalize folks. My estimate is that about 80,000,000 US citizens/residents could currently be convinced by their respective Vote Whores to hit the streets in search of The Enemy. More than that are already willing to attack The Enemy in an anonymous internet manner. Give them a bandana and a pitchfork and few neighbors to hide amongst and: