You talk about young people as if in their own world able to act autonomously away from the rest of society. Young people have parents. And they frequently rely on them into their mid-twenties. Many young people lost one or both of their parents from this (and other people they loved dearly). As has been repeated elsewhere, dying isn’t the only thing their parents and loved ones have to worry about having had COVID. The purpose of the lockdowns was to try to prevent this.

And so I can ask the same question, why are you disregarding the harm done to them (them being the young people)?

We have vaccines now, we aren't in the same situation as the beginning of the pandemic.

The purpose of the lockdown wasn't to prevent deaths, it was to prevent the hospital systems collapsing.

>wasn't to prevent deaths

>it was to prevent the hospital systems collapsing

Can you please apply this logic a little further as to what would occur if the hospital systems collapsed? Do you want me to spell it out for you?

Yea, it would have caused more deaths from lack of treatment from additional surgeries, heart attacks and cancers which would have been left untreated. It would have put an absolutely devastating consequence on social care that would have a long lasting impact.

It would have also prevented scaling of health systems due to a distinct and dramatic shortage in staffing and long term backlog.

The decision above was purely economic. You would have to be really stupid to think the people in charge would shut down trillion dollar industries because the parents of some children died.

None of that is what could be derived or implied from your statement you condescending prick. If that is what you were implying, maybe you should get a better grasp of English so that your point could come across clearer.

I apologize for adding unnecessary flame to the conversation. I shouldn't have responded the way I did and should have instead clarified my position. I'm a little tired of reading COVID anecdotes and brought that into my response to you. That's on me.

>The decision above was purely economic.

I think it's hyperbolic to say that it was purely economic. Everything we do has some connection to the economy. Everyone in this thread, including myself, is basically making an economic argument facaded by an emotional one. But to say it's purely economic forgets the connection we have with people and the reason why we want the hospitals to be open for people who need care. A real sort of "collapse" happened for some rural family members. They don't have a hospital for their whole county and have to rely on another county's hospital. After they ran out of beds, the people in that town just had to wait and hope whatever ailment they had could be resolved elsewhere.

Back to the economy, obviously bad mental health has long lasting effects and that has secondary effects on the economy. I'm not so sure the alternative, the one where everything is kept open, would have worked. The "hospitals will collapse" scare tactic was only one aspect of what would have been a much larger collapse. Not just economic, but societal.

>You would have to be really stupid to think the people in charge would shut down trillion dollar industries because the parents of some children died.

You mean the hospitals? With a health system collapse, they just wouldn't be able to handle a lot of cases like you said. It wouldn't shut down in the sense that it would be 100% ineffective, just that

Your first point makes no sense. The logic follows that we should have let the original and more deadly variants rip through society?

Young people are part of society so they are obligated to protect it.

The only reason we locked down initially was to "flatten the curve". This doesn't mean eliminate the virus, it meant slow it down long enough for the hospital system and government agencies to catch up in preparation. But even then, it was understood that this virus was going to be endemic and that elimination was never a possibility.

> Young people are part of society so they are obligated to protect it.

The point is that the part of society being protected is largely confined to older parts of the population, while much of the costs of doing so are disproportionately coming down on younger people. It's easy to say "do your part to protect society", but when the part of society being protected is the mental, social, and emotional development and well being of young people, as well as technical skills and future job prospects, older people seemingly have no problem casting it aside for what benefits them the most.

You're not the same person I was replying too or is it an alt account?

Either way, I didn't say anything about eliminating the virus. Hospital systems are still at risk of being overwhelmed... that's why restrictions are still in place.

You're acting like younger people are the only people affected by the restrictions.

I’m not an alt account, I just agree with them and disagree with you.

> You're acting like younger people are the only people affected by the restrictions.

I’m not, but I’m saying the calculus of restrictions only makes sense for the older parts of society. Younger people are getting a raw deal. They are far less financially secure, established in their careers, their education, their social lives, and even in their personal development. Immense damage is being done in all of these areas to protect society from a disease that isn’t actually a threat to the young in any large degree. Older generations are sacrificing less due to the restrictions, but are reaping all of the benefits. This is especially galling considering the availability of effective vaccines that prevent severe disease and death, meaning that whatever risk does exist for these older generations is largely mitigated for them except for those who refuse vaccination.

So yes, it is enormously selfish for our society to throw young people under the bus to protect the most selfish portion of older, more well-to-do generations who refuse to protect themselves.

> The logic follows that we should have let the original and more deadly variants rip through society?

I participate in two communities - one that completely ignores COVID (except for a couple months at the very very beginning). They don't test, they don't care if someone is positive. Lots of people are vaccinated, but lots aren't (they all had COVID, they can't think of any reason to get vaccinated since they already are immnune).

And another one that is freaked out about COVID, mask wearing, vaccine or you are excluded from everything, social distancing, keep everything closed.

Somehow the longterm death rate is the same in both - except for those first few months. But the mental health in the open community is far better.

It's over. COVID is over. It's time to stop closing everything. Take the vaccine (or don't if that's the risk you chose to take), and stop this meaningless theater.

Anecdotes are useless. And my experience has been the opposite of yours. Nil deaths, one infection, same mental health for the cares-about-COVID community. The community that doesn’t has had 3 deaths, dozens of infections, and worsened mental health from the deaths of loved ones.

So why am I supposed to give more of a shit about your anecdote than my experience again?

>It's over. COVID is over. It's time to stop closing everything.

Uh we know. We’re talking about what happened in the past. Everyone has been using past tense verbs.

I don't care about your two communities to be honest