Sam Lowry said:
Harrison Bergeron said:
HuMcK said:
See paragraph 2 of the comment you replied to. The rest of us want a return to normalcy and are tired of the wild conspiracies and resistance theater from a vocal minority. High case counts and death rates, now being driven largely by unvaccinated populations, are an impediment to the economy as a whole. Each new surge costs more resources and human capital. Seven hundred fourteen thousand deaths and counting now, over 99% of them in the last wave were unvaccinated.
Early on the right wing narrative was that some sacrifice of lives was acceptable, even necessary, to sustain the economy. The majority of America ended up deciding that a small sacrifice of personal liberty, i.e. mandating a proven safe and effective vaccination, is an acceptable cost to move past the pandemic.
The case counts and death rates should have little impact on the economy. If anything, it drives profits and OT for health care workers, and it makes more jobs available to the unemployed. The only thing economically impacted is by the lockdowns. Similarly, the disruptions in some industries and firing essential workers is causing the harm not covid.
I don't know why you always reflexively go to binary tribal silliness, but by the same token the left wing narrative was "don't trust Trump's vaccine."
For the record, I think everyone > 30 should get vaccinated. The question that remains unanswered is why are people that are pro-vaccine so hysterical about the unvaccinated. If one believes it works, then one should resume life as normal. If I am vaccinated, I should not be afraid to fly because the stewardess or pilot is not vaccinated. That's irrational.
Only a small percentage of the economic impact was caused by lockdowns.
"The vaccine works or it doesn't" is a false dichotomy. It works well overall, better for some than others, and reduces stress on hospitals so they can care for more patients with other needs as well as those with Covid.
Paper says "suggests". You state it as fact.
Then this: "They then looked at COVID-19 deaths and
estimated changes in employment at the county level,
relying a range of
nontraditional data, including from mobile devices, web searches, and business payrolls."
I don't know but I guess rather than taking all that time and money to produce a study that suggests and estimates results, I'd glanced at the GDP data. The biggest decline for the US in 70+ years. I would have seen most countries had a negative growth rate and many had a double digit drop. "Well, hmmm, what could have caused this? Surely not businesses being told to close and to have restrictions to return." Often, you need a dang academic study to know what is obvious. Some things are pretty simple.