I never said that old people are worthless. I just said that, it does not make sense to fight a virus with clearly-defined risk categories by shuttering a whole society. And yes, I know the argument about "even if you won't have a bad outcome you will spread infection which will eventually kill grandma".

Overwhelmed healthcare systems are something we need an economy that's actually working to support. But note that most of what you've heard about ICU overrun is more or less a complete fabrication. Even New York, which got absolutely ravaged, had certain hospitals overflowing, yet nearby hospitals had tons of capacity. So yes, it's not ideal to have to shuffle patients around, but that's how our system is designed - we've had to do exactly that for just bad flu seasons, etc.

Anyway, ultimately, I feel that we are harming Grandma more with the lockdowns, particularly given that there is essentially no correlation between locking down and preventing death (actually the correlation is negative, and the inverse correlation, death being correlated with lockdown, supposedly does not exist although I didn't run the numbers myself to verify if that claim was true).

Finally, if you think about someone who is 80 years old and maybe has a couple health conditions, and thus a short life expectancy: What is the marginal cost to them of being locked down for a year? That might be 33% of their remaining life-time. Now, I'm not elderly so I can't speak for them, but I think many of us young-ish people have failed to think about the notion that the marginal utility of being able to live a normal life should be higher for old people. They more or less live in physical discomfort, and so the whole point of life at that age is to interact with your loved ones, sit on the patio and bask in the sun (or go to the beach), etc.

So, really we should give people the choice. If they want to self isolate and live a life bereft of human contact, more power to them. But to force it upon people who don't want it - which includes some or maybe many highly-at-risk old people with comorbidities - is wrong, in my opinion.

We (society) tried to act that haircuts, going to sports games, going to the beach, going to bars, etc were "non-essential". But when you think about it, that's literally what life is.

I get very saddened when I see 6 year olds walking around wearing masks (BTW, I always see them pull down their masks to wipe the sweat that has coated their face under the mask, which is one of many reasons why masks probably don't even work in the general public). It's extra sad when you realize that not only are kids not personally at risk, but overwhelming evidence shows - much to my personal surprise - that they don't even spread the damn thing in significant numbers.

No, everything about our response is wrong and counter-productive in my book, and it makes me sad that I can't express those views publicly without being screamed at by people who are, quite literally, brainwashed.

Fuck, the amount of people who used to show up to the office with very obvious flu symptoms a year ago, and now are screeching at people on twitter for having a maskless gathering in their backyard - is super depressing. The level of hypocrisy and more importantly, completely irrational risk appraisal, is so concerning to me. There's just no logical consistency to be found anywhere, I'm afraid.