The pandemic was something we didn’t deal with properly as a society, precisely because people were smeared and shamed for having questions and concerns (however valid).
We could’ve done better. We are less prepared as a society than we otherwise would’ve been if COVID didn’t become a partisan issue, with major experts (from my POV) doing everything they could to not alleviate and address concerns, instead encouraging a culture of fear and a culture of shaming and smearing people who question authority, with no shades of gray.
If experts encouraged and facilitated dialogue and education, if hospitals/businesses/etc. were held to account for not having proper stocks of PPE or other sensible mitigations to deal with a pandemic, if ventilation became a bigger concern for businesses to address… I could go on. Things could’ve been better.
They still can be better, especially if we welcome questions and concerns and address them fairly, instead of picking the most outrageous examples of questions and concerns, and acting as if anybody who questions the experts or authority (in a general sense) are just as outrageous or dangerous.
The pandemic was something we didn’t deal with properly as a society, precisely because people were smeared and shamed for having questions and concerns (however valid).
We could’ve done better. We are less prepared as a society than we otherwise would’ve been if COVID didn’t become a partisan issue, with major experts (from my POV) doing everything they could to not alleviate and address concerns, instead encouraging a culture of fear and a culture of shaming and smearing people who question authority, with no shades of gray.
If experts encouraged and facilitated dialogue and education, if hospitals/businesses/etc. were held to account for not having proper stocks of PPE or other sensible mitigations to deal with a pandemic, if ventilation became a bigger concern for businesses to address… I could go on. Things could’ve been better.
They still can be better, especially if we welcome questions and concerns and address them fairly, instead of picking the most outrageous examples of questions and concerns, and acting as if anybody who questions the experts or authority (in a general sense) are just as outrageous or dangerous.