1. This isn’t the same virus as at the start of the pandemic.
2. There is a treatment protocol for COVID, unlike at the start of the pandemic.
3. There are now vaccines. There is now a large portion of the population that has vaccine immunity.
4. There is now a large portion of the population that has natural immunity.
5. It should be abundantly clear that case counts is no longer a meaningful metric.
6. Covid is a disease that has markedly different effects based upon the host’s age, medical condition, etc. There is no equivalent level of risk.
7. Most of the population, think working class and kids, cannot sustain continued lockdown conditions without serious mental/economic effects. They don’t have the privilege of the laptop class to just dial in from an office.
8. It should be clear that universally containing an aerosol virus like COVID is impossible. What is possible is targeted containment, I.e. keeping nursing homes under more precautions.
Re hospital capacity, Hospitals run close to their limit. I have been in and out of the medical system my whole life and can assure that delays, cancellations, etc are nothing new. Is there strain during the new waves? Of course. But these are waves and they will come and pass. As well perhaps firing unvaccinated nurses wasn’t a good idea? People can choose to isolate during the waves if they want, but if they feel they feel like they have no need to (vaccine immunity, natural immunity). And as a father of small children, I cannot in good conscience continue to deny them a childhood for a virus that they themselves have extremely little risk of. The human brain is only developing during its childhood years once.