The “news” media have been utterly irresponsible – they’ve been pushing this “freedom” nonsense for months – what would it mean to be “free” of fire precautions, or traffic and firearm laws, or even just sewage and waste disposal regulation?
The first UK lockdown nearly worked. Maybe it did work; we’ll never know now. It started too late but eventually infection prevalence was pushed very low; we could have transitioned to a suppression with trace-and-test policy like China’s. But the government dished out the 37 billion quid for trace-and-test to a friend of theirs – corruption.
The other plank that has to be in place is support for absolutely everyone. It’s pointless telling people to self-isolate if they can only get money by continuing to work. A Universal Basic Income would have empowered the population – if an employer had refused to ventilate and institute safe practices, workers would have had the economic freedom to tell him where to stuff his damn job. Working conditions would have improved within days.
There are simple, practical solutions to covid. Only ideology stands in their way.