The belief that if we just go back to the way things are then the pandemic will know it hasn't broken our spirit which will lead to this getting better... somehow is gaining traction as the pandemic stretches on into forever.
It makes sense in its own way. Work is still largely limited but bills aren't. In July, 30% of American households couldn't pay their rent. That number will only increase now that the $600 unemployment bonus is expiring. Add in the eviction moratoriums and student loan forebearences expiring all at the same time, then you're found to have millions of people with a massive amount of expenses they won't have the income to handle.
Which naturally brings the response "all the more reason to get back to work." Work is a sacrament in this country, the idea that maybe every aspect of our lives shouldn't be tied to our employment is blasphemy most people have a hard time accepting. So it's natural that with school coming up the push to go back to work is also increasing.
Don't have to worry about leaving your kid alone at home if they're with their teachers, right? It's just how things are done.
Except, going back to normal will kill us.
Our case load is already accelerating. It took 98 days for us to get to one million cases. It took us 15 to go from three to four million, and soon we'll be clearing a million cases every ten days or less. If kids go back to school, we'll cross those barriers even faster.
Kids are uncontrollably disgusting. They touch everything, they don't wash their hands, they pay no attention to any of that shit and there's no amount of plexiglass or deep cleaning that can make up for that. I mean, schools can barely contain the flu when it comes around- there's no world where they can contain a virus even more infectious with any degree of safety.
So the kids will catch it. And they'll die. Then, they'll spread it to their teachers, cafeteria staff, administrators, bus drivers, crossing guards, who will all spread it amongst their families. And then they'll die.
It's impressive how self-defeating the "open everything up" idea is. By spreading the disease on purpose we drive our hospitals to capacity to the point that they send patients with low survival chances home to die. Not to mention that all the usual, mundane causes of hospitalization are still happening. But if those resources are hoovered up by covid patients then that'll lead to a cascading effect where more people die from normal health issues then usual.
This is also the point where someone mentions the mortality rate is "only" 1%. Even if we accept that as fixed, that's still three million people. But mortality rates aren't fixed, they're the end result of all the rate of infections, hospital capacities, availability of essential treatment methods etc. etc. Here, our rate is just under 7% (6.8 rounded up, if you want to know), a number which will get worse if we open up with little to no restrictions to limit transmissions.
Which, guess what happens when a country experiences a sudden spike in their death rates?
The economy crashes. Duh.
On some level, I understand why this happening. The government is looking at millions of people losing their jobs, their homes and doing nothing about it. Worse, the government is making a dedicated effort to ensure that misery befalls as many people as possible.
Faced with the looming disaster, people are looking for a way to feel like they're in control of their lives again. It doesn't matter how bad the decision is because if you acknowledge the situation and do what you're supposed to, you could end up homeless or broke or both within a matter of weeks.
If you leave people to fend for themselves, they'll do so with whatever justification they can find. Whether it's the line that it doesn't effect kids (which ignores all the adults they can spread it to) or that if only has a 1% mortality rate (which, again, is wrong), all of those are surface level reasons to cover the pure survivalist panic underneath.
All the government needs to do is pass legislation giving everyone $3,000/month minimum for the next year at least and institute a national rent and mortgage rent freeze. If we did this and dedicated our efforts into enforcing masks and social distancing, then by spring at the latest we could go back outside and eat in restaurants and have all that good consumerist bullshit back in our lives.
Instead, the government is going to abandon us to our fate as it tries not to trip over our bodies as it goes along its business.
But hey, sports are back. Who wants to take bets on which football team will have its first player die from covid?
