COVID is still around. And so is a lot of the damage that was done by it.
Comparing COVID impact on countries that had strict lockdown and vaccination policies with its impact on the countries that put no effort into fighting COVID at all? The difference is measurable. By all accounts, fighting COVID is something that was worth doing at the time, and good COVID policy saved lives.
The problem is, the difference is measurable, but it's not palpable. There's enough difference for it to show up in statistics, but not enough that you could look out the window and say "hey, we don't have those piles of plagued corpses in the city streets the way they do in Oceania and Eastasia, the lockdown is so worth it".
Everyone could see the restrictions, but few could see what those restrictions were accomplishing. Which has a way of undermining people's trust in the government. Which is a sentiment that lingers to this day in many places.
I really don't think we "solved" COVID as a social/political problem. If tomorrow, some Institute of Virology misplaced another bit of "science that replicates", we wouldn't be much further along than we were in year 2020. Medical technology has advanced, and readiness did get better, but the very same societal issues that made it hard to fight COVID would be back for the round 2 and eager for revenge. We'd be lucky to be neutral on the sum.
If there is a Covid round 2, and my government tries to implement another lockdown, I will flaunt the rules as brazenly as possible. So will almost everyone I know.
My trust in the government has completely evaporated; the “cure” was worse than the disease, by far.
Now if Covid round 2 is significantly lethal even to young people, that’s a real problem! The government wasted its social capital on Covid round 1, and left us exposed to a serious pandemic.
Comparing COVID impact on countries that had strict lockdown and vaccination policies with its impact on the countries that put no effort into fighting COVID at all? The difference is measurable. By all accounts, fighting COVID is something that was worth doing at the time, and good COVID policy saved lives.
The problem is, the difference is measurable, but it's not palpable. There's enough difference for it to show up in statistics, but not enough that you could look out the window and say "hey, we don't have those piles of plagued corpses in the city streets the way they do in Oceania and Eastasia, the lockdown is so worth it".
Everyone could see the restrictions, but few could see what those restrictions were accomplishing. Which has a way of undermining people's trust in the government. Which is a sentiment that lingers to this day in many places.
I really don't think we "solved" COVID as a social/political problem. If tomorrow, some Institute of Virology misplaced another bit of "science that replicates", we wouldn't be much further along than we were in year 2020. Medical technology has advanced, and readiness did get better, but the very same societal issues that made it hard to fight COVID would be back for the round 2 and eager for revenge. We'd be lucky to be neutral on the sum.