[iamnotwhoiam]

> What about drinking and smoking?

Literally Whataboutism. Don’t take the irrelevant bait.

[collegeburner]

No it's not. It's saying that we tolerate huge social costs elsewhere, so why is this one too large to bear?

[jeromegv]

Well if you look at smoking, we did quite similar things. We let people smoke, it's not forbidden, but don't try to smoke within a restaurant, an indoor space, a flight, etc. Why? Because that's where your secondary smoke can start impacting other people. But smoke at home as much as you want!

Sounds familiar?

[jollybean]

COVID is contagious, its a systematic problem, not an individual one.

The IFR is very very low, if it were not super contagious, it wouldn't make the evening news.

Most of COVIDS problems result from the domino effect, so the issue is as much about 'not becoming domino' as it is the effects of the disease itself.

[j16sdiz]

This is exactly what “whataboutism” is.

[iamnotwhoiam]

There is no way to have a good faith argument with someone who is advocating not saving lives because we aren’t saving other lives.