I find it interesting that this is the conclusion you draw from this. I won’t go into a discussion on the efficacy of the various mandates and policies in reducing spread of the disease. Rather, I think it’s worth pointing out that a significant portion of the proponents of these policies likely supported them not because of a desire to follow the authority but because they sincerely believed that a (for them) relatively small sacrifice in personal freedom could lead to improved outcomes for their fellow humans. For them, it was never about blindly following authority or virtue signalling. It was only ever about doing what they perceived as the right thing to do.
jpadkins|19 days ago
I am quite sure that people felt justified in their reasoning for their behavior. That just shows how effective the propaganda was, how easy it is to get people to fall in line. If it was a matter of voluntary self sacrifice of personal freedoms, I wouldn't have made this comment. People decided to demonize anyone who did not agree with the "medical authority", especially doctors or researchers that did not tow the party line. They ruined careers, made people feel awful, and online the behavior was worse because how easy it was to pile on. Over stuff that is still to this day not very clear cut what the optimal strategy is for dealing with infectious disease.
tomrod|19 days ago
COVID restrictions were public health, an overriding concern listed in the US Constitution as general welfare as a reason for the US government to exist at all.
lovich|19 days ago
The Covid measures were also totally targeted at certain groups of people with immutable characteristics and not at people who actively wanted to spread disease.
How are people like you still making arguments like this in 2026? Were you also one of the people claiming we’d all be dead in a year from the vaccines?