I think I boiled down exactly why western countries struggle so much with the Covid pandemic.

[redgreenandblue]

The bottom line I think is that, no matter in which way the pandemic handled, some type of sacrifice has to be made regarding the value system that western countries profess to have.

Western countries like to think themselves as cherishing both egality and liberty. And because of that, each of the following four things is true:

1. We want to avoid blanket restrictions that affect everyone, as this contradicts our idea of liberty.

2. We want to avoid forced vaccinations, as this again contradicts liberty.

3. We want to avoid targeted restrictions, that make a distinction between vaccinated/recoved and non-vaccinated people, as this contradicts egality.

4. We want to avoid a triage situation in hospitals, since it forces us to assign different value to the lives of different people, and hence also contradicts egality,

The problem is that, assuming that we live in the real world where medical resources are finite, these four things are fundamentally irreconcilable. At some point, something has to give.

It is interesting to see how the different countries have approached this dilemma, and to see which sacrifices they
choose. China doesn't have this problem. They just round up Covid patients and lock them away for a couple of weeks. For Germany, it appears that triage is to be avoided at all costs, and forced vaccinations are also off the table. So the choice seems to be a combination of giving in on points 1 and 3. Blanket restrictions whenver case numbers go up, and a two-tier system, where vaccinated are granted more freedoms than non-vaccinated.

The USA is an interesting case. There for a while it seemed like the choice is to pretend that the problem doesn't exist,
and therefore end up with "triage through the backdoor" scenario, whereby medical resources are withdrawn from
all non-covid related issues to deal with the torrent of non-vaccinated covid patients, which suck up everything due to their sheer volume. So in a sense, it is a triage situation where the most irresponsible individuals are given preferential treatment.

I would respect the Republican attitude of "no masks, no vaccine mandates and no lockdowns" more if they actually owned up to the fact that they are, in effect, producing a triage situation, and chose not to go to the hospital in the case of a Covid infection, in order to not clog up the system. Full-scale "personal responsibility" and all that. Under such circumstances, I'd be fine with lifting most, if not all, Covid-related restrictions.

Mulling it over, a two-tier system, where restrictions are in place, but apply only to unvaccinated, is likely the least problematic solution in a constitutional republic. The basic argument is that theoretically blanket restrictions can be justified by a state of emergency, but since the burden of proof that restrictions are necessary lies with the state, vaccinated people can overturn those restrictions as they would apply to them personally, by arguing that they don't put others at risk.

[yardwork]

1. I think it's a little simpler than that...

The U.S. has a deeply held foundational mythology that was created to rationalize slavery, genocide, and apartheid. We created this mythology to feel better about ourselves. The myth is that "America was won by white Christian men and women working the land with their own labor, and given to these white men and women by God, who was impressed by our courage and hard work."

It's a complete lie and fabrication, which means it's very deeply rooted in our culture. To admit it's not true would mean admitting a lot of very uncomfortable truths about how our country was actually established and whose labor created our country's wealth. And, of course, the wealth isn't evenly distributed at all - worse than ever these days - so there are millions of people who are feeling oppressed - for good reason - and they're not in the mood to question bright shiny feel-good mythologies dangled by Russian troll farms and some guy named Q.

And the mythology says no White man or woman (note the binary choice) have to do anything they don't want to do and the trolls on Fox News say that includes masks and vaccines. So there.