Yes, everyone should be doing whatever they personally can...¶

Yes, everyone should be doing whatever they personally can to avoid getting infected and infecting others. Most want to. But what out-of-touch elites can't see is that, for the vast majority, every decision comes with a cost-benefit analysis. Even things that seem like obvious choices are really difficult decisions. Sometimes, those decisions are rational, sometimes emotional, sometimes based on misinformation. But at the end of the day, decisions are being made that policymakers can't even conceive of having to make. Take the choice to get vaccinated for example. It's free, it's safe, it works, so it should be a no-brainer, right?

But what if you're not sure it's actually free? You're uninsured, and you're used to every medical procedure having some hidden, often huge, cost. What if you're undocumented and no matter what assurances you get, you're afraid vaccine records might be used to deport you and your family?

What if you've been burned before by needing to wait in line longer than expected, and got your pay docked, or even got fired? Plus, almost no one is actually required to get vaccinated (some are required to get tested if they're unvaxxed), so maybe it's not that big of a deal? If it was so important, they'd make you do it, like seatbelts, or like MMR for public schools. Or take masks. At first, you were told masks don't work. Then you were told masks work, but they should be saved for HCWs. Then you were told cloth masks work just fine, and so you started wearing one.

Then you were told that if you're vaxxed, you don't have to wear them. Restaurants opened back up for in-person dining, so obviously masks weren't necessary anymore. Even as delta started surging, masks were still optional almost everywhere.

With omicron, more emphasis was put on masks again, but you started hearing that maybe cloth isn't enough. They're saying what really works is N95, but those are expensive and you can't find any. Plus, the official guidance still says cloth is ok, so why would you "make the personal choice" to spend the time and money to get your hands on the "better" masks? The most critical of these "personal choices" is the decision to stay home. It's also the easiest to understand why people aren't just doing of their own accord. There is absolutely no support for people isolating when infected, let alone preemptively isolating out of caution. COVID leave is a thing of the past for those who even had it at all. Even "white collar" jobs that instituted a special policy, where isolating for COVID wouldn't take away from your ordinary PTO have stopped doing that. And for many, PTO, or even unpaid leave was never a thing. The best you could ever hope for was that isolating for COVID wouldn't get you fired. You'd take the CDC's recommended 10 days without getting paid, and the good employers would let you come back afterward. For many, those 10 days off put you in the red instantly. When the CDC says 5 days is fine "if symptoms are improving," you, who are not a virologist, might assume you're fine. Especially since they say not to bother testing again so you can get back to work. Even if you wanted to keep isolating, your boss says get back to work. So when the message from the government is that everyone needs to just "make good decisions," after giving people so little support to make those decisions, what they're really saying is they have no idea what life is like for the people they rule.