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Timandra Harkness decries ordinary Brits’ susceptibility to what I call Covid Derangement Syndrome. A slice:

The trouble is, we haven’t done nearly enough rational assessment (đánh giá một cách duy lý) of the harms and benefits of anti-Covid strategies. Invoking (cầu khẩn, gọi cho hiện lên, viện dẫn chứng) the idea of existential risk to push us all into complying with behavioural rules got the Government a free pass for policies that, in normal times, would have been unthinkable. Critics of specific measures were easily lumped in with conspiracy (thuyết âm mưu) theorists who said the whole thing was a hoax (trò đùa), or “just the flu”. Suggesting that baton-charging sunbathers in parks was counter-productive provoked cries of “How many people do you want to die!?”

But there is also a danger that we’ll come to see the world only through the prism (lăng kính) of risk, whether quantifiable or existential. If no level of risk is acceptable, why not surrender our everyday freedoms forever? When will we ever reach the point of it being safe to take off the masks and sit next to a stranger? When they first announced a lockdown in March 2020, the UK government turned on the tap of fear, but I don’t think they realised how hard it would be to turn off.

Bài trước: Buộc lòng anh phải nói