COVID-19 Pandemic

Yea, absolutely. Just as the Omicron variant broke out, I came to the conclusion that we had basically added a new virus on top of Influenza. One that was generally worse and not at all seasonal like Influenza. And that the net effect was and is humanity's global prosperity taking an easily measurable hit. Before Omicron, IMO, there was hope that we could beat it.

The way Omicron happened and the way we responded (IE "didn't you know the pandemic is over!") made it pretty clear what people's attitudes were. The only thing that really got us through the pandemic was bio-medical scientists nailing their job, and it will be the only thing that will help us, and as much cause for celebration that is, the dark side is that hyper-individualism has prevented any other faculties to help out in the mean time (or, as I said above, prevent us from going down a darker path).

I formative experience for me was that amongst my internet COVID bubble (mostly a particular sub-reddit) I was the first to hear about Omicron and share news about its many mutations (this was before it really spread anyway and just when the first analysis of its genome came out). The response from people, who were generally concerned enough about the pandemic to be on a sub-reddit about it, was entirely dismissive. "Fear mongering", "viruses evolve toward being less severe" ... etc ... were the universal and popular response. All when it was black and white as anything ... more mutations meant more immune escape, just like with influenza from year to year.

But no one wanted to hear that. They were all done with the lockdowns and panic and had subscribed, essentially religiously, to the "promised coming of the end of the pandemic". And then the variant turned out to have plenty of immune escape, spread like wildfire, and in my area cause the greatest spate of deaths in the whole fucking pandemic. Now it's probably fair to say that it was the second pandemic and we welcomed it with arms wide open (all variants since are direct descendants of omicron, AFAIU, and omicron itself was not descended from any of the other variants around at the time but a separate branch from or near the original strain).