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Why I'm Worried about 2021

2021-03-26 · letter vlog · Hank · 3:52 · watch on YouTube

Topic: US politics & society (also: Health, Everyday life) · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook

Starting from two women judging moms who take kids to McDonald's, Hank argues that as vaccinations spread and mask mandates lift, people will make different pandemic choices that average into the total disease burden, and worries that a year of social media and a divisive president will deepen our judgment of each other.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Two women judging moms who take their kids to McDonald's; people understand the world differently

  • ★★ Hank once witnessed two women saying they can't help judging moms who take their kids to McDonald's, which made him kind of mad. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ Not every mom has the same money and free time, and people understand the world differently: some see fast food as simple and tasty, others as cruel garbage. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says fast food isn't good: there are better options for the environment and our bodies. — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — The coming stage of the pandemic: vaccination, lifted mandates, the goals of public health, acceptable disease burden, careful and less careful people averaging out, his own precautions

  • ★★★ We are all humans experiencing the world differently, so make your fast food decisions and leave the judgment out of it. — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ Hank says that sometime in the next month 25% of people in the US will be fully vaccinated, many of them the most at-risk. — 00:00:29 · United States, vaccine
  • ★★ Within the next few months, Hank says, mask mandates will be lifted even where governors aren't doing political signaling to their base. — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ Hank worries this stage of the pandemic will be stressful: what behavior is OK when vaccinated or when most are, who decides, and how we will judge each other. — 00:00:29 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★★ Vaccines and behavior changes share two goals: keep the individual from getting (very) sick and, more importantly, slow spread through fewer people shedding the virus, the real goal of public health advice. — 00:00:58 · vaccine
  • ★★ When every sick person infects fewer than one other person, active exponential spread stops and only little outbreaks remain. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ COVID isn't going away, maybe ever, but Hank says it will be much less of a problem where lots of people get vaccinated. (hedged) — 00:01:27 · COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine
  • ★★ Hank hopes we will transition to COVID being less of a big deal, deciding for ourselves what is OK, and asks how far we will decide for others too. (hedged) — 00:01:27 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★★ A society has an acceptable disease burden: in the US something like 30,000 people die of flu each year, some of them infants and children, yet beyond vaccines and hygiene advice life went on as before. (hedged) — 00:01:56 · United States
  • ★★ Whether carrying on as before with flu was right, Hank doesn't know, but we acted as if it was. (unsure) — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ Every person's decisions matter: careful and less careful people average out, and with vaccine efficacy that yields the total disease burden. — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ More careful people, and those able to be, will help the less careful, whether they can't be, don't want to be, or have bought into a different version of reality. — 00:02:26
  • ★★ People will understand risk, citizenship and societal impact differently, and behavior change will matter less as vaccines matter more, as long as nothing goes terribly wrong. (hedged) — 00:02:26 · vaccine
  • ★★★ Hank's advice and plan is to keep taking precautions: he will keep wearing a mask at the grocery store once fully vaccinated, since he could still spread the disease. — 00:02:26

00:02:55 — A year of social media, a divisive president and masks as symbols deepen the wound of judgment; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank worries we have spent a year cooped up on social media, where the average stranger you hear about sucks because strangers who don't suck don't become memes. — 00:02:55 · social media
  • ★★ We are exiting four years of a president whose favorite pastime was fanning the flames of anger and frustration with each other. — 00:02:55 · Donald Trump
  • ★★ Now a symbol of how we understand the world is literally strapped to our faces, or not. — 00:02:55
  • ★★★ Hank worries about the judgment and frustration, in himself and others, at seeing people act differently than he would, amid new skepticism about whether neighbors are good. — 00:02:55
  • ★★★ Hank feels this deepens an existing wound of judgment, frustration and skepticism about human goodness, making it harder to heal. — 00:03:24
  • ★★ Hank doesn't want to play that game but is not sure he can stop himself. (hedged) — 00:03:24

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says these things have scales of severity, but we are getting good at seeing them as binaries, which makes us hate each other a lot. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: COVID-19 pandemic · Disease burden · vaccine

Also: Donald Trump · Fast food · Influenza · McDonald's · social media · United States

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