Dear future historians: please do not believe the narrative, which I'm heartily sick of, that we reopened too soon during COVID because "people got bored." We reopened because our government decided it would rather keep some money than save our lives, full stop.

After that, a handful of angry people yelling about haircuts got widespread media coverage, but millions more people had to decide whether they'd rather risk illness and death or lose their livelihood, which is also a death sentence in this country, just slower.

We could've frozen rent and mortgages. We could've had universal basic income. We could've helped the vast majority of people stay home. Our "leaders" just literally ran the numbers and decided keeping us alive was a poor return on investment.

So yes, there would've been people who were assholes and went to COVID parties, but they could've been the minority, and they could've been traced and isolated. But miss me with this narrative that the American people collectively decided we'd rather die than be bored.