OK it's very late and @emilyvdw talked me into tweeting my THREAD on COVID doomerism because it's still endemic, and it's something that we really need to talk about.

I'm sick of seeing people spreading pessimistic messaging on here that's damaging, dangerous, and wrong.

FIRST OFF I feel the need to say that I have the privilege of being primarily WFH, and I used that privilege to lock down harder than almost anyone else I know in 2020.  

I am beyond paranoid of getting long COVID, and I was ALWAYS the party pooper when folks wanted to "cheat."

Through the entire process, there was always a group of people spreading COVID pessimism.

First we were ~5 years out from a vaccine.

Then there was no way it would be effective enough.

Then it was that the variants would overwhelm is all.  

Etc, etc.

And let's be clear: some of that pessimism has been warranted. Pessimism isn't necessarily bad!  

Pessimists on here were first to tell us this wouldn't be over by midsummer 2020.

They were the first to notice that COVID is airborne and got me wearing masks early, too.

But since we have a "harsh truths" mentality in our culture, bad news feels more real than good news. Pessimism carries more weight than optimism.

People are quick to tell optimists to quit their utopian thinking, but nobody will tell the pessimists to stop spreading doom.

The thing about the truth is that sometimes it's better than you think, and sometimes it's worse.

Sometimes the worst scenario ("COVID has airborne transmission!") is true, and sometimes the best scenario ("The vaccines work better than we could have ever imagined!") is true.

The best research we have *right now* indicates that it is more or less safe to resume normal life once you are fully vaccinated.

Breakthrough cases are exceedingly rare, and getting a serious breakthrough is even rarer.

The vaccine also prevents asymptomatic spread.

There is some uncertainty around these points from a scientific perspective, because the studies aren't comprehensive enough to say things FOR 100% ABSOLUTE CERTAIN yet.

But the bar to clear for scientific certainty is far higher than the bar for social behavior.

We have to keep wearing masks in public after vaccination because not everybody has had a chance to get vaccinated yet, and a clerk can't tell the difference between a vaccinated stranger and an anti-masker who might be superspreading.

That's it. That's the reason.

Variants are very scary! They are deadlier, affect younger people, and are more highly transmissible.

But our vaccines are incredibly effective against CURRENT variants.

We may have to revisit masks and lockdowns as the virus mutates. But that is a problem for future us.

The global rollout sucks, and the US needs to make the vaccine open source. We should also supercharge our aid budget and fund the vaccine in poor countries.

But "the whole world doesn't have access yet" is not a good reason to shame vaccinated people for seeing their friends.

Yes, COVID will likely become endemic. We will probably need yearly booster shots.

But that doesn't mean the end of life as we know it & permanent social distancing - it just means that you will have to have a yearly shot, and you might feel like crap for a few days afterward.

COVID doomers will usually acknowledge most of this, but they'll always pivot to the next big "what if?"

And if you get to the end of the list, it always goes to, "well, you can't be too safe with a deadly pandemic."

I get that, but also: PEOPLE NEED HOPE.

Every person I know is permanently on the brink of mental breakdown.

We are all strained WAY past our breaking point.

And yeah, the world is broken in a thousand shitty ways, but "you can't see people without risk and anxiety" is, um, THE BIGGEST CAUSE OF THIS BY A LOT.

I assume the COVID doomers are doing what they do for the same reason I catastrophize all the time: it's a way to feel in control in situations where control is impossible.

If you always expect the worst, then you can't be blindsided when the worst comes for you.

There's also the issue that half the country hasn't taken the pandemic seriously at all, so it can seem prudent to be overly cautious in the hopes that your message will trickle down to the anti-maskers,

But it won't. It's just an echo chamber of ever-increasing anxiety.

I'm most sick of seeing "we will never go back to normal."

If you press people on this, they'll usually admit that they mean something like "well, I'll wear a mask during flu season" or something about politics and inequality and how broken the world is.

But when people see "we will never go back to normal" scroll by, they aren't thinking about optional masks in the winter - their lizard brain (or at least mine) flashes to "SOCIAL DISTANCING FOREVER."

And that is just not an okay thing to tell people! It's not likely to happen!

Telling people that they have to keep taking the same level of precautions after getting vaccinated is irresponsible, too!

It creates vaccine hesitancy and unnecessary mental stress.

"Noble lies" have consequences.

So please, please, please take mental health into consideration before you mindlessly RT some "just in case" doomer content about how we will never get to hug our friends again.

We're gonna hug again soon, gang. I promise. We're so, so close.