COVID Straw Men, "Denialism," What The Hell Is Up?, Etc.

I keep running into lefty types who think that the main objection to the orthodoxy involves not believing the batflu is real. I'm sure there are some of those people about, but there can't be many of them. Seems like the most important objections involve opposition to the waves of hysteria, the bumbling diktats from overextended experts, and so on. I take this thing seriously--but not hysterically. And that's what people on my side of the fence want the country to do. When you're pumping out hysterical,exaggerated, underinformed nonsense 24/7, you're going to scare the sheep...and you're also going to generate excess skepticism and cynicism in people like me. Now people like me have to try to correct for your bullshit, and correct for our own overreaction to your bullshit, and more-or-less blindly guess where the target is.

   I've had a long-standing--or, rather, on-again, off-again--hypothesis that there's something we're not being told...maybe that the "long" effects of COVID are much more serious than we think. I'm not a conspiracy type...but I keep flailing around for an explanation as for why the risks seem to be so badly misrepresented. It seems clear that there are significant threats to certain groups--most notably the old--and that we should be doing what we can to keep them safe. But the relatively minor risk to the rest of us just keeps being exaggerated. I just cannot figure out why this could be. It simply doesn't make sense. Of course it also doesn't make sense that anyone would conceal concerns about "long COVID." They're certainly not worried about scaring us... They rather clearly want to scare us. So even this long-shot of a hypothesis won't do the explanatory trick.

   Something's gone wrong here. Perhaps it's the media's fault. Perhaps people like me are just confused. But the message we're getting just doesn't seem to make sense. Instead of significant, warranted, focused concern, it's generalized, seemingly unwarranted hysteria that's being pushed on us. It's just weird and confusing as all hell.