This Is Actually Helpful

 So naturally, it wasn't written by Yglesias, but by his intern.

So many bullshit arguments about what Covid mitigation efforts work or don't work are premised on the poor enforcement of them. Singh teases that out, so you can know that masks do work, but you need to actually wear one. 

I got in a Twitter argument with someone who was "over" the pandemic and wasn't going to wear a mask because he was triple vaxxed. He will probably be fine, but he could spread it to someone who won't be fine, but the prevailing attitude is, that other guy should've gotten vaxxed.  Yes, he should have. And the question of what we owe to someone who won't get vaxxed is a tricky ethical question. If you aren't getting vaxxed - which is free, safe and effective - then why should I care about your health? You clearly don't. But you are also a human being, and I shouldn't blithely risk your health, because I find a mask inconvenient.

Singh also points out which vaccine programs work best, and the answer is: mandates. However, we live in a deeply stupid country that equates freedom of speech and assembly with the right to risk the public health. This is like saying that I have the freedom to drive drunk, because this is America and the Constitution says nothing about driving drunk. Hey, you could very well make it home alive. Or you could kill yourself or someone else. That's not freedom in anything but a weird absolutist sense.

Singh mentions a universal coronavirus vaccine that could protect us against future strains of SARs viruses. However, we've become so incredibly thickheaded over the subject of vaccines, that I despair that we will ever get the societal and global protection we need.

We once obliterated small pox and have nearly obliterated polio. We have shown too many of us simply don't care about other people to make that a reality again.