So, when we knew nothing, I was more fearful of this virus. As I know more now, I'm a lot less fearful. The virus has been weaponized for political gain. My predictions are that if one party sweeps, the virus becomes a non issue by April. If the underdog sweeps, or even retains one branch of government, the virus will continue to "kill us all" until 2024.
Personally, I rely on statistics to determine my fear level. I think the news and political focus on "cases" is complete bullshit. If you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If we put the same focus on other viruses each year, we would have a lot more reported cases. Deaths are what makes this virus lethal (literally). In the same way, if we reported all car accidents, no matter how big or small, in WI in a day, it sure would look a lot more scary than vehicle related deaths.
Where I live, in Wisconsin (a so-called hot zone), I look at our death rate. Currently, our death rate is 2x as much as the 2019 flu season. If I use reason and say "not all flu deaths in 2019 were probably reported correctly AND it's possible that there were deaths associated to covid in 2020 that probably weren't covid..." then one could reasonably say that the death rate for covid is higher than the seasonal flu, but not by much.
I believe that in 10 years we will look back on the politicians and the media that made tons of money on this pandemic and scream "shame on you." However in the current culture of cancellation for a view outside of "common sense" (also known as collective echo chambers), a dissenting opinion could ruin your life.
Btw, just to show my work:
From:
Influenza (Flu).
"During the 2019-2020 flu season, there were 36,175 cases of the flu in Wisconsin. Of these, there were 4,425 flu-related hospitalizations and 183 deaths, including three children "
So in 2019, .5% of all reported flu cases in WI ended in death.
From (and as of this post):
183,000 cases and 1,624 deaths
So in 2020, where we're hypervigilant about testing and attributing covid, the death rate is .9%