The Years of Covid – Stay Home, Save Lives

One of the slogans invented to make people fall in line was "stay home, save lives."

It's deceptively simple and tough to argue against: after all, who'd dare to put other people's lives at risk, especially if all you have to do is not leave the confines of your home?

Yet, if everybody stayed home, the world would suddenly cease to function. People having a remote job (or not having a job) can sit on their couches all day long, they can order their groceries, their lunch, and their clothes from their smartphone, but somebody has to produce and deliver those goods. (Not to mention countless other services those stay-home heroes used.)

So the real question is whose lives did lockdowns protect, and to whom were the risks transferred?

In general, people working remotely are better-off, younger people (I love the expression "the laptop class") while those doing "essential" work are older people with less income. The risk of catching the disease is thus shifted from a less vulnerable group to a more vulnerable one.

Not quite in line with the short, virtue-signaling slogan.