I have read the reason for the mutated, more infectious COVID-19 virus is due to lockdowns and other attempts to flatten the curve. Should have just ramped up hospital capacity, protecting the old, and let the virus run its course. We would have been through it months ago. Now, the lockdowns will lead to more lockdowns, more fearmongering, more unemployment, more deaths of despair, etc.
What a total and absolute failure of the health orgs and governments. As of November 2019 the playbook was to do just what I said in the above paragraph. I actually read the CDC guidelines published late last year. But no one followed their own advice, so now we are a year into this mess with no real way out.
We have people taking the vaccine who don't need it. We have health leaders saying lockdowns and masks will be required even with the vaccine. This is completely anti-science, anti-logic, and anti-freedom. Completely disgusting.