The effort against COVID is a war, pure and simple.
Just like the War against Drugs, or the War against Terror? Declaring something that isn't a war a war is a great way to convince people to give up civil liberties, isn't it?
I'll put this forward, both because I agree with your answer but it is a false equivalency.
True, declaring for something to be a war is a great way to convince people to give up civil liberties. However, both "The War Against Drugs" and "The War Against Terror" were, from the very beginning, vague actions with vague strategies against vague enemies. And, most importantly, without a definite endgame.
"War against COVID" has both a very definite enemy (a coronavirus) about which we actually know a lot (it is the specific variant that needed and still needs research) and a clear modern playbook (actually created by Bush Jr. after he read "The Great Influenza" by John M. Barry, about the Spanish Flu, and asked if the same thing could have happened today; and then further refined by Obama along with the creation of a standing "Pandemic First Response Team" - so it was a bi-partisan effort).
And we have a definite endgame: reopening the World. So, yes, the one against COVID is a war with a clear enemy, strategies, mobilization of resources and a clear goal. We even have past proof, like the "War Against Smallpox" that ended up eradicating smallpox from the planet.
They're experimental. They're based on a novel technology. They're approved under an emergency authorization, not for general use.
[snip]
This is 101 stuff. You really should read something on the subject.
I
do read about the subject, but not only "something". This is the first time in history that all stops are eliminated by all nations from the process of finding a vaccine and then getting people vaccinated.
Why some people are unable to just stop and wonder "Why?" before blathering their pre-conceived ideas like if nothing special is happening?
Currently, the World had an infarction. Its lifeblood, the circulation of people and money, almost stopped. All human activities that required human contact - i.e. almost all of them - were curtailed, from working in a factory to going on a cruise or to see a movie. Before you say "Cruises are not essential!" remember: people losing their job in the entertainment sector will not spend their money to buy non-essential groceries. Shop owners will face closure, maybe default (all of this with the real possibility of medical bills piling up). This process is the same that Kickstarted the Great Depression in 1929.
The World never stopped like this. The great plagues of the past didn't stop it, because they circled the World in waves. The Two World Wars didn't stop it. The Spanish Flu didn't stop it - because back then the World wasn't as globalised as today. 9/11 didn't stop the World. But COVID did.
So, you pull out your playbook and... what do you read in it? Things known since primary school: masks, social distance, lockdowns,
find a vaccine and get people vaccinated ASAP. And people who were so lucky to never have lived in times where your government could draft you, give you a rifle and say
"Go there and kill someone, or else" (something
very unsafe, I assure you), look at two billions vaccinated over six months, a bunch of unavoidable bad reaction cases, and say "You know? I'll risk another year of living with COVID and the risk of catching it, cratered economy, lower general health, more deaths in the States than in all the wars they were in combined, and even all-around sanity loss (it is a given that the psychological effects of COVID will last much more than the pandemic itself). Amazing.
A better approach for something like a Con is to let people make their own choices.
This is already happening.
Covid-19 is background noise risk to most people
Honest question: when it was the last time that you put your noise outside your door and looked around? You really think that COVID is only about
deaths? What about those afflicted by long-covid, their burden on their own family economy and on the healthcare system? What about the direct burden of COVID on the healthcare system? (you may have heard of the repeated "ICU crises"; now try to decode the acronym). What about those who lost their job? What if the dead family member was the bread winner? What about gigantic markets like entertainment or tourism and the ripple effects from their closure to the rest of the economy?
and those who are higher risk like the elderly and people with co-morbidities can make their own decisions.
Until their RAH RAH nephew goes to some "Freedom Convention" ("no masks, no social distancing, no vaccines required!") and brings COVID home to bite their ass.
Almost one year and half into this pandemic, and
the very first warning they gave back in early 2020 (you can be asymptomatic but you can still be a carrier) still struggles to penetrate some skulls...
If it is mandated during a pandemic? Is this a trick question? Ships were quarantined and people barricaded themselves in remote places centuries before people knew what "germs" were.
Quarantining the sick is one thing. Locking out healthy people with no symptoms is something else.
During a pandemic caused by a virus that can make you infective while asymptomatic? Is this another trick question?
(Which was the reason why it exploded so hard in Italy: no one still knew about this specific characteristic of Covid-19. I still remember when I heard on the radio: "It has been confirmed that one can be positive and a source of infection up to seven days before showing symptoms." I felt my skin crawling. I could even tell you where I was and what I was doing when I heard this. The "viral bomb" exploded in Lombardy after a couple of days).
I'm seriously considering a new rule for my CoC campaign. Since "Under a Winter Snow" is a scenario about the fear of a Spanish Flu resurgence in 1921's North Dakota, I'll have the players make an INT check. If they fail it, their characters will not believe in masks, social distance and quarantine measures. Stunningly clear proof that they were wrong will require another INT check, with a second failure meaning that this belief is permanent. "Unbelieving" characters will have to make a SAN check if forced to comply. Success will mean that they will fake compliance only to ditch the measures ASAP, failure will cause immediate "deranged rant" reactions and, if repeated, violent behaviour.
And you're a shitty GM, too.
I feel that in CoC it is important to ground your characters in the realities of the time. Others' mileage may vary