I agree that we can't live in fear, and that we will have to make new risk assessments as we determine how much of our daily lives we can get back to. There's no denying that these shutdowns have all kinds of other negative consequences, including suicides, domestic abuse, and crippling poverty.
But isn't what we're doing "matching the reality of our current situation?" Virtually every state re-opened, some apparently too big and too early, and many people who made a point about not living in fear insisted on attending large group events without wearing masks, and this attitude appears traceable to current surges in states that largely avoided the first round.
As someone already pointed out, the crisis isn't so much the death count -- troubling as it continues to be -- it has always been the strain on the healthcare system, risking the lives of anyone who needs any kind of hospitalization. My dad was scheduled to be moved to hospice last week, but they gave his bed away because Lincoln hospitals had gone on "code red" and they needed the room for an emergency non-COVID case. That sort of stuff.
I'm all for playing sports and think we should not discount the value of maintaining some normalcy and distraction for the mental health benefits. Most sports are doing a surprisingly good job, but I don't know how college football is going to get past the number of canceled games, infected players and staff, and the validity of any championship scenario where one conference has played 8 games, another has played 2 and another has played zero.
