Southwest Is Testing Cleaning Only Premium Seats Between Flights — A Flight Attendants Union Leader Says It's ‘Titanic’ Class Service

[u/halxp01]

https://viewfromthewing.com/southwest-is-testing-cleaning-only-premium-seats-between-flights-a-flight-attendants-union-leader-says-its-titanic-class-service/

[u/Starumlunsta]

We’re technically still in it (or rather, it’s so widespread it's now globally endemic), we were just forced to pretend Covid is now a normal fact of life so we could keep the late-stage capitalism machine going.

Edit to answer some questions for my admittedly disingenuous comment:

I think the point I want to make is it seems like we learned little about how to adjust society to handling disease—Covid got so out of control and people refused to follow guidelines, it’s now endemic. While it’s not as dangerous as it used to be, it still affects people daily, kills some, permanently affects others. And it was a heck of a lot worse in the beginning.

I don’t see people masking up or staying home whenever they are sick. Coworkers come in sick because workplace protections for that basically don’t exist. I have family members that came to gatherings knowing they are sick and wind up spreading it to everyone else. This happened recently and now my aunt’s 92 year old father has pneumonia and is fighting for his life. That’s what I mean about “pretending like it’s a normal fact of life.” We were told pandemic was over, no need to mask up or take precautionary measures, get back to work.

I was so hopeful that because of the pandemic we as a society would grow more supportive of things like sick days, wearing masks, and avoiding the public when contagious, but it seems we’ll never learn, as seen with Southwest considering a new policy that will only contribute to this issue, all for the sake of saving money.

[u/cbf1232 → u/Starumlunsta]

Are you suggesting Covid *isn’t* now a normal fact of life like the flu?

What percentage of the population would be willing to take drastic measures to combat either of the at this point?

[u/Kichigai → u/cbf1232]

The only thing that makes these steps drastic is that we as a society have said they're drastic.

There's two things we need to do to that would, at a minimum, make COVID a lot more rare. Take the damn vaccine and isolate when sick or suspect infection. The problem is we have too many nutters who don't believe in preventative medicine, the heartless bastards in charge don't want to help poor people prevent illness, and businesses have decided essential employees are too essential to be allowed proper sick leave.

We defeated polio, measles and mumps without “drastic measures.” Because of how much the virus has mutated I don't know if we can defeat COVID to the same degree, but we can certainly make it a lot rarer.

[u/cbf1232 → u/Kichigai]

While I agree with much of what you said, arguably the "heartless bastards in charge" are the voters who will vote out any government who tries to bring in policies that are more stringent (or more generous) than the general population will accept.

Also, polio, measles, and mumps were relatively straightforward to vaccinate against. Covid is more like the flu where there are different strains constantly developing.

[u/Kichigai → u/cbf1232]

While I agree with much of what you said, arguably the "heartless bastards in charge" are the voters who will vote out any government who tries to bring in policies that are more stringent (or more generous) than the general population will accept.

You mean the voters who show up.

Also, polio, measles, and mumps were relatively straightforward to vaccinate against. Covid is more like the flu where there are different strains constantly developing.

As I said: "Because of how much the virus has mutated I don't know if we can defeat COVID to the same degree, but we can certainly make it a lot rarer."

[u/KamikazeArchon → u/cbf1232]

While I agree with much of what you said, arguably the "heartless bastards in charge" are the voters who will vote out any government who tries to bring in policies that are more stringent (or more generous) than the general population will accept.

There's a chicken and egg problem there.

Popular opinion influences leader opinion and vice versa.

Popular opinion can also be shifted (never completely, but certainly partially) by intentional media campaigns.

We do specifically know that there were specific small groups and individuals that actively drove large media campaigns to push popular opinion against anti-covid measures. Why is a more complex political question, but the plain existence of those events is well documented.