Video Source: CNN; Article Source: DailyMail
- Author Andrew Sullivan says that Americans need to stop expecting the government to defend them against the coronavirus
- He argues that since the vaccine is readily available ‘there's no reason to enforce lockdowns again or mask mandates or social distancing any longer'
- He cites several costs to lockdowns, arguing that ‘the goal is not to pursue an illusory victory over the virus, but to learn how to live with it'
- Sullivan's comments came as COVID cases continue to surge and the Delta variant has reignited the mask mandate debate in the United States
By NATASHA ANDERSON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
A leading journalist has called on Americans to get a grip and learn to live with COVID-19, rather than attempting to win an ‘illusory' victory over the virus.
Speaking to Anderson Cooper on CNN Monday night, Andrew Sullivan said it was time to lift lockdown measures, encourage people to take vaccines, and stop letting federal and state governments continue to impose lockdown rules on Americans' lives.
Explaining his philosophy on the virus, Sullivan said: ‘Government isn't there to hold your hand every day. The government has a responsibility to give you the means to protect you and your family from this. Once they've done that, as a free country. You get to live.'
Sullivan lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts, which saw one of the biggest outbreaks of COVID among fully-vaccinated people last month.
Earlier this month, he wrote on his blog The Dish that seeing how mild the symptoms were among his vaccinated friends convinced him that it was time to shrug off the fear of the virus.
Sullivan told Cooper: ‘The goal is not to pursue an illusory victory over the virus, but to learn how to live with it, and actually live fully alongside it,' he said.
While the Delta variant remains on the rise, Sullivan argues that COVID has become ‘less of a plague and more of a disease you live with'.
‘In a free society, once everyone has access to a vaccine that overwhelmingly prevents serious sickness and death, there's no reason to enforce lockdowns again or mask mandates or social distancing any longer. In fact, there's every reason not to,' he said.
Sullivan, who was born in the UK and has enjoyed an illustrious career as a journalist in the US added: ‘There are costs to not living. There are costs to having a year of your life taken away from learning and developing as a child. There are costs of not being with your family. There are costs of not being with your fellow workers,' he explained.
‘We are a social animal. We cannot live isolated like this. We've never done this before. You can't wrap yourself up in cotton wool for the rest of your life and you mustn't let children not live.'
He argues that while communities around the nation are experiencing case surges, citizens need to resume normal life.
Grilled by Cooper about the risks to children because under 12s cannot yet have COVID vaccines, Sullivan said that under fives were in more danger each time they went for a swim.
The writer, who is strongly pro-vaccine, explained: ‘If you're 18 times more likely to drown if you're aged one to five than to die of COVID.
‘I think putting it in some sort of perspective for children, which is it's not that serious a disease at all. It's like a bad cold.
‘The immunocompromised are going to be unfortunately vulnerable for a long time. This now, we now know, is a virus that transmits from vaccinated people. So we're going to have to live with this thing. We're going to have to be vaccinated consistently against it.
