I know what you mean rr but sometimes simplistic is just as good if not better at getting the message across. A bit like my guy with the cells in the battery in the electric car. He used an analogy if theatre and seating. I got is straight away much better than all the complicated explanations I had heard before..
Less is more .......😉
🙂 😀

Is covid sufficiently different (and more threatening) than flu that such a drastic remodelling of our entire approach to respiratory infections was warranted?

You won't find many here saying so. I'll answer part of your question first. Was drastic remodelling even possible previously. I think not. |See below. If we decide it has only recently become possible to make a drastic remodelling, that tells us "why now"? Because now we can! And then we have to ask - but was it wise? It was not wise. It is an overreaction, since they were spooked by the initial IFR rates of 5 or 10% potentially leaving millions dead. Now they will look like fools if they back off, I believe they desperately want to back off now, but they would lose face and won't do it, so they battle on to the point when they can say "it's over, the vaccine's done it"!!!

So, here are my reasons for why at this point in time they drastically remodeled our entire approach to respiratory infections, because as these points show: it is only now that they could do this, before it was utterly impossible.Lockdown and drastic remodelling have been tried and accepted partly because those ideas are more feasible than they would have been at any other time in industrial history for many reasons. In this one respect, there has been a Great Reset. I'll list some of the reasons, but there are so many I'm bound to miss some.It's a bit of a jumble.here it is:

I'm sure there are a million other things that make lockdown feasible.

a set of coupled differential equations to solve for the various dynamical variables you include. One of those variables you may wish to analyse would be mortality as a function of time. Another might be the R number. And so on. These variables are all going to be dynamically coupled and parametrized by time...Lockdown measures would be modelled by limiting population mobility in the model, which would tend to have the effect of reducing 'collisions' of infected people with non-infected people. But again you're looking at a complex set of coupled differential equations to solve - and models of this kind of multivariate complex interactive behaviour are notoriously difficult to get right. understanding this dynamical behaviour mathematically is the key to the whole thing - and not at all fruitless.

yes of course, certainly I faintly recall a fella, whatisname... ah got it Neil Ferguson, tried all that, Rudolph Rigger. But guess what: it was completely fruitless and his predictions were miles off and he was 'pissing in the wind' it was all just gobbledegook 😀 😀 😀

Never before has 99% of the population been imprisoned for a virus that is not fatal for the majority of the population..
Never before have people been forced to work at home even though their choice may have been to go to their place of work to mix and socialize with other human beings..
Never before has so much national debt been created so generations will be paying for the crash of the economy..
Never before has there been such idiots in government who refuse to listen to dissenting voices but continue to lie hiding behind dodgy scientific data..
Never before has so many deaths been caused by lockdowns..
Never before has there been so much mental illness amongst a population who cannot reach put to services and their fellow human beings for comfort in times of their distress..
Never before has the hospitals stopped so many medical interventions and become covid only hospitals despite the cost of building hospitals ( nightingales) to deal with massive amount of covid patients but have never been used except 19 patients and are all but dismantled ( oh yes no staff right).
Never before have people felt such despair from an ongoing bullshit saga.
Never before has there been such bullshit coming from the msm on a daily basis..
Never before have so many countries all followed the same script causing utter misery for their people..
Never before has no exit statedy been discussed except a magic vaccine...
Never before has free speech ..liberties and freedoms been removed with such haste all based on dodgy scientific data..
Never before have so many businesses been ruined likely forever..
Never before has so many peoples livelihoods been ruined..
Never before have we had to continue to pay council tax for non existent services..
Never before have we had restrictions on movement in our own counties with road blocks..
Never before have we seen such police brutality against previous law abiding citizens..
Never before have so many people had disturbed sleep waking up fearful and anxious..
Never before have so many elderly people died alone without their loved ones around them..
Never before have so many people suffered loneliness and isolation living out their lives in misery..
Never before had any western countries had so many restrictions put on their basic freedoms..
Never before has such joy as music fun and laughter ever been so threatened..
Never before has so many people been muzzled..
Never before has human contact been restricted with no end in sight...
Never before has childrens education been used as a political weapon ( child abuse)
Never before....the list goes on..
For what..who gives a damn about lockdowns..now on tier 4 for most of the country . For what reasons. Do you think it will end? Or only when the population has recieved the magic vaccine against their will..then what..
The cure should never outweigh the disease..well it clearly has hasn't it..

Never before has 99% of the population been imprisoned for a virus that is not fatal for the majority of the population.. ..

yes, all true. miahoneybee. excellent riposte.

The fools tried this for the first time in history because now is the first time it was ever possible, so they tried this powerful lockdown idea with no thought of the evils it would unleash and it's blown up right in our faces. It's so simple: "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must", no justification given.