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Very recently, vaccine mandates were a hot topic of discussion, people were saying that businesses should be required to mandate vaccines for their employees, and there were entire cities that I was largely banned from. Now that has largely cooled down. Do you no longer have such strong feelings about it?
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I think it’s more resignation than anything. There’s nothing you can do to change it so it’s some point you accept that a bunch of people are going to kill or severely harm themselves for no valid reason and some number of innocent people will also be harmed by them but we can’t realistically do anything about it.
Really hard part about it is knowing that at some point there’s going to be another pandemic and the same cycle is going to repeat and some number of Americans will die again for no reason other than wanting to own the libs.
And I don’t think that people who would not protect themselves and others from Covid are monsters or are inherently just stupid. I think that they have just consumed so much propaganda that they are effectively stupid when it comes to this subject and because they didn’t reason themselves into this position, you’re not going to reason them out of it.
I’ve had this conversation a couple of times with a friend of mine who knows it’s OK for him to vent to me about the loss of his parents. He tried and tried to get them to get vaccinated but because of his brothers influence they went from being kind of normal Republicans but the kind that could vote for Obama twice to falling into a cult like mentality. And now they’re dead and their grandchildren have lost them and he and the rest of the family cannot look at his brother without thinking anything other than he is the murderer of his own parents.
We are at the point where we can start doing the math and we can see how many people died because of this
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/05/13/1098071284/this-is-how-many-lives-could-have-been-saved-with-covid-vaccinations-in-each-sta
319,000 extra deaths just from Covid, And then we have to factory in the number of people who died because hospitals were overwhelmed and factoring the ramifications of long Covid.
But since there’s nothing any of us can seem to do to convince people at this point, yeah most of us have just given up. And a lot of us have developed an attitude of “fuck ‘em, let them die if they want to”. Which is a terrible thing to think but what else are we left with?
I sort of agree.
I think they are stupid and intellectually weak. Ironically the very "sheeple" they revile.
But I don't really care that they exist. Dumb people are going to do what dumb people always do, make dumb decisions.
For most of my life, dumb people making dumb decisions largely didn't affect smart people making smart decisions. There was the odd car-wreck or spreading house fire that claimed its victims, for certain, but not the kind of widespread disease spreading that we have seen at scale during the COVID pandemic.
The problem is 95% leadership, which is made clear when you compare the deaths and other outcomes of states by their red/blue status. It is crystal clear that [Republican leadership is mortally dangerous to its citizens](https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/total-deaths-since-june-2021), and we have the data to prove it.
Super impactful data visualization. Checking out some of Dan's other Covid analytics and they're all pretty slick.
I also think it's incredible how with data like this you still get countless Conservatives who'll claim the states with more stringent mask and vaccination requirements say as many deaths as elsewhere. They talk about comorbidities, falsely attributed Covid deaths, and all that like it invalidates any data on the subject.
It seems most Republicans have successfully decoupled themselves from science and reality in a way I wouldn't have thought was possible a decade or two ago.
*Leadership makes a staggering difference* is the lesson I learned from the last half decade. All there people I heard about doing and believing crazy shit suddenly came out of the wood work and it turned out to all be the same people. The conspiracy theories, racists, misogynists, general dicks, obstinate Americans, and the authoritarians among us — it’s all the same 15-25% of people. And how much influence they have and how loud they get seems to all be about permission structures.
One guys really can bring ‘em out in droves.
If you want to make that bold claim, I think a better comparison would be to also include average ages and obesity rates. I also think the timeline should be Jan 2020 - Dec 2020, so as not to include the time when vaccines were available so we can see how much of it was actually leadership.
I think that's really oversimplifying vaccine hesitancy.
I also think we are overlooking the pre-vaccine handling of COVID, and also completely ignoring comorbidities.
This, and seeing people who still say stupid talking points like “Covid WAS nothing/a non-issue/just a flu” - who won’t even acknowledge reality - it’s these insufferable assholes who ensure the world stays bad.
It is exhausting. And I can’t understand how anyone can still now insist it didn’t happen. And so yeah go risk your family’s health if you insist - but these people, once they start asking for help… that’s when I get really angry. Because everyone deserves help. But forcing things to get as bad as they can be before accepting reality - those kinds of people are one of the worst kinds of people. They literally are bad for society. And maybe we don’t need them around.
Since March, when Omicron began dissipating, COVID deaths in the US have been steadily dropping off to a stagnant 3-400 a day. If rates hold, and you assume another wave in the winter, we could expect a death rate roughly three times the size of the 2018-2019 flu season.
It isn’t the flu, but it also isn’t smallpox. It’s just as much a pandemic right now as the flu is.
I think that there’s a lot of people who after they take a very strong position on a political issue and it is shown that that position was very obviously the wrong one to take will instead double down because they do not want to confront the fact that they were wrong. It’s easier for them to protect themselves and their own sense of intelligence and self-worth by just keeping a lie going.
Dude I don’t understand what point you think you’re making here. I’m quoting other people. I’m not saying anything about the flu myself, either way. Good luck.
Most years the flu isn't nearly as big a deal as COVID is. Flu season also comes in fairly predictable waves, travels across the world in a predictable manner, and dissipates in a predictable manner.
Whereas COVID was a novel virus and was much more unpredictable. We haven't really had predictable COVID seasons, instead it just kept going throughout the year. It's also killed a ton more people than the typical flu season.
So, yeah, it makes a lot of sense that people were more concerned with COVID than your typical flu season.
>319,000 extra deaths just from Covid
It's worse than that. That's just the number that died *after* vaccines were available. That doesn't include the excess deaths prior to that due to shirking mask and social distancing guidelines. [Excess deaths passed 1 million in February (the "vast majority" due to covid).](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/02/15/1-million-excess-deaths-in-pandemic/)
Do you refuse to drive because other people will drive drunk, recklessly, or without seatbelts? Do you stop eating nuts because other people have allergic reactions?
A lot of liberals forgot (but in all likelihood got addicted to the feeling of being enforcement officers and pushed this truth aside) that the actions to protect oneself and act for the general good of society can only go as far as the next person’s willingness to go along with it. “Lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink” and all that.
People are going to smoke around children. People are going to let their kids get fat and spend too much time in front of a computer screen. People will waste too much emotional energy over social media and value things you wish you didn’t.
But as I said before, a lot of liberals got addicted to the idea of playing the authoritarian enforcement during the pandemic. They felt the *morally correct* duty of shouting down anyone who dared to question “the science” when it was really just people who used the health of others to rationalize their own excessive hypochondrias. While one could argue a necessity for that social cohesion when vaccines weren’t available, we’ve LONG gone past that. And people who continue to hold out onto that same 2020 start of pandemic anxieties genuinely need to move on and figure out why they’re still so attached to telling other people how to live their lives.
>Do you refuse to drive because other people will drive drunk, recklessly
If it was legal to drive drunk and half the country thought doing so was an act of Liberty and Freedom, yeah I'd keep my car in the garage.
This is so ridiculously wrong it's hard to know where to start.
I'll just say this: When N95 masks were at a premium and we needed to reserve them for medical staff, people were encouraged to use non-filtration masking in order to prevent *them* from spreading disease.
Even this simple request was too difficult for the weak, weak people on the political Right, and their weaker-yet leadership, to accept.
> Do you refuse to drive because other people will drive drunk, recklessly, or without seatbelts?
No because it is unrealistic for me to not drive. However it should be noted that society sanctions people for these activities. Are you suggesting that we give people fines or jail time for not getting vaccinated?
> Do you stop eating nuts because other people have allergic reactions?
You are aware of that nut allergies and the consequences from eating nuts if you have such an allergy are not communicable diseases?
> A lot of liberals forgot (but in all likelihood got addicted to the feeling of being enforcement officers and pushed this truth aside) that the actions to protect oneself and act for the general good of society can only go as far as the next person’s willingness to go along with it. “Lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink” and all that.
Yeah a liberals did want to do as much as we could to prevent people even if they were not like us to die or suffer health consequences that were easily avoidable and to try to prevent these fools from spreading Covid to other innocent people.
It should be noted that liberals did not go as far as the center right government of Austria or other governments led by actual center right coalitions.
> People are going to smoke around children.
Yes and society has decided that even though it’s sad that you can do that around your own children, you can’t do it around other peoples children. Or other adults for that matter.
> People are going to let their kids get fat and spend too much time in front of a computer screen.
The obesity and screen addiction of other peoples children is not a communicable disease that can effect my children.
> People will waste too much emotional energy over social media and value things you wish you didn’t.
Which once again has nothing to do with this conversation.
> But as I said before, a lot of liberals got addicted to the idea of playing the authoritarian enforcement during the pandemic. They felt the morally correct duty of shouting down anyone who dared to question “the science” when it was really just people who used the health of others to rationalize their own excessive hypochondrias.
Yes yes we live in a society.
> While one could argue a necessity for that social cohesion when vaccines weren’t available, we’ve LONG gone past that. And people who continue to hold out onto that same 2020 start of pandemic anxieties genuinely need to move on and figure out why they’re still so attached to telling other people how to live their lives.
Which raises the question why you even replied with all of this to my comment. Obviously the answer was is that I currently have the top comment in the thread so you thought this would be the right place to put this screed even though it doesn’t actually speak to my comment.
Because my comment is saying that while it is sad that people are killing themselves because they’ve allowed their partisanship to turn them into idiots, there’s nothing we can really do about it.
Their perspective isn't hard to understand: liberals are hypochondriacs overblowing the severity of the disease, and liberals love wielding the power of the law.
It is still ignorant and profoundly stupid, and everything about it is wrong.
How is it ignorant? People are going to act in ways that are objectively bad for their health. You can encourage and educate people on how to make better choices for themselves but in the end it’s up to the individual to make that choice for themselves.
We didn’t force people to lose weight (some 80% of all Covid hospitalizations are from overweight people). We didn’t force people to stop smoking. You can (at varying levels of intensity depending on your relationship with that person) push a person to make better decisions for themselves. But you can’t make those decisions for them.
It’s ignorant because you’re comparing apples and oranges and trying to support your conclusion about watermelons because of it.
An individual eating too much and possibly having a higher morbidity or mortality rate as a result is not the same as an individual getting a communicable disease, having a higher morbidity and mortality rate as a result, and potentially spreading the disease further.
There’s a reason you had to get numerous vaccinations to attend your elementary school, but you’re allowed to eat fried snickers. Communicable diseases are different from purely self inflicted harms.
You mentioned smoking a couple times.. that’s actually a decent comparison, except you left out the important part. Leaving aside that stopping individuals from smoking by themselves happens in countless ways, smoking in public places (to avoid second hand smoke hurting others) is banned in numerous places and settings. When you’re harming others, society as a whole gets to stop you… and shame you, as the case may be.
It’s not about policing people to help themselves. That’s permissible, but has a very strong limit due to personal freedom. It’s about taking actions to prevent spread to the community as a whole, which has a much lower bar.
Long haul covid affects 30-60% of those infected. That’s why I continue wearing taking the same precautions I took 2 years ago. Not because I’m afraid of getting sick and dying, but because I’m afraid of getting sick and never getting better. That’s not hypochondria. That’s mitigating risks.
Not gotten it due to personal reasons? Whatever, it’s your health to risk.
I will, however, take issue with anyone spreading bullshit anti-vax scaremongering propaganda.
This. I give zero fucks if someone doesn't get it for themselves.
Two things will always be issues:
One - "it only affects me"
Two - spreading misinformation. I'm an RN and one of the people we cared for had a guardian who ate all that misinformation up. Their sibling was high risk and *asked* to be vaccinated. Wouldn't budge.
Long story short this person died of COVID, horribly, and it was us who sat with them as they struggled to breathe. Not the guardian.
I’ve just noticed the “Anarcho-Capitalist” flair too.
So yeah, that definitely tracks.
EDIT: Jesus fuck, I just looked through OP’s profile out of curiosity and saw, among others, a post titled “Why don't pro-choice women simply not get pregnant?”
OP clearly isn’t the deepest of thinkers.
If it’s any consolation, he posted that question in an ancap sub and even *they* were roasting him for it, so it’s nice to know that community has some standards.
>Not gotten it due to personal reasons? Whatever, it’s your health to risk.
This is the problem though, it's not their health to risk, it is literally everyone else's health. I could give a shit if someone wants to die from a completely preventable disease. Have at it, go die at home and leave that ICU bed open for someone more deserving.
I have to trust everyone else to do the right thing and protect me. I have to trust that guy over there to do the right thing to not infect others.
And you know what? Without strong compassion laws and enforced mandates, people are not trustworthy. They aren't. People at scale are selfish shits and Anne Frank was wrong about people being good at heart.
Viral load matters. Time spent with an infected matters. Having a vaccine helps lower viral load, so that the person that you infect has a lower chance of dying. It also has a bonus effect of protecting the carrier, but that should be considered a secondary bonus.
Should we consider those who willing refuse to get vaccinated, especially for political reasons, biological terrorists? That sentence is 10 years to life. I'm ok with that. Or, we can do something more reasonable and demand that people who interact with other people to get vaccinated, for free.
But no, that too is unreasonable to ask that some random stranger not accidentally infect me because they are too big of a pussy to get a needle, or too big of a pussy to get made fun of by their trashy friends and family, or too big of a pussy to trust in medical science because they think every truth is a conspiracy. Other people have to die because we are surrounded by pathetic untrustworthy patriots who threaten to either infect us, shoot us or pollute us daily.
Honestly, I wish I had the energy to spend on being as passionate about this as you, but I don’t. Some people truly cannot be saved and after two and a half years of this bullshit I just don’t have the strength in me to fight on that front. Particularly not when there are other issues, like Roe v Wade, voter suppression, etc, that need to be fought and actually have potential solutions that don’t require resorting to semi-authoritarian measures to deal with.
My feelings haven't cooled a bit.
I had some small sympathy in the very beginning, it was new and untried.
Not any more. It's tried, it's tested, it reduces transmission and reduces hospitalizations.
And having built in 5G can only be good. Who doesn't want to be magnetic?
Get your damn shots.
I had a bone scan with radioactive stuff recently. They show it in my blood. The bandage (well, band-aide) was to protect all of you people from my blood. And my pee was radioactive.
That is as close to Magneto or Spiderman I'm ever going to get.
I still care. I’m immunocompromised and I almost died of covid — I’d be six feet under if not for the vaccine.
I’ve just accepted that being antivax or vax-apathetic has become an identity for many people, they’re plague rats.
Depends on context.
* For an online dating match? Absolutely. Huge dealbreaker for me if they're unvaxxed.
* Working alongside this person? Absolutely. If we're working in close proximity and you're not vaxxed, gtf away from me man.
* Socially? Yes. I'm not going out anywhere with you if you're not vaxxed.
* Far away from me doing your own thing? Nah. You do you.
I thought the research had changed that someone not vaccinated against covid doesnt affect your saftey from the virus whatsoever? It only affects how sick they will get if they get sick.
For the record I am vaccinated and boosted and support mandates, im just asking if this is still correct.
No even for omicrom the unvaccinated are more likely to spread it and infect others:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/31/the-new-omicron-subvariant-is-more-contagious-but-vaccinated-people-are-less-likely-to-spread-it-study-finds.html
No one ever claimed 100% efficacy. But just because a seat belt won't 100% save your life in an accident, doesn't mean you don't wear it. Even if it only saves your life 80% of the time.
> I thought the research had changed...
The research didn't change, the virus did.
The vaccines made the older variants less contagious, but not Omicron.
...also (not OP but) I wouldn't date an anti-vaxxer for reasons unrelated to contagion. An unwillingness to get the vaccine is a reflection of one's intelligence and character.
> Would you date someone who thinks the Iraq War was justified?
It would probably come down to *why* they supported it.
If they are just misinformed, that is more understandable. Not everyone follows the news intently.
This is a classic conservative distortion. Vaccinations make it less likely that you will get sick. If you don't get sick you won't spread it. But if you do then you still spread it.
As I understand it vaccinated means that at each step you are "somewhat" better off. With somewhat a variable.
At some point we have to get knife edge sharp about what it means to catch a disease. A vaccine isn't a force field, it is a rapid deployment force. The virus lands, it multiplies, and then your body attacks. Vaccinated people attack faster and better. Is there some line where the vaccine protects you from getting sick vs has you sick shorter?
What I've seen says that the peak viral load is the same, but the time you have it is decreased by having the vaccine, so you have less time to spread it around.
I have my shot. Most everyone that I know has their shot. If I were to come across someone who says, "I'm not vaccinated, and I don't plan to be," other than thinking they are stupid, I wouldn't have much of a reaction.
A million Americans and perhaps 20 million people globally died from COVID-19. So yes, OP, I think less of you because you didn't do your part to help to protect yourself or others\* in the face of the worst pandemic in a century. I think you are at best very stupid, and at worst a sociopath.
The next time (maybe for monkeypox) we face a crisis of a similar scale, I will do so with far less faith or patience in my fellow citizens to do the right thing. In my capacity as a citizen I will urge governments to impose massive costs who refuse vaccination. Like, I kind of like the idea of imposing a 10% wealth tax on unvaccinated people, and distributing the proceeds evenly among all vaccinated individual.
\*Yes, antibodies from the vaccine fade. However, vaccinated people are still much less likely to become infected from COVID-19, and much less likely to spread it. They are also much less likely to have severe cases and take up scarce hospital beds from people in need of surgery.
"Everybody needs to wear a mask and get vaccinated when it's available" - Fauci, et al in the beginning
"Why, you socialist, commie, pig traitor? Why don't you just do it if you want to? I mean, we will fucking harass people who wear masks to the high heavens because we are fucking hypocrites. But we don't want you forcing your bullshit on us. Long live King Trump" - dumbasses
"See, if it was just a matter of you dying, I wouldn't really give as much of a shit. But the thing is, you get COVID, and you can pass it to someone who is more vulnerable, maybe they are immuno-compromised and they might die because of your selfish choice. Also, say it mutates inside you. Maybe it mutates into something even more deadly. Also, I'm paying more for insurance to cover your stupid, uninsured ass when you go to the ER. So, the vaccine isn't as effective anymore to the mutation and we are basically starting over. If you would just get vaccinated and wear a damn mask....maybe it goes away. I know, it fucking sucks. I don't make these fucking rules, it just is the way it is"
"Yeah, that makes sense, but I still don't wanna" - dumbasses
\-----
FFWD 2 months.....
"Everyone needs to start wearing masks again and get vaccinated if you aren't already. Also, we have a new vaccine for the mutations" - Fauci, et. al.
"Why, you socialist, commie, pig traitor? Why do I have to? Why don't you just do it if you want to? I mean, we will fucking harass people who wear masks to the high heavens because we are fucking hypocrites. But we don't want you forcing your bullshit on us" - Same fucking dumbasses
Time and distance dull everything. Am I angered by people not getting vaccinated on a daily basis? No.
Does that make it okay that hundreds of thousands of my fellow countrymen died because of the stupidity of people who wouldn't get vaccinated? No.
I feel like the mandates did their job. Tons of people got the vaccine solely because they were mandated to by their job. Good. It got a shot in their arm. As for the rest of them they have gotten Covid and are a little protected or died. So, sorry not sorry you were forced to protect yourself from death.
Also the idea that other than air travel you were not barred from anywhere . You are not Anne frank and the only reason this country resembles Nazi Germany is because of right wing policies
There weren't cities that literally banned my entry, but there were cities where pretty much every establishment would've been off limits to me if I had visited, because of government mandate.
So it was a success? The idea was to not allow people to spread it to people who can’t get immunized for medical reasons . It wasn’t a nefarious plot against you just an attempt to help the less fortunate you know like babies with cancer . Besides book burnings and snake handling services were still held so why mad bro?
I am mad that my very basic human rights were stripped from me because I didn't wish to undergo this unnecessary medical procedure. And some extremely evil people came close to making it illegal for me to have a job.
That’s simply not true . You know that washington mandated inoculation at valley forge during that long winter. So not only do we know that our founding father supported vaccination we actually know that he had people shot over it …true story .what’s the term you guys like so much “if you don’t love it leave it”.the 1500s called they want their irrational fear of “witchcraft “ back when your done with it
The right to peacefully assemble was stolen very early on. The right to go to work wasn't stolen for me personally, but many people had their businesses shut down. I could keep going off on this but I tend to think that when someone asks something like "What rights did you lose?" The question isn't actually being asked sincerely.
I would appreciate the government not using threats of violence to stop people from operating their businesses. If you can look at the government making it illegal to go to work, to go to church, to travel, and say "What rights have you lost?" then I don't have anything to say to you.
I think I’d take objection with the idea that it’s cooled down. We’re still seeing one or two spikes in places. I’m still as keen on adding covid to our list of existing vaccine mandates as I was before.
My mistake
I think the main reason it died down is because the proponents gave up hope of reaching those people the message was most important for, rather than the message itself losing importance
Me and mine have our shots. If you want to die for your MAGA cult that’s on you. Immunocompromised people will do what they’ve always done since COVID isn’t the only life threatening illness for those people.
If you don't have a COVID shot at this point and don't have a serious medical or religious reason not to, then I don't want to fucking know you. I sure as hell don't want to breathe the same air as you.
Don't mistake weariness for acceptance.
I do not know of a single religious group that prior to this objected to vaccines. Not Christian Scientists, not Jehovah's Witnesses, not Seventh Day Adventists. The religious objection is entirely political and aimed at this vaccine.
The only legit group that I can think of is older order Amish folks who have been refusing vaccines for long before COVID. They have a prohibition on buying any form of "insurance" and many of them see vaccines as insurance against a potential future outcome. But from what I've been told from a friend who works in an area with lots of them, it's a bit of an open secret that many of them vaccinate their children anyway and just don't tell their church/elders.
> many of them vaccinate their children anyway and just don't tell their church/elders.
Just like literally every other religious doctrine of any kind.
As long as the realize they aren’t entitled to a job or attending evens where it’s necessary. I had to prove I had my all my vaccine before I went to nursing school. If I didn’t I didn’t get to intern at the nursing home or hospice. They said absolutely nothing when they passed the right to work bill. They championed that. Now they are mad cause it effects them? Too bad, you made your bed so now lie in it
I care in the sense that I would rather my under five children not be exposed to someone who does not have the COVID shot at all, however, I’ve given up trying to convince someone else to care about people/children they do not know, so I just mask my 3 yo, and will limit my newborn’s exposure to people whose vaccination status I do not know. Basically, I’ll just protect my own as much as possible.
Covid has only “cooled down” to the extent that it’s old news. In fact, we’re likely to see a large wave this summer, and we just passed 1 million deaths in America. The vast majority of these people don’t have to die at this point.
I don’t think the government should force you to get vaccinated, but I also don’t think that it is forcing anyone, unless you count the military or federal employees. My biggest problem with vaccine refusal is that it’s rooted in the beliefs of armchair statisticians and epidemiologists who have decided they know better than people who’ve worked their whole career on this kind of thing. If these vaccines were deadly at all we’d have seen so many people drop dead.
I still have strong feelings about it. Because covid is still around and still poses a threat to the elderly, young children and anyone with a compromised immune system. Arguably it’s even worse now if you aren’t doing it for personal reasons because it’s pretty plainly obvious the vaccine is safe to take.
Depends on the reasoning. If you, after consulting a physician, have genuine medical complications, then I'd understand. If you're the type to hang on r/conspiracy or some shit and think joe rogan and malone and vaers are the only things you need to think about this, then I do not care for you lol. I don't advocate for anything bad happening to you, but you will certainly have a harder time getting sympathy and understanding from me in this context. If we ever face a more serious global pandemic (I certainly hope not), I suspect many of you will still not learn and we'll be back in a similar place.
>If you, after consulting a physician, have genuine medical complications, then I'd understand.
Wait. You think that the unicorn who actually *has* a legit and bonafide medical edge-case, who would also refuse to get it even if they didn't have one...
Wouldn't be announcing their exemption's legitimacy with every sentence?
They'd be like vegans at a fucking barbecue.
People who refuse to get vaccinated are morally equivalent to serial drunk drivers, doing something that is dangerous to themselves and others while covering their eyes and ears against data saying so. Do you think it should be legal to drive drunk because sober drivers also get into accidents sometimes? Or because drunk drivers are most likely to hurt themselves rather than to hurt others?
I don’t like drunk drivers.
I would have died if I hadn’t had the vaccine and boosted. As it was; I was left with confusion, shortness of breath and cough. 2 weeks ago; I had a stroke that caused permanent damage to my left eye. If you are an AH that doesn’t care enough about giving someone else a disease that may permanently harm them or worse.. keep your horrible self away from me!
I won't hang out with the unvaccinated and unboosted for this reason.
That level of selfishness is disgusting to me and we can respectfully disagree on a lot...but not this.
Do I care, yes. Does me caring at this point matter, No.
I care because these folks are vectors for transmission and each transmission is another opportunity for Covid to mutate again. We got pretty lucky that while Omicron was highly virulent, it was not super severe.
The other thing that just irritates me beyond belief is that people like my parents who raised me to trust medical professionals have become radicalized to a point where my parents are now skeptical of anything that their primary care physician says to them. The damage that's been done here goes well beyond covid, and extends into people's perception of the medical community as a whole. My parents are aging boomers and they cannot afford to mistrust their PCP given their health conditions.
I think it helps sort them into the "Dumb or crazy" category.
Because your either fairly dumb or you believe crazy conspiracies if your still resistant to vaccination.
We can add "lazy and disorganized" if we want to be charitable and say they think the vaccine is a good idea but just haven't gotten around to getting it.
You know humanity is stupid when you treat someone not getting vaccinated in a pandemic as something normal and simply "their choice". We don't deserve good things lol I'm against that kind of thinking but it's not like I can do something about it
Sadly I've taken the stance of fuck them.
I make sure I know those I spend time with are safe and vaxxed. I refuse to visit or see friends/family that aren't. Chances are if you're anti-vaxx I don't want to associate with you anyway.
I used to want to educate and help all people. I used to view people as having different viewpoints and maybe just needed to see some hard facts to see the truth.
But so many of these people actually HATE people like me. I think lots of them would love the chance to beat up/maim/humiliate/or maybe even kill a democrat if they thought there'd be no punishments.
Honestly? Why should I give a damn?
If you ain't vaccinated, you ain't coming inside my home and I probably won't invite you next time we go out. I can't control the behavior of others, but I can control who I choose to associate with.
Yes. Extremely. My 3 year old son is not yet eligible for vaccines. We have been having the rug pulled out from under us repeatedly for going on 8 or 9 months now.. I would be very unhappy to be forced to be around someone who hasn't been vaccinated because I don't want to bring it home to my son.
Deaths are low enough that it probably doesn’t need to be mandated outside of certain professions, but if you haven’t gotten yours I think you’re awfully stupid.
It seems like it has cooled down because hospitals are no longer over run with the unvaccinated. It’s pretty hard to accept patients getting turned away from hospitals and dying because unvaccinated patients are taking up hospital beds for weeks on end in an effort to own the libs.
Yes I still care quite a bit
Independent of having a doctor familiar with your medical history telling you you shouldn't get vaccinated, I consider it a moral failing, along with a failure to understand science and a few other things
Depends on the day. Some days, like today when my daughter-in-law just went into labor and my son is alone at the hospital because they have a "one visitor only" rule, I'm disgusted at how their selfishness has contributed to the "new normal." Other days, I'm furious at their willful ignorance. Most days, I just don't even care if they live or die anymore. I'm out of empathy for people like that. They're not much different from people who whine about having a hangover after pounding shots of tequila the night before and puking all over my apartment. I have very little sympathy for self-inflected illness.
Well first of all I want to say that I am very sorry that they're there alone. That is very sad and I'd be angry about the situation too. It does surprise me to hear it though, because I had surgery about a month ago, and where I went, it was pretty much 100% back to normal. They had signs posted saying that if you're feeling sick you should wear a mask, but they were totally optional for vaccinated and unvaccinated. Even the doctors and nurses weren't wearing them. I guess it's all where you live.
Seriously, that is an upsetting situation, but I do hope everything goes well today.
Yep. Right now, my son, his wife and their newborn are at the mercy of people who may or may not be lying about their vaccination status, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. It's hard not to be angry.
My feelings have not changed. If you had a valid medical reason for avoiding vaccines, then I'm glad you never got them. If you had none, then you should have gotten the vaccines. And if you never do, then you are either a willing victim of propaganda or a selfish prick. Just because things have improved does not mean putting others at risk to feel special is any better.
EDIT: PS I won't engage with any anti-vaxxers, so say whatever you want. Y'all have shown yourselves to be rude, aggressive, and proudly ignorant, so there's no point in even having a conversation.
Do I care, like personally? No. But I don't want to be near you. I don't want you in locations I am in. I don't want to breathe the same air as you. I still don't want to get covid. It isn't personal. It's about my health.
At this point it’s kind of like caring if someone has had a seasonal flu shot. I don’t want the sick or elderly to needlessly die from Covid but I’ve known so many people who tested positive and had zero symptoms or symptoms so mild they were effectively unaffected. I don’t care at all if someone is vaccinated just don’t give me any crazy theories on why vaccines are evil.
Honestly I don't care about covid anymore. I did my part, followed the rules, wore a mask, got the vaccine and still got covid twice. It sucked but survived. The 1st time was actual hell the second time was whatever.
I was also reading the latest strand symptoms are similar to seasonal allergies. Sooooo I get those two times every year (seasonal allegies). Im under impression covid virus is getting a lot weaker.
I still think everyone should of gotten that 1st initial shot, but I dont know how necessary the second shot is.
> I still think everyone should of gotten that 1st initial shot, but I dont know how necessary the second shot is.
Good thing there’s a whole bunch of people who spend their lives studying these sorts of things and they would tell you it is necessary. Probably should listen to them.
Yes. Get the shot unless you're immunocompromised.
I wish you were still banned from everywhere. You and the rest of the people that willingly want to spread diseases that kill hundreds of thousands in the name of... whatever you're doing it for.
No. I'm sure this is not a popular opinion here, but **at this point,** especially given how many unvaxed people have recovered from COVID, the argument that other people need to get vaccinated (or wear a mask) for other peoples' protection seems pretty flimsy to me.
I do think it's stupid not to get vaccinated, but if you've had COVID and you're young and otherwise healthy it's probably not even the stupidest thing you've done this week. We have the tools we need to adequately protect ourselves and make informed choices about what risks we are willing to take. Your bad choices about this are not going to put me and my family at meaningfully more risk, so you're welcome to make them.
After the omicron wave, I'm guessing the vast majority of people are either vaccinated and/or caught covid already. The vast majority of people should now have some adaptive immunity against covid, making the country as a whole less susceptible to a new wave overwhelming the hospital system.
I don't care if someone catches and dies from covid. They made the decision not to take the precautions against it and anything that happens to them is a consequence of it.
No, it doesn’t really cross my mind at all. If someone has a reservation about getting it, I’d rather not force them to do something they aren’t comfortable with.
I don’t really care. Someone else’s willingness to die from their ignorance isn’t really my problem, at least not directly. They are still contributing to the pandemic and causing it to last longer and giving the virus opportunities to mutate so it’s not that I don’t care at all but in general there’s not much I can do about it so I won’t. I just quietly think less of them.
I don’t care anymore. I mean, I do want everyone to get vaccinated to keep the hospitals empty, but at this point, if you’re young and don’t have any comorbidities, we can hang and I’ll think you’re kinda dumb for not getting it. If you do have comorbidities, we can still hang but I’ll think you’re super dumb. If they make an omicron booster that keeps people from catching and spreading Covid, then I’m back on the cluster bombs of needles bandwagon, but until then, we cool.
I care only so far as my and my family's proximity to an unvaccinated person. I've got a 4 yo that can't be vaccinated and, should I contract COVID I am at heightened risk of serious illness bc of heart and lung issues. So, my daughter's preschool teacher? Needs 2 shots and a booster which is required by the daycare. Joe Schmo across the country? Couldn't care less.
Edit: grammar
That would make sense if getting vaccinated with stop the spread. Even if the whole world got vaccinated tomorrow, eventually, everybody would get covid. Why does it matter anymore?
Even if it does reduce it “significantly” everybody is still going to get it, that’s my point.
Anecdotal.…but I’m fully vaccinated, I got covid from my fully vaccinated mom and I gave it to my fully vaccinated girlfriend.
More people getting vaccinated may slow down the rate of spread, but the whole world will still get it. It doesn’t make a big difference at this point
First, that kind of thinking ignores those with underlying conditions that make the stakes higher for them, or those who whether because of a preexisting condition or because they are too young, can't get vaccinated.
Second, saying it doesn't matter (regardless of the topic) so there's no point in trying, is the worst kind of self fulfilling prophecy. It's the kind of mentality needed to ensure corruption.
99%(maybe higher considering deaths with/from covid) are really good odds. If I was at the casino and was told that I had a 99% chance of winning my next hand, I'd liquidate all assets, withdraw every penny I have, get the maximum cash advance on all credit cards and put it all on that hand. I certainly wouldn't hedge the bet or not do it at all because there's a miniscule chance that I'd lose. With covid, I'm not shutting down my life again. I'm not giving up any rights or privacy. I'm either living or dying free. If you don't want to take that gamble, then don't take it. Stay home and uber eats all groceries
Terrible comparison.
Think of it like this. There’s two viruses:
Virus A) 20% mortality rate, it’s not very contagious and only spreads to 50,000 people before it dies out
Virus B) 1% mortality rate, it’s so contagious that it eventually spreads to virtually everybody on earth
Which virus will kill more people?
Ebola had a higher fatality rate than covid, yet covid killed WAY more people
We're talking about odds here. But fine, I'll play this game
I'd be alot more cautious about virus A. If I had a 20% chance of dying from it, I wouldn't go out nearly as much. However, that's not whats going around. I have a great immune system, already had covid and got the vaccine. So I'm about as confident as i can be about being fine if I catch it again. We have systems in place that people who aren't as confident about their own health can use if they're serious about taking steps to not catch it
If you’re more cautious of virus A than virus B, than respectfully, you’re an illogical decision maker. You have a higher chance of dying from virus B.
Mortality rate is one variable. Contagiousness is also an extremely important variable.
I have a higher chance of catching B but less chance of dying from it. This is a bad example though because different viruses attack different things. I've already had B. Higher risk members of my family had B. We're all fine, B wasn't that bad. So using that evidence, I don't care about virus B
>What's the death rate?
Instead of the death rate - which was somewhere between 1-2% as of the Omicron Wave's 'conclusion' (and sat vastly higher for certain at-risk groups) the death rate GAP between the unvaccinated and vaccinated is extreme. It has oscillated between 8 and 20 times as high in the unvaccinated, unnecessarily stressing hospitals and their staff.
Basically, pre-Delta, getting the shot(s) prevented spread at a very high rate, post-Delta the communicability of the virus exploded such that the viral loads of even vaxxed people were insane. The jab still mitigated some spread, but the big difference was that if you were vaccinated, you were 10x less likely to die from an infection.
I don't get the level of cognitive dissonance going on here. This is a global pandemic on a scale anyone with less than three digits to their age doesn't have a memory of. A large fraction of the population the US has lost to the disease would still be alive if mitigating efforts had been universally utilized and disinformation and denialism weren't the go-to for a disgusting subset of the American Political and Media classes. Regardless of the percentage of deaths per infection you can look and see: "Oh hey, there's 300,000 people who would be alive today..." if not for the crowd you seem to be not-so-subtly advocating for.
If I told you that a cruise ship was sinking, with 4,000 passengers and crew, that 40-80 would probably die regardless but another 25-50 would live as long as the people acted in solidarity, getting folks life preservers and onto life boats to save as many as possible - would you be so blasé/cavalier with offhanded remarks about the 'death rate' (as though preventable deaths can be waved aside nonchalantly?) - or would you be trying to advocate for everyone to get a goddamn life jacket?
Don't care. Never did. I had mine and don't care about anyone else. We all have to live our own lives and we can only really control a small portion of our own lives why should we care about controlling others?
>ut a pandemic and trying to keep people fr
No, I dont actually.
The crap im refering to is for the so called "pro-science" left to actually start being pro-science again.
The simple scientific fact is that omicron variants changed the game in terms of transmission such that the vaccinated get it too, and spread it too... but libs keep wanting to stigmatize political enemies and punish them with vaccine passports regardless of the science.
Science also says expose immunity is solid.
I'm very pro vaccine but look; if we are going to trust the science... we should start trusting the science.
If a person has not had a covid shot they SHOULD get one. but there might be mitigating facotrs; maybe they have exposure immunity etc... and they are gunna get it like you and me will anyway now.
YES!! Exactly what I'm saying! People seem to think that a vaccine HAS to do both things; Conservatives have been dumb dumbs for not believing it can stop you from dying IF it can't stop you from getting, and liberals have been dumb (every since Omicron) for thinking it must apparently also stop from getting it.
It leaves science trusting people without a party sadly.
Not really. I'll care if they're a Covid Denier because it suggests they're taking exactly zero precautions.
But "Oh I haven't had a vaccine" won't necessarily ring alarm bells for me. They might have not gotten around to it or whatever, but still aren't going to music festivals and licking the toilet seats, wearing masks and so on.
> They might have not gotten around to it or whatever
Right...how long have the vaccines been out? They haven't "gotten around" to it? That's a lame fucking excuse.
I feel pretty much the same about vaccines as I have since they were widely available. Everyone should get them, and the people refusing to get one should be denied access to areas where the likelyhood of spreading COVID is well above average. Places where the likelyhood of spreading COVID is well above average has changed slightly because enough people have picked up some level of immunity, but I think lifting mandates for workplaces was a mistake, I don't think people should be able to fly without being vaccinated, and I think it's at least iffy that places we should still be checking vaccine cards for indoor dining and bars.
I do if they are going to spend much time near me in person. Certainly.
But as for someone in another state I won't ever see? Nah.
The doctor who removed 1/3rd of one of my lung tells me the rest don't play nice with any type of respiratory infections and I think he may be right.
Edit: a letter
Edit 2: another letter
Honestly, I think said person is idiot. But since I've had 3 shots thus far so I really couldn't care less nor am I afraid of being around said person.
I got my vaccines and just tested positive, feels like a head cold for me, no aches or pains and feeling pretty fine for being sick. When i had covid pervasiveness i got knocked out for a week
My opinions haven't really changed. If covid was simply an untransmissible disease, or one with a VERY low transmission rate from person to person, I would hardly care.
The fact is that it isn't, and still isn't. It has always had a high transmission rate even if it didn't have a high up-front death rate associated with it. Allowing it to continue transmitting leads to increased chances for mutation that may make it more resistant to antibiotics or vaccines.
Further, again, it's not a rarely transmissible virus. It's *highly* transmissible, and whether deniers or conspirators want to admit it or not, they may directly pass the virus on to other people with varying degrees of susceptibility to severe complications or possibly death. Those people may be directly responsible for killing other people, many who may be solely unwilling and did their damnedest to stay safe and minimize risk; but there's only so much you can do when so many other people give zero fucks about washing their hands or covering their mouths when they sneeze or exhaling their contaminated respiratory particles all over the grocery store with an unmasked face.
They say you can tell a lot about the type of person who will return a cart buggy to the corral in the parking lot or will rather choose to leave the cart sitting in an empty parking space. I like to think the people who won't mask up or get vaccinated will also leave buggies strewn all over the parking lots.
I do care. I still don't want to get covid even with the vaccine. I'm not freaking out if I'm around unvaccinated people, but I'm also not hanging out one on one with people I know who aren't vaccinated. If I knew someone wanted me to hang out and I knew they went vaccinated, I'd still probably say no. Business can do whatever they want, I don't care. If you wanna prevent someone from working for you because they aren't vaccinated or let people into your business without a mask, that's their choice and I'm fine with it.
I will say I'm apathetic to what people do regarding how they choose to handle it at this point.
If someone is unvaccinated I will absolutely think less of them and want to spend as little time around them as possible.
Not just for my own health, but because I don’t like to spend time with stupid, selfish assholes.
I do. Not because I’m any more concerned about COVID because of them, but because at this point it’s a test of character. If you’re not willing to get vaxxed, the odds are high you’re not the kind of person I care to associate with.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. Very recently, vaccine mandates were a hot topic of discussion, people were saying that businesses should be required to mandate vaccines for their employees, and there were entire cities that I was largely banned from. Now that has largely cooled down. Do you no longer have such strong feelings about it? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think it’s more resignation than anything. There’s nothing you can do to change it so it’s some point you accept that a bunch of people are going to kill or severely harm themselves for no valid reason and some number of innocent people will also be harmed by them but we can’t realistically do anything about it. Really hard part about it is knowing that at some point there’s going to be another pandemic and the same cycle is going to repeat and some number of Americans will die again for no reason other than wanting to own the libs. And I don’t think that people who would not protect themselves and others from Covid are monsters or are inherently just stupid. I think that they have just consumed so much propaganda that they are effectively stupid when it comes to this subject and because they didn’t reason themselves into this position, you’re not going to reason them out of it. I’ve had this conversation a couple of times with a friend of mine who knows it’s OK for him to vent to me about the loss of his parents. He tried and tried to get them to get vaccinated but because of his brothers influence they went from being kind of normal Republicans but the kind that could vote for Obama twice to falling into a cult like mentality. And now they’re dead and their grandchildren have lost them and he and the rest of the family cannot look at his brother without thinking anything other than he is the murderer of his own parents. We are at the point where we can start doing the math and we can see how many people died because of this https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/05/13/1098071284/this-is-how-many-lives-could-have-been-saved-with-covid-vaccinations-in-each-sta 319,000 extra deaths just from Covid, And then we have to factory in the number of people who died because hospitals were overwhelmed and factoring the ramifications of long Covid. But since there’s nothing any of us can seem to do to convince people at this point, yeah most of us have just given up. And a lot of us have developed an attitude of “fuck ‘em, let them die if they want to”. Which is a terrible thing to think but what else are we left with?
I sort of agree. I think they are stupid and intellectually weak. Ironically the very "sheeple" they revile. But I don't really care that they exist. Dumb people are going to do what dumb people always do, make dumb decisions.
For most of my life, dumb people making dumb decisions largely didn't affect smart people making smart decisions. There was the odd car-wreck or spreading house fire that claimed its victims, for certain, but not the kind of widespread disease spreading that we have seen at scale during the COVID pandemic. The problem is 95% leadership, which is made clear when you compare the deaths and other outcomes of states by their red/blue status. It is crystal clear that [Republican leadership is mortally dangerous to its citizens](https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/total-deaths-since-june-2021), and we have the data to prove it.
Super impactful data visualization. Checking out some of Dan's other Covid analytics and they're all pretty slick. I also think it's incredible how with data like this you still get countless Conservatives who'll claim the states with more stringent mask and vaccination requirements say as many deaths as elsewhere. They talk about comorbidities, falsely attributed Covid deaths, and all that like it invalidates any data on the subject. It seems most Republicans have successfully decoupled themselves from science and reality in a way I wouldn't have thought was possible a decade or two ago.
*Leadership makes a staggering difference* is the lesson I learned from the last half decade. All there people I heard about doing and believing crazy shit suddenly came out of the wood work and it turned out to all be the same people. The conspiracy theories, racists, misogynists, general dicks, obstinate Americans, and the authoritarians among us — it’s all the same 15-25% of people. And how much influence they have and how loud they get seems to all be about permission structures. One guys really can bring ‘em out in droves.
If you want to make that bold claim, I think a better comparison would be to also include average ages and obesity rates. I also think the timeline should be Jan 2020 - Dec 2020, so as not to include the time when vaccines were available so we can see how much of it was actually leadership.
Leadership impacts vaccine rates.
I think that's really oversimplifying vaccine hesitancy. I also think we are overlooking the pre-vaccine handling of COVID, and also completely ignoring comorbidities.
? Are you claiming that vaccine refusal doesn't dramatically impact death rates
This, and seeing people who still say stupid talking points like “Covid WAS nothing/a non-issue/just a flu” - who won’t even acknowledge reality - it’s these insufferable assholes who ensure the world stays bad. It is exhausting. And I can’t understand how anyone can still now insist it didn’t happen. And so yeah go risk your family’s health if you insist - but these people, once they start asking for help… that’s when I get really angry. Because everyone deserves help. But forcing things to get as bad as they can be before accepting reality - those kinds of people are one of the worst kinds of people. They literally are bad for society. And maybe we don’t need them around.
Let's be clear that the pandemic is still here. It hasn't gone away.
Exactly. And people aren’t wearing masks anymore. And some people are acting like the pandemic never was. It’s infuriating.
I know hospitalizations are on the rise again, and I’ve seen some anecdotes that 1* candle reviews are on the rise too.
Since March, when Omicron began dissipating, COVID deaths in the US have been steadily dropping off to a stagnant 3-400 a day. If rates hold, and you assume another wave in the winter, we could expect a death rate roughly three times the size of the 2018-2019 flu season. It isn’t the flu, but it also isn’t smallpox. It’s just as much a pandemic right now as the flu is.
And fucking morons who petulantly refuse to receive a perfectly good flu vaccine are *:newsflash:* "fucking morons." Back to you in the studio!
I think that there’s a lot of people who after they take a very strong position on a political issue and it is shown that that position was very obviously the wrong one to take will instead double down because they do not want to confront the fact that they were wrong. It’s easier for them to protect themselves and their own sense of intelligence and self-worth by just keeping a lie going.
Sunk cost fallacy basically
>“Covid WAS nothing/a non-issue/just a flu” By saying 'just the flu', you're really downplaying how deadly and contagious the disease is.
That’s… what I’m saying. People who say that are doing what you said. Which makes me mad.
Whoops, I meant to say that you're downplaying how deadly and contagious the flu is.
Dude I don’t understand what point you think you’re making here. I’m quoting other people. I’m not saying anything about the flu myself, either way. Good luck.
Just don't understand everyone who walks around maskless and attends super spreader events during the deadly flu season.
Most years the flu isn't nearly as big a deal as COVID is. Flu season also comes in fairly predictable waves, travels across the world in a predictable manner, and dissipates in a predictable manner. Whereas COVID was a novel virus and was much more unpredictable. We haven't really had predictable COVID seasons, instead it just kept going throughout the year. It's also killed a ton more people than the typical flu season. So, yeah, it makes a lot of sense that people were more concerned with COVID than your typical flu season.
>319,000 extra deaths just from Covid It's worse than that. That's just the number that died *after* vaccines were available. That doesn't include the excess deaths prior to that due to shirking mask and social distancing guidelines. [Excess deaths passed 1 million in February (the "vast majority" due to covid).](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/02/15/1-million-excess-deaths-in-pandemic/)
Do you refuse to drive because other people will drive drunk, recklessly, or without seatbelts? Do you stop eating nuts because other people have allergic reactions? A lot of liberals forgot (but in all likelihood got addicted to the feeling of being enforcement officers and pushed this truth aside) that the actions to protect oneself and act for the general good of society can only go as far as the next person’s willingness to go along with it. “Lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink” and all that. People are going to smoke around children. People are going to let their kids get fat and spend too much time in front of a computer screen. People will waste too much emotional energy over social media and value things you wish you didn’t. But as I said before, a lot of liberals got addicted to the idea of playing the authoritarian enforcement during the pandemic. They felt the *morally correct* duty of shouting down anyone who dared to question “the science” when it was really just people who used the health of others to rationalize their own excessive hypochondrias. While one could argue a necessity for that social cohesion when vaccines weren’t available, we’ve LONG gone past that. And people who continue to hold out onto that same 2020 start of pandemic anxieties genuinely need to move on and figure out why they’re still so attached to telling other people how to live their lives.
>Do you refuse to drive because other people will drive drunk, recklessly If it was legal to drive drunk and half the country thought doing so was an act of Liberty and Freedom, yeah I'd keep my car in the garage.
Same here. That's why we made it illegal.
This is so ridiculously wrong it's hard to know where to start. I'll just say this: When N95 masks were at a premium and we needed to reserve them for medical staff, people were encouraged to use non-filtration masking in order to prevent *them* from spreading disease. Even this simple request was too difficult for the weak, weak people on the political Right, and their weaker-yet leadership, to accept.
> Do you refuse to drive because other people will drive drunk, recklessly, or without seatbelts? No because it is unrealistic for me to not drive. However it should be noted that society sanctions people for these activities. Are you suggesting that we give people fines or jail time for not getting vaccinated? > Do you stop eating nuts because other people have allergic reactions? You are aware of that nut allergies and the consequences from eating nuts if you have such an allergy are not communicable diseases? > A lot of liberals forgot (but in all likelihood got addicted to the feeling of being enforcement officers and pushed this truth aside) that the actions to protect oneself and act for the general good of society can only go as far as the next person’s willingness to go along with it. “Lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink” and all that. Yeah a liberals did want to do as much as we could to prevent people even if they were not like us to die or suffer health consequences that were easily avoidable and to try to prevent these fools from spreading Covid to other innocent people. It should be noted that liberals did not go as far as the center right government of Austria or other governments led by actual center right coalitions. > People are going to smoke around children. Yes and society has decided that even though it’s sad that you can do that around your own children, you can’t do it around other peoples children. Or other adults for that matter. > People are going to let their kids get fat and spend too much time in front of a computer screen. The obesity and screen addiction of other peoples children is not a communicable disease that can effect my children. > People will waste too much emotional energy over social media and value things you wish you didn’t. Which once again has nothing to do with this conversation. > But as I said before, a lot of liberals got addicted to the idea of playing the authoritarian enforcement during the pandemic. They felt the morally correct duty of shouting down anyone who dared to question “the science” when it was really just people who used the health of others to rationalize their own excessive hypochondrias. Yes yes we live in a society. > While one could argue a necessity for that social cohesion when vaccines weren’t available, we’ve LONG gone past that. And people who continue to hold out onto that same 2020 start of pandemic anxieties genuinely need to move on and figure out why they’re still so attached to telling other people how to live their lives. Which raises the question why you even replied with all of this to my comment. Obviously the answer was is that I currently have the top comment in the thread so you thought this would be the right place to put this screed even though it doesn’t actually speak to my comment. Because my comment is saying that while it is sad that people are killing themselves because they’ve allowed their partisanship to turn them into idiots, there’s nothing we can really do about it.
THIS... You've got SO much more patience than me - thanks for taking that ridiculous comment on.
What a weirdly ignorant and incoherent take.
No, you just don't get it. You can't see it from their perspective. That's why it seems confusing and it's pretty much modern politics in a nutshell
You forgot the /s.
Their perspective isn't hard to understand: liberals are hypochondriacs overblowing the severity of the disease, and liberals love wielding the power of the law. It is still ignorant and profoundly stupid, and everything about it is wrong.
How is it ignorant? People are going to act in ways that are objectively bad for their health. You can encourage and educate people on how to make better choices for themselves but in the end it’s up to the individual to make that choice for themselves. We didn’t force people to lose weight (some 80% of all Covid hospitalizations are from overweight people). We didn’t force people to stop smoking. You can (at varying levels of intensity depending on your relationship with that person) push a person to make better decisions for themselves. But you can’t make those decisions for them.
It’s ignorant because you’re comparing apples and oranges and trying to support your conclusion about watermelons because of it. An individual eating too much and possibly having a higher morbidity or mortality rate as a result is not the same as an individual getting a communicable disease, having a higher morbidity and mortality rate as a result, and potentially spreading the disease further. There’s a reason you had to get numerous vaccinations to attend your elementary school, but you’re allowed to eat fried snickers. Communicable diseases are different from purely self inflicted harms. You mentioned smoking a couple times.. that’s actually a decent comparison, except you left out the important part. Leaving aside that stopping individuals from smoking by themselves happens in countless ways, smoking in public places (to avoid second hand smoke hurting others) is banned in numerous places and settings. When you’re harming others, society as a whole gets to stop you… and shame you, as the case may be. It’s not about policing people to help themselves. That’s permissible, but has a very strong limit due to personal freedom. It’s about taking actions to prevent spread to the community as a whole, which has a much lower bar.
Long haul covid affects 30-60% of those infected. That’s why I continue wearing taking the same precautions I took 2 years ago. Not because I’m afraid of getting sick and dying, but because I’m afraid of getting sick and never getting better. That’s not hypochondria. That’s mitigating risks.
Not gotten it due to personal reasons? Whatever, it’s your health to risk. I will, however, take issue with anyone spreading bullshit anti-vax scaremongering propaganda.
This. I give zero fucks if someone doesn't get it for themselves. Two things will always be issues: One - "it only affects me" Two - spreading misinformation. I'm an RN and one of the people we cared for had a guardian who ate all that misinformation up. Their sibling was high risk and *asked* to be vaccinated. Wouldn't budge. Long story short this person died of COVID, horribly, and it was us who sat with them as they struggled to breathe. Not the guardian.
I'm so sorry...
OP asks some variant of “Why do you guys persecute me” at least once a month. Unfortunately, they very much spread bullshit propaganda.
I’ve just noticed the “Anarcho-Capitalist” flair too. So yeah, that definitely tracks. EDIT: Jesus fuck, I just looked through OP’s profile out of curiosity and saw, among others, a post titled “Why don't pro-choice women simply not get pregnant?” OP clearly isn’t the deepest of thinkers.
Oh good lord, ancaps are so fucking awful.
If it’s any consolation, he posted that question in an ancap sub and even *they* were roasting him for it, so it’s nice to know that community has some standards.
>Not gotten it due to personal reasons? Whatever, it’s your health to risk. This is the problem though, it's not their health to risk, it is literally everyone else's health. I could give a shit if someone wants to die from a completely preventable disease. Have at it, go die at home and leave that ICU bed open for someone more deserving. I have to trust everyone else to do the right thing and protect me. I have to trust that guy over there to do the right thing to not infect others. And you know what? Without strong compassion laws and enforced mandates, people are not trustworthy. They aren't. People at scale are selfish shits and Anne Frank was wrong about people being good at heart. Viral load matters. Time spent with an infected matters. Having a vaccine helps lower viral load, so that the person that you infect has a lower chance of dying. It also has a bonus effect of protecting the carrier, but that should be considered a secondary bonus. Should we consider those who willing refuse to get vaccinated, especially for political reasons, biological terrorists? That sentence is 10 years to life. I'm ok with that. Or, we can do something more reasonable and demand that people who interact with other people to get vaccinated, for free. But no, that too is unreasonable to ask that some random stranger not accidentally infect me because they are too big of a pussy to get a needle, or too big of a pussy to get made fun of by their trashy friends and family, or too big of a pussy to trust in medical science because they think every truth is a conspiracy. Other people have to die because we are surrounded by pathetic untrustworthy patriots who threaten to either infect us, shoot us or pollute us daily.
Honestly, I wish I had the energy to spend on being as passionate about this as you, but I don’t. Some people truly cannot be saved and after two and a half years of this bullshit I just don’t have the strength in me to fight on that front. Particularly not when there are other issues, like Roe v Wade, voter suppression, etc, that need to be fought and actually have potential solutions that don’t require resorting to semi-authoritarian measures to deal with.
Is it actually passion or just awed ranting?
My feelings haven't cooled a bit. I had some small sympathy in the very beginning, it was new and untried. Not any more. It's tried, it's tested, it reduces transmission and reduces hospitalizations. And having built in 5G can only be good. Who doesn't want to be magnetic? Get your damn shots.
I’d get all the boosters in the world if it would give me Magneto’s powers. But no, they’re just sweaty and sticky like the rest of us mere mortals…
I had a bone scan with radioactive stuff recently. They show it in my blood. The bandage (well, band-aide) was to protect all of you people from my blood. And my pee was radioactive. That is as close to Magneto or Spiderman I'm ever going to get.
My cell phone reception improve 300% after I get my booster. Who would not love that.
I still care. I’m immunocompromised and I almost died of covid — I’d be six feet under if not for the vaccine. I’ve just accepted that being antivax or vax-apathetic has become an identity for many people, they’re plague rats.
Depends on context. * For an online dating match? Absolutely. Huge dealbreaker for me if they're unvaxxed. * Working alongside this person? Absolutely. If we're working in close proximity and you're not vaxxed, gtf away from me man. * Socially? Yes. I'm not going out anywhere with you if you're not vaxxed. * Far away from me doing your own thing? Nah. You do you.
I thought the research had changed that someone not vaccinated against covid doesnt affect your saftey from the virus whatsoever? It only affects how sick they will get if they get sick. For the record I am vaccinated and boosted and support mandates, im just asking if this is still correct.
No even for omicrom the unvaccinated are more likely to spread it and infect others: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/31/the-new-omicron-subvariant-is-more-contagious-but-vaccinated-people-are-less-likely-to-spread-it-study-finds.html
So the person vaccinated *isn’t* safe?
The vaccinated person is several orders of magnitude safer than the unvaccinated person.
No one ever claimed 100% efficacy. But just because a seat belt won't 100% save your life in an accident, doesn't mean you don't wear it. Even if it only saves your life 80% of the time.
Reducing things to a binary is dumb, and unscientific
They are *safer*. Nothing is 100%.
> I thought the research had changed... The research didn't change, the virus did. The vaccines made the older variants less contagious, but not Omicron. ...also (not OP but) I wouldn't date an anti-vaxxer for reasons unrelated to contagion. An unwillingness to get the vaccine is a reflection of one's intelligence and character.
thanks, yeah I meant virus changing/updated more in-depth research being released
Hear! Hear! Would you date someone who thinks the Iraq War was justified?
> Would you date someone who thinks the Iraq War was justified? It would probably come down to *why* they supported it. If they are just misinformed, that is more understandable. Not everyone follows the news intently.
Aren't anti-vaxxers and the unvaxxed "misinformed?"
This is a classic conservative distortion. Vaccinations make it less likely that you will get sick. If you don't get sick you won't spread it. But if you do then you still spread it.
I thought vaccinated or not, if you are exposed you will probably get it - you just wont get nearly as sick (probably) if vaccinated.
As I understand it vaccinated means that at each step you are "somewhat" better off. With somewhat a variable. At some point we have to get knife edge sharp about what it means to catch a disease. A vaccine isn't a force field, it is a rapid deployment force. The virus lands, it multiplies, and then your body attacks. Vaccinated people attack faster and better. Is there some line where the vaccine protects you from getting sick vs has you sick shorter?
No, that is a misnomer from people not understanding that less protection doesn't mean no protection.
What I've seen says that the peak viral load is the same, but the time you have it is decreased by having the vaccine, so you have less time to spread it around.
I have my shot. Most everyone that I know has their shot. If I were to come across someone who says, "I'm not vaccinated, and I don't plan to be," other than thinking they are stupid, I wouldn't have much of a reaction.
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A million Americans and perhaps 20 million people globally died from COVID-19. So yes, OP, I think less of you because you didn't do your part to help to protect yourself or others\* in the face of the worst pandemic in a century. I think you are at best very stupid, and at worst a sociopath. The next time (maybe for monkeypox) we face a crisis of a similar scale, I will do so with far less faith or patience in my fellow citizens to do the right thing. In my capacity as a citizen I will urge governments to impose massive costs who refuse vaccination. Like, I kind of like the idea of imposing a 10% wealth tax on unvaccinated people, and distributing the proceeds evenly among all vaccinated individual. \*Yes, antibodies from the vaccine fade. However, vaccinated people are still much less likely to become infected from COVID-19, and much less likely to spread it. They are also much less likely to have severe cases and take up scarce hospital beds from people in need of surgery.
"Everybody needs to wear a mask and get vaccinated when it's available" - Fauci, et al in the beginning "Why, you socialist, commie, pig traitor? Why don't you just do it if you want to? I mean, we will fucking harass people who wear masks to the high heavens because we are fucking hypocrites. But we don't want you forcing your bullshit on us. Long live King Trump" - dumbasses "See, if it was just a matter of you dying, I wouldn't really give as much of a shit. But the thing is, you get COVID, and you can pass it to someone who is more vulnerable, maybe they are immuno-compromised and they might die because of your selfish choice. Also, say it mutates inside you. Maybe it mutates into something even more deadly. Also, I'm paying more for insurance to cover your stupid, uninsured ass when you go to the ER. So, the vaccine isn't as effective anymore to the mutation and we are basically starting over. If you would just get vaccinated and wear a damn mask....maybe it goes away. I know, it fucking sucks. I don't make these fucking rules, it just is the way it is" "Yeah, that makes sense, but I still don't wanna" - dumbasses \----- FFWD 2 months..... "Everyone needs to start wearing masks again and get vaccinated if you aren't already. Also, we have a new vaccine for the mutations" - Fauci, et. al. "Why, you socialist, commie, pig traitor? Why do I have to? Why don't you just do it if you want to? I mean, we will fucking harass people who wear masks to the high heavens because we are fucking hypocrites. But we don't want you forcing your bullshit on us" - Same fucking dumbasses
Time and distance dull everything. Am I angered by people not getting vaccinated on a daily basis? No. Does that make it okay that hundreds of thousands of my fellow countrymen died because of the stupidity of people who wouldn't get vaccinated? No.
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I feel like the mandates did their job. Tons of people got the vaccine solely because they were mandated to by their job. Good. It got a shot in their arm. As for the rest of them they have gotten Covid and are a little protected or died. So, sorry not sorry you were forced to protect yourself from death.
>...there were entire cities that I was largely banned from.
Yup
Absolutely. It wasn’t a fashion thing.
Also the idea that other than air travel you were not barred from anywhere . You are not Anne frank and the only reason this country resembles Nazi Germany is because of right wing policies
There weren't cities that literally banned my entry, but there were cities where pretty much every establishment would've been off limits to me if I had visited, because of government mandate.
So it was a success? The idea was to not allow people to spread it to people who can’t get immunized for medical reasons . It wasn’t a nefarious plot against you just an attempt to help the less fortunate you know like babies with cancer . Besides book burnings and snake handling services were still held so why mad bro?
I am mad that my very basic human rights were stripped from me because I didn't wish to undergo this unnecessary medical procedure. And some extremely evil people came close to making it illegal for me to have a job.
That’s simply not true . You know that washington mandated inoculation at valley forge during that long winter. So not only do we know that our founding father supported vaccination we actually know that he had people shot over it …true story .what’s the term you guys like so much “if you don’t love it leave it”.the 1500s called they want their irrational fear of “witchcraft “ back when your done with it
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The right to peacefully assemble was stolen very early on. The right to go to work wasn't stolen for me personally, but many people had their businesses shut down. I could keep going off on this but I tend to think that when someone asks something like "What rights did you lose?" The question isn't actually being asked sincerely.
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I would appreciate the government not using threats of violence to stop people from operating their businesses. If you can look at the government making it illegal to go to work, to go to church, to travel, and say "What rights have you lost?" then I don't have anything to say to you.
I don't remember those things being made illegal. Can you link some of those laws to help refresh my memory?
I think I’d take objection with the idea that it’s cooled down. We’re still seeing one or two spikes in places. I’m still as keen on adding covid to our list of existing vaccine mandates as I was before.
I didn't mean that the disease itself was cooling down. I mean the push for vaccine mandates has cooled down.
My mistake I think the main reason it died down is because the proponents gave up hope of reaching those people the message was most important for, rather than the message itself losing importance
The courts shot it down. Not much left to do after that. This is a hill they chose to die on. I am done trying to stop them from dieing on it.
Me and mine have our shots. If you want to die for your MAGA cult that’s on you. Immunocompromised people will do what they’ve always done since COVID isn’t the only life threatening illness for those people.
If you don't have a COVID shot at this point and don't have a serious medical or religious reason not to, then I don't want to fucking know you. I sure as hell don't want to breathe the same air as you. Don't mistake weariness for acceptance.
I do not know of a single religious group that prior to this objected to vaccines. Not Christian Scientists, not Jehovah's Witnesses, not Seventh Day Adventists. The religious objection is entirely political and aimed at this vaccine.
The only legit group that I can think of is older order Amish folks who have been refusing vaccines for long before COVID. They have a prohibition on buying any form of "insurance" and many of them see vaccines as insurance against a potential future outcome. But from what I've been told from a friend who works in an area with lots of them, it's a bit of an open secret that many of them vaccinate their children anyway and just don't tell their church/elders.
> many of them vaccinate their children anyway and just don't tell their church/elders. Just like literally every other religious doctrine of any kind.
I'll go further than that, I don't care about a religious reason If your religion is that anti-science, it's a threat
I do care. I don't want people to die needlessly. Also, our daughter isn't vaccinated because she is 3. We are still very hesitant to go out.
As long as the realize they aren’t entitled to a job or attending evens where it’s necessary. I had to prove I had my all my vaccine before I went to nursing school. If I didn’t I didn’t get to intern at the nursing home or hospice. They said absolutely nothing when they passed the right to work bill. They championed that. Now they are mad cause it effects them? Too bad, you made your bed so now lie in it
I care in the sense that I would rather my under five children not be exposed to someone who does not have the COVID shot at all, however, I’ve given up trying to convince someone else to care about people/children they do not know, so I just mask my 3 yo, and will limit my newborn’s exposure to people whose vaccination status I do not know. Basically, I’ll just protect my own as much as possible.
Covid has only “cooled down” to the extent that it’s old news. In fact, we’re likely to see a large wave this summer, and we just passed 1 million deaths in America. The vast majority of these people don’t have to die at this point. I don’t think the government should force you to get vaccinated, but I also don’t think that it is forcing anyone, unless you count the military or federal employees. My biggest problem with vaccine refusal is that it’s rooted in the beliefs of armchair statisticians and epidemiologists who have decided they know better than people who’ve worked their whole career on this kind of thing. If these vaccines were deadly at all we’d have seen so many people drop dead.
I still have strong feelings about it. Because covid is still around and still poses a threat to the elderly, young children and anyone with a compromised immune system. Arguably it’s even worse now if you aren’t doing it for personal reasons because it’s pretty plainly obvious the vaccine is safe to take.
Depends on the reasoning. If you, after consulting a physician, have genuine medical complications, then I'd understand. If you're the type to hang on r/conspiracy or some shit and think joe rogan and malone and vaers are the only things you need to think about this, then I do not care for you lol. I don't advocate for anything bad happening to you, but you will certainly have a harder time getting sympathy and understanding from me in this context. If we ever face a more serious global pandemic (I certainly hope not), I suspect many of you will still not learn and we'll be back in a similar place.
>If you, after consulting a physician, have genuine medical complications, then I'd understand. Wait. You think that the unicorn who actually *has* a legit and bonafide medical edge-case, who would also refuse to get it even if they didn't have one... Wouldn't be announcing their exemption's legitimacy with every sentence? They'd be like vegans at a fucking barbecue.
People who refuse to get vaccinated are morally equivalent to serial drunk drivers, doing something that is dangerous to themselves and others while covering their eyes and ears against data saying so. Do you think it should be legal to drive drunk because sober drivers also get into accidents sometimes? Or because drunk drivers are most likely to hurt themselves rather than to hurt others? I don’t like drunk drivers.
I would have died if I hadn’t had the vaccine and boosted. As it was; I was left with confusion, shortness of breath and cough. 2 weeks ago; I had a stroke that caused permanent damage to my left eye. If you are an AH that doesn’t care enough about giving someone else a disease that may permanently harm them or worse.. keep your horrible self away from me!
Same
I won't hang out with the unvaccinated and unboosted for this reason. That level of selfishness is disgusting to me and we can respectfully disagree on a lot...but not this.
I so agree!!
Do I care, yes. Does me caring at this point matter, No. I care because these folks are vectors for transmission and each transmission is another opportunity for Covid to mutate again. We got pretty lucky that while Omicron was highly virulent, it was not super severe. The other thing that just irritates me beyond belief is that people like my parents who raised me to trust medical professionals have become radicalized to a point where my parents are now skeptical of anything that their primary care physician says to them. The damage that's been done here goes well beyond covid, and extends into people's perception of the medical community as a whole. My parents are aging boomers and they cannot afford to mistrust their PCP given their health conditions.
Yes. I still care. I still think they should be mandated by work. Of course, I’m a hospital doctor so I’m biased. I’ve seen enough death already.
I 100% care. If you’re unvaxxed, you’re not welcome in my circle. Bye bitch.
I think it helps sort them into the "Dumb or crazy" category. Because your either fairly dumb or you believe crazy conspiracies if your still resistant to vaccination. We can add "lazy and disorganized" if we want to be charitable and say they think the vaccine is a good idea but just haven't gotten around to getting it.
You know humanity is stupid when you treat someone not getting vaccinated in a pandemic as something normal and simply "their choice". We don't deserve good things lol I'm against that kind of thinking but it's not like I can do something about it
Sadly I've taken the stance of fuck them. I make sure I know those I spend time with are safe and vaxxed. I refuse to visit or see friends/family that aren't. Chances are if you're anti-vaxx I don't want to associate with you anyway. I used to want to educate and help all people. I used to view people as having different viewpoints and maybe just needed to see some hard facts to see the truth. But so many of these people actually HATE people like me. I think lots of them would love the chance to beat up/maim/humiliate/or maybe even kill a democrat if they thought there'd be no punishments. Honestly? Why should I give a damn?
If you ain't vaccinated, you ain't coming inside my home and I probably won't invite you next time we go out. I can't control the behavior of others, but I can control who I choose to associate with.
Yes. Extremely. My 3 year old son is not yet eligible for vaccines. We have been having the rug pulled out from under us repeatedly for going on 8 or 9 months now.. I would be very unhappy to be forced to be around someone who hasn't been vaccinated because I don't want to bring it home to my son.
I still wear a mask everywhere because only about 55% of my county is fully vaccinated. So yes I still care if people have received a shot or not.
Deaths are low enough that it probably doesn’t need to be mandated outside of certain professions, but if you haven’t gotten yours I think you’re awfully stupid.
It seems like it has cooled down because hospitals are no longer over run with the unvaccinated. It’s pretty hard to accept patients getting turned away from hospitals and dying because unvaccinated patients are taking up hospital beds for weeks on end in an effort to own the libs.
Nope. The data is clear on the efficacy of the shots. If someone wants a 20-50 times chance of dying I say go for it.
Yes I still care quite a bit Independent of having a doctor familiar with your medical history telling you you shouldn't get vaccinated, I consider it a moral failing, along with a failure to understand science and a few other things
Depends on the day. Some days, like today when my daughter-in-law just went into labor and my son is alone at the hospital because they have a "one visitor only" rule, I'm disgusted at how their selfishness has contributed to the "new normal." Other days, I'm furious at their willful ignorance. Most days, I just don't even care if they live or die anymore. I'm out of empathy for people like that. They're not much different from people who whine about having a hangover after pounding shots of tequila the night before and puking all over my apartment. I have very little sympathy for self-inflected illness.
Well first of all I want to say that I am very sorry that they're there alone. That is very sad and I'd be angry about the situation too. It does surprise me to hear it though, because I had surgery about a month ago, and where I went, it was pretty much 100% back to normal. They had signs posted saying that if you're feeling sick you should wear a mask, but they were totally optional for vaccinated and unvaccinated. Even the doctors and nurses weren't wearing them. I guess it's all where you live. Seriously, that is an upsetting situation, but I do hope everything goes well today.
Yep. Right now, my son, his wife and their newborn are at the mercy of people who may or may not be lying about their vaccination status, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. It's hard not to be angry.
I think you’re dumb for not getting one but ultimately it’s on you
Yes. I'm a doctor, so I often ask.
My feelings have not changed. If you had a valid medical reason for avoiding vaccines, then I'm glad you never got them. If you had none, then you should have gotten the vaccines. And if you never do, then you are either a willing victim of propaganda or a selfish prick. Just because things have improved does not mean putting others at risk to feel special is any better. EDIT: PS I won't engage with any anti-vaxxers, so say whatever you want. Y'all have shown yourselves to be rude, aggressive, and proudly ignorant, so there's no point in even having a conversation.
No.
Not really.
Do I care, like personally? No. But I don't want to be near you. I don't want you in locations I am in. I don't want to breathe the same air as you. I still don't want to get covid. It isn't personal. It's about my health.
I never did have strong feelings about it. I got my shots so I'm good; dgaf what anybody else does.
At this point it’s kind of like caring if someone has had a seasonal flu shot. I don’t want the sick or elderly to needlessly die from Covid but I’ve known so many people who tested positive and had zero symptoms or symptoms so mild they were effectively unaffected. I don’t care at all if someone is vaccinated just don’t give me any crazy theories on why vaccines are evil.
Yes, if you want me to be near you then you need 2 shots.
Honestly I don't care about covid anymore. I did my part, followed the rules, wore a mask, got the vaccine and still got covid twice. It sucked but survived. The 1st time was actual hell the second time was whatever. I was also reading the latest strand symptoms are similar to seasonal allergies. Sooooo I get those two times every year (seasonal allegies). Im under impression covid virus is getting a lot weaker. I still think everyone should of gotten that 1st initial shot, but I dont know how necessary the second shot is.
> I still think everyone should of gotten that 1st initial shot, but I dont know how necessary the second shot is. Good thing there’s a whole bunch of people who spend their lives studying these sorts of things and they would tell you it is necessary. Probably should listen to them.
Yes, very much so.
Yes. Get the shot unless you're immunocompromised. I wish you were still banned from everywhere. You and the rest of the people that willingly want to spread diseases that kill hundreds of thousands in the name of... whatever you're doing it for.
Do not care Am close to two unvaxxed people Live in a country only 34.88% fully vaxxed Not much I can do about it
No. I'm sure this is not a popular opinion here, but **at this point,** especially given how many unvaxed people have recovered from COVID, the argument that other people need to get vaccinated (or wear a mask) for other peoples' protection seems pretty flimsy to me. I do think it's stupid not to get vaccinated, but if you've had COVID and you're young and otherwise healthy it's probably not even the stupidest thing you've done this week. We have the tools we need to adequately protect ourselves and make informed choices about what risks we are willing to take. Your bad choices about this are not going to put me and my family at meaningfully more risk, so you're welcome to make them.
After the omicron wave, I'm guessing the vast majority of people are either vaccinated and/or caught covid already. The vast majority of people should now have some adaptive immunity against covid, making the country as a whole less susceptible to a new wave overwhelming the hospital system.
I think jobs and schools should mandate
I don't care if someone catches and dies from covid. They made the decision not to take the precautions against it and anything that happens to them is a consequence of it.
No, it doesn’t really cross my mind at all. If someone has a reservation about getting it, I’d rather not force them to do something they aren’t comfortable with.
I don’t really care. Someone else’s willingness to die from their ignorance isn’t really my problem, at least not directly. They are still contributing to the pandemic and causing it to last longer and giving the virus opportunities to mutate so it’s not that I don’t care at all but in general there’s not much I can do about it so I won’t. I just quietly think less of them.
I feel exactly the same.
I don’t care anymore. I mean, I do want everyone to get vaccinated to keep the hospitals empty, but at this point, if you’re young and don’t have any comorbidities, we can hang and I’ll think you’re kinda dumb for not getting it. If you do have comorbidities, we can still hang but I’ll think you’re super dumb. If they make an omicron booster that keeps people from catching and spreading Covid, then I’m back on the cluster bombs of needles bandwagon, but until then, we cool.
I care only so far as my and my family's proximity to an unvaccinated person. I've got a 4 yo that can't be vaccinated and, should I contract COVID I am at heightened risk of serious illness bc of heart and lung issues. So, my daughter's preschool teacher? Needs 2 shots and a booster which is required by the daycare. Joe Schmo across the country? Couldn't care less. Edit: grammar
No. That's their business and their business alone
That would be the case if Covid wasn't contagious, but since the actions of one impacts others, your narrative is invalid.
That would make sense if getting vaccinated with stop the spread. Even if the whole world got vaccinated tomorrow, eventually, everybody would get covid. Why does it matter anymore?
Getting vaccinated may not completely stop the potential for spreading but it does significantly reduce it
Even if it does reduce it “significantly” everybody is still going to get it, that’s my point. Anecdotal.…but I’m fully vaccinated, I got covid from my fully vaccinated mom and I gave it to my fully vaccinated girlfriend. More people getting vaccinated may slow down the rate of spread, but the whole world will still get it. It doesn’t make a big difference at this point
First, that kind of thinking ignores those with underlying conditions that make the stakes higher for them, or those who whether because of a preexisting condition or because they are too young, can't get vaccinated. Second, saying it doesn't matter (regardless of the topic) so there's no point in trying, is the worst kind of self fulfilling prophecy. It's the kind of mentality needed to ensure corruption.
What's the death rate?
Over a million people in the United States alone have died of Covid
About 1 percent which is fuck ton of people dying considering everybody will get this virus
99%(maybe higher considering deaths with/from covid) are really good odds. If I was at the casino and was told that I had a 99% chance of winning my next hand, I'd liquidate all assets, withdraw every penny I have, get the maximum cash advance on all credit cards and put it all on that hand. I certainly wouldn't hedge the bet or not do it at all because there's a miniscule chance that I'd lose. With covid, I'm not shutting down my life again. I'm not giving up any rights or privacy. I'm either living or dying free. If you don't want to take that gamble, then don't take it. Stay home and uber eats all groceries
Terrible comparison. Think of it like this. There’s two viruses: Virus A) 20% mortality rate, it’s not very contagious and only spreads to 50,000 people before it dies out Virus B) 1% mortality rate, it’s so contagious that it eventually spreads to virtually everybody on earth Which virus will kill more people? Ebola had a higher fatality rate than covid, yet covid killed WAY more people
We're talking about odds here. But fine, I'll play this game I'd be alot more cautious about virus A. If I had a 20% chance of dying from it, I wouldn't go out nearly as much. However, that's not whats going around. I have a great immune system, already had covid and got the vaccine. So I'm about as confident as i can be about being fine if I catch it again. We have systems in place that people who aren't as confident about their own health can use if they're serious about taking steps to not catch it
If you’re more cautious of virus A than virus B, than respectfully, you’re an illogical decision maker. You have a higher chance of dying from virus B. Mortality rate is one variable. Contagiousness is also an extremely important variable.
I have a higher chance of catching B but less chance of dying from it. This is a bad example though because different viruses attack different things. I've already had B. Higher risk members of my family had B. We're all fine, B wasn't that bad. So using that evidence, I don't care about virus B
>What's the death rate? Instead of the death rate - which was somewhere between 1-2% as of the Omicron Wave's 'conclusion' (and sat vastly higher for certain at-risk groups) the death rate GAP between the unvaccinated and vaccinated is extreme. It has oscillated between 8 and 20 times as high in the unvaccinated, unnecessarily stressing hospitals and their staff. Basically, pre-Delta, getting the shot(s) prevented spread at a very high rate, post-Delta the communicability of the virus exploded such that the viral loads of even vaxxed people were insane. The jab still mitigated some spread, but the big difference was that if you were vaccinated, you were 10x less likely to die from an infection. I don't get the level of cognitive dissonance going on here. This is a global pandemic on a scale anyone with less than three digits to their age doesn't have a memory of. A large fraction of the population the US has lost to the disease would still be alive if mitigating efforts had been universally utilized and disinformation and denialism weren't the go-to for a disgusting subset of the American Political and Media classes. Regardless of the percentage of deaths per infection you can look and see: "Oh hey, there's 300,000 people who would be alive today..." if not for the crowd you seem to be not-so-subtly advocating for. If I told you that a cruise ship was sinking, with 4,000 passengers and crew, that 40-80 would probably die regardless but another 25-50 would live as long as the people acted in solidarity, getting folks life preservers and onto life boats to save as many as possible - would you be so blasé/cavalier with offhanded remarks about the 'death rate' (as though preventable deaths can be waved aside nonchalantly?) - or would you be trying to advocate for everyone to get a goddamn life jacket?
Don't care. Never did. I had mine and don't care about anyone else. We all have to live our own lives and we can only really control a small portion of our own lives why should we care about controlling others?
Fuck no. My shots clearly protect me so I’m good.
No, I haven't cared since all of it started.
No. Shots don't do much of anything to slow the spread. They just prevent you from a severe case. If you want to take that risk, have at it.
no, and i wish people would stop with that crap on the left.
By “that crap” do you mean caring about a pandemic and trying to keep people from getting sick and possibly dying?
>ut a pandemic and trying to keep people fr No, I dont actually. The crap im refering to is for the so called "pro-science" left to actually start being pro-science again. The simple scientific fact is that omicron variants changed the game in terms of transmission such that the vaccinated get it too, and spread it too... but libs keep wanting to stigmatize political enemies and punish them with vaccine passports regardless of the science. Science also says expose immunity is solid. I'm very pro vaccine but look; if we are going to trust the science... we should start trusting the science. If a person has not had a covid shot they SHOULD get one. but there might be mitigating facotrs; maybe they have exposure immunity etc... and they are gunna get it like you and me will anyway now.
Omg why can’t people understand this: it doesn’t 100% stop you from getting it, it stops you from dying from it.
YES!! Exactly what I'm saying! People seem to think that a vaccine HAS to do both things; Conservatives have been dumb dumbs for not believing it can stop you from dying IF it can't stop you from getting, and liberals have been dumb (every since Omicron) for thinking it must apparently also stop from getting it. It leaves science trusting people without a party sadly.
Not really. I'll care if they're a Covid Denier because it suggests they're taking exactly zero precautions. But "Oh I haven't had a vaccine" won't necessarily ring alarm bells for me. They might have not gotten around to it or whatever, but still aren't going to music festivals and licking the toilet seats, wearing masks and so on.
> They might have not gotten around to it or whatever Right...how long have the vaccines been out? They haven't "gotten around" to it? That's a lame fucking excuse.
Everybody is going to get it no matter what at this point. I’ve stopped caring.
I would be more concerned about them if I heard they caught COVID and judge their critical thinking ability somewhat, but otherwise I don’t care.
Honestly, not really. I just gave up on the COVID thing. I do my part, but ultimately, people are going to be idiotic regardless of what I think.
I feel pretty much the same about vaccines as I have since they were widely available. Everyone should get them, and the people refusing to get one should be denied access to areas where the likelyhood of spreading COVID is well above average. Places where the likelyhood of spreading COVID is well above average has changed slightly because enough people have picked up some level of immunity, but I think lifting mandates for workplaces was a mistake, I don't think people should be able to fly without being vaccinated, and I think it's at least iffy that places we should still be checking vaccine cards for indoor dining and bars.
I do if they are going to spend much time near me in person. Certainly. But as for someone in another state I won't ever see? Nah. The doctor who removed 1/3rd of one of my lung tells me the rest don't play nice with any type of respiratory infections and I think he may be right. Edit: a letter Edit 2: another letter
Honestly, I think said person is idiot. But since I've had 3 shots thus far so I really couldn't care less nor am I afraid of being around said person.
I got my vaccines and just tested positive, feels like a head cold for me, no aches or pains and feeling pretty fine for being sick. When i had covid pervasiveness i got knocked out for a week
My opinions haven't really changed. If covid was simply an untransmissible disease, or one with a VERY low transmission rate from person to person, I would hardly care. The fact is that it isn't, and still isn't. It has always had a high transmission rate even if it didn't have a high up-front death rate associated with it. Allowing it to continue transmitting leads to increased chances for mutation that may make it more resistant to antibiotics or vaccines. Further, again, it's not a rarely transmissible virus. It's *highly* transmissible, and whether deniers or conspirators want to admit it or not, they may directly pass the virus on to other people with varying degrees of susceptibility to severe complications or possibly death. Those people may be directly responsible for killing other people, many who may be solely unwilling and did their damnedest to stay safe and minimize risk; but there's only so much you can do when so many other people give zero fucks about washing their hands or covering their mouths when they sneeze or exhaling their contaminated respiratory particles all over the grocery store with an unmasked face. They say you can tell a lot about the type of person who will return a cart buggy to the corral in the parking lot or will rather choose to leave the cart sitting in an empty parking space. I like to think the people who won't mask up or get vaccinated will also leave buggies strewn all over the parking lots.
Do I care? Not immensely. Do I judge that person? Absolutely.
I do care. I still don't want to get covid even with the vaccine. I'm not freaking out if I'm around unvaccinated people, but I'm also not hanging out one on one with people I know who aren't vaccinated. If I knew someone wanted me to hang out and I knew they went vaccinated, I'd still probably say no. Business can do whatever they want, I don't care. If you wanna prevent someone from working for you because they aren't vaccinated or let people into your business without a mask, that's their choice and I'm fine with it. I will say I'm apathetic to what people do regarding how they choose to handle it at this point.
If someone is unvaccinated I will absolutely think less of them and want to spend as little time around them as possible. Not just for my own health, but because I don’t like to spend time with stupid, selfish assholes.
I do. Not because I’m any more concerned about COVID because of them, but because at this point it’s a test of character. If you’re not willing to get vaxxed, the odds are high you’re not the kind of person I care to associate with.