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jude- | 4 years ago

The problem is that a certain slice of the population adamantly refuses to wear a mask or get a vaccine, thereby prolonging the pandemic.

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nradov|4 years ago

While I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated, the virus will be around forever. Any talk of "prolonging" is absurd.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

You obviously can't expect people to continue wearing masks indefinitely. That would be ridiculous.

jude-|4 years ago

I can expect that if a sufficiently high body count or death rate is reached (now or in a future variant), certain high-risk activities will require proof of recent vaccination to participate in. See also: seatbelts, child-specific seats, etc. Why should I, a responsible member of the public, be forced to put up with other people's needlessly risky behavior when it directly affects me and mine?

xeromal|4 years ago

But Omicron is infecting vaccinated at a very high rate. At this point, damned if you do or damned if you don't.

We need to start moving on at this point.

awsthro00945|4 years ago

This is a false equivalency. Being vaccinated or not is the difference between requiring days/weeks in the hospital or only spending 1-2 days with a mild headache. It's "mildly inconvenienced if you do, damned if you don't".

I was at the hospital yesterday (for something unrelated to covid) and there are 0 rooms available. The hallways are still packed with unvaccinated people with covid laying in every open space they can find. Nurses and doctors are still worked past their breaking point.

We cannot move on until the thick-skulled members of society realize that their unwillingness to get vaccinated is the number one thing stopping us from moving on.

ben_w|4 years ago

Seatbelts and drink driving rules don’t totally eliminate car crashes, but they do reduce their frequency and consequences. Likewise vaccines and masks for COVID.

Indeed, if we had 100% vaccine uptake, or 100% sobriety, then all COVID incidents would be vaccinated just as all car crashes would have sober drivers.

“Learning to live with COVID” ought to imply “learning to live with masks and vaccines”, not “lose your sense of smell and be ill for an extra week each year”.