[danielsju6]

In several states it was a criminal charge that could see you fined and/or imprisoned. Having a criminal record bars you from employment and commerce opportunities no?

I know wearing a mask and taking the bare minimum to try to control a pandemic that has killed millions infringes on YOUR PRECIOUS FREEDOM but it seems a reasonable trade off for the state.

Also what restrictions to basic commerce are you facing? That you can't go get wasted in a bar? Give us a break.

[corey_moncure]

Listen, friend. The vaccine

1) Didn't

2) Can't

3) Will never

Stop Sars-CoV-2. You can vaccinate to 100% and double, triple, quadruple boost everyone. In this Omicron wave, almost everyone I know here in Florida has come down with symptomatic COVID. That includes my wife and kids, the entire families of all my best friends, my coworkers, my boss, my kids' teachers, everyone, and they are ALL VACCINATED to the man. The prior two waves never got within 3 degrees of freedom to me, vaccine or not.

This isn't surprising. COVID doesn't care about our stupid vaccine. It doesn't even know it's there. As far as I know we've never beat a bug like this with a vaccine. Consider that while we sit around and put on the mask and point the finger at the guy next door, the outbreak started in Wuhan, Omicron developed in South Africa, and the next variant is probably starting to incubate in yet another remote location. In fact the entire trajectory of this disaster is basically orthogonal to all of our activities.

The politics of COVID, however, the self-inflicted economic and social damage, are entirely our own doing. I believe this is actually comparable to, if not worse than, the direct effects of the virus itself. And since nothing we have done or can do will prevent the direct damage, I say we should stop inflicting all the secondary damage on ourselves.

[danielsju6]

Sure COVID-19 will be endemic, can't put the genie back in the bottle now, but that doesn't mean we can't and shouldn't be trying to end the pandemic: r0 < 1. The vaccines and masks do a great deal to reduce those basic reproduction numbers.

Maybe millions dead, countless others not entirely recovered, isn't helping economies or folks mental health? I agree, that's all our own doing, but not because we "locked down" it's because we never actually did. There was never a lockdown (at least here in the US), middle class folk just stayed home while the lower class brought us our groceries and died.

You're lucky the virus hasn't effected you till now... guess you don't have any friends in the service, hospitality, or health care industries.

Also if you're in Florida, what do you care. Y'all basically YOLOing this and I don't think there's much in the way of government mandates.

Maybe step away from the keyboard, put on your mask, and chill the fuck out friend. People are dying. Stop being selfish.

[Daishiman]

> hat includes my wife and kids, the entire families of all my best friends, my coworkers, my boss, my kids' teachers, everyone, and they are ALL VACCINATED to the man. The prior two waves never got within 3 degrees of freedom to me, vaccine or not.

And did they die? Because the vaccines are tremendously effective at reducing symptom severity, hospitalization and deaths.

[chasd00]

My, and this goes for everyone, freedom is indeed precious.