The recent study where they intentional infected a bunch of paid volunteers and tracked what happened over the next year is really concerning. All of them have lasting brain damage and none of them can tell this occurred. The Long Covid studies are struggling to find healthy controls because there are a lot of people now walking around with the metabolic and vascular problems that are found in Long Covid but appear asymptomatic. This virus is doing a lot of damage and everyone is one infection away from their life being destroyed by Long Covid.
I wear masks in the airplane and in airports still, and in places like Utah or Texas, people get extremely passive aggressive towards me when I do. I have had flight attendants pretend not to hear me and get angry that I have my mask up, random elderly strangers tisk at me when they pass by, just so much general hassle and passive seething for something that has nothing to do with them. It’s terrifying how much people seem to hate me just for not wanting to get sick.
I lived in conservative California and we know my spouse’s veteran identifiers were the only reason we didn’t get hassled. Then we went back in a rental car and we were harassed by a small dick truck.
Thank god we live in the Bay Area now, masking is still common and I see it all the time.
Yes I've heard people in conservative states will hassle you. I actually got yelled at for it on a bus last week by a guy in a Fuck Trudeau shirt, who I ignored. But the US conservatives are really scary people.
Almost all illnesses are worth avoiding. Take for example, malaria. Dengue has 4-variants which can kill if you've already got any one of others the first time. COVID still hasnt been fully researched yet.
Back in the early 2000s there were "crunchy" moms on Livejournal who were mailing each other "pox boxes", which was a juice box a kid with chicken pox had licked I guess? It was absolutely insane and did not work.
I've had every recommended booster, got it from my dentist in July 2023 and spent a solid week in bed with what rivaled the worst flu I'd ever had. Actual flu, not "it's just the flu, bro" bullshit.
This was followed by a month of a wet racking cough and very congested lungs. I have no idea how much the vaccines and boosters reduced the severity of lessened any long covid, but I got my booster last year (months later) and will be doing so again very soon this year.
Amazingly my coworker who has escaped it says she wants it to get it over with. I sort of understand the waiting for the other shoe to drop feeling, but I'd rather never have had it. I got it on a trip on the way back from Mexico when I was wearing an N95 the whole time.
There's nothing to "get over with." She can continue to get it after having it before, and every time makes the potential risks higher. I've managed to avoid it so far (as far as I know,) but I know my luck will run out eventually. Just hoping to get it as few times as possible.
My granddaughter is in the same camp. Fully vaccinated for everything else you'd expect, but completely bought into the repackaged HPV vaccine hysteria that got grafted onto the Covid vaccines. So she's had it 5 times, including one that she describes as 'that time I almost died'.
Also, she's a teacher. At a religious school that obviously doesn't require that particular vaccine.
I still mask everywhere and will have my ninth vaccine next month. I've been lucky to only have one mild case that was basically a stuffy nose. I feel very fortunate, and I take it really seriously.
Yeah, it's part of life now. Like cancer, if it happens, it happens. If I'm sick, I try to isolate and recover.
You could however keep worrying for the rest of your life and feel miserable, spend time for all sorts of preparations, become germophobic, restrict your life decisions and become bitter.
Some people prefer the later. Quite a lot actually.
I'm pretty sure that if you knew you would get cancer from someone else who has it at a very high probability of transmission you would avoid it at all times.
This is a very poor comparison. At best it dimishes how bad cancer is and at worst you're also giving terrible advice to people who care about not having their life destroyed by covid.