4 ms·

I didn't mention the flu. I mentioned making tradeoffs between death rate and living life. Why does everyone bring up the flu when talking about covid? Flu is a

I didn't mention the flu. I mentioned making tradeoffs between death rate and living life. Why does everyone bring up the flu when talking about covid? Flu is a deadly endemic virus that most people have natural immunity too (yes, even if you get a bad flu, the fact that your body has some past experience helps you fight it off and not get as sick as someone who's immunocompromised).

KittenInABox 5y ago
I mean honestly I live in the US and my life hasn't been that affected. I can go to karaoke, bars, parties, even with strangers with no concerns. I show I'm vaccinated, wear a mask, that's it. Oh, wait, I also use more hand sanitizer than before. I even got the nice kind that has a good scent to it and doesn't dry my hands. I'm sure it sucks more for people with conditions that compromise their immune system or people who live with such conditions. And I wish more people would vaccinate and mask up like me so they don't have to worry about its spread. But its political now, so our most vulnerable suffer.
- iammisc 5y ago
  Oh well, that's way worse than where I live in the United States, but the fact is you shouldn't have to do any of that to go anywhere. By the way you put it your 'not affected' is actually more strict than Oregon state (which is known for having had more severe lockdowns than others). Shows you how far the definition of 'not affected' has come. If you had told us four years ago you needed to provide medical information to enter a store, most people would have rightly been horrified. Thankfully the united states is not there yet.
rootusrootus 5y ago
> Why does everyone bring up the flu when talking about covid? Because the next step for covid is to settle into endemic status. Influenza is instructive because it serves as an indicator of the level of risk society is willing to tolerate from a virus.
- iammisc 5y ago
  The flu regularly (like every few hundred years or so, I think) mutates into a strain that kills 10x as many as other strains. And our level of risk has basically always been... nothing. We don't do anything special for flu, at least not in general society.

KittenInABox 5y ago

I mean honestly I live in the US and my life hasn't been that affected. I can go to karaoke, bars, parties, even with strangers with no concerns. I show I'm vaccinated, wear a mask, that's it. Oh, wait, I also use more hand sanitizer than before. I even got the nice kind that has a good scent to it and doesn't dry my hands. I'm sure it sucks more for people with conditions that compromise their immune system or people who live with such conditions. And I wish more people would vaccinate and mask up like me so they don't have to worry about its spread. But its political now, so our most vulnerable suffer.

iammisc 5y ago
Oh well, that's way worse than where I live in the United States, but the fact is you shouldn't have to do any of that to go anywhere. By the way you put it your 'not affected' is actually more strict than Oregon state (which is known for having had more severe lockdowns than others). Shows you how far the definition of 'not affected' has come. If you had told us four years ago you needed to provide medical information to enter a store, most people would have rightly been horrified. Thankfully the united states is not there yet.

rootusrootus 5y ago

> Why does everyone bring up the flu when talking about covid? Because the next step for covid is to settle into endemic status. Influenza is instructive because it serves as an indicator of the level of risk society is willing to tolerate from a virus.

iammisc 5y ago
The flu regularly (like every few hundred years or so, I think) mutates into a strain that kills 10x as many as other strains. And our level of risk has basically always been... nothing. We don't do anything special for flu, at least not in general society.