4 ms·

Contrarian viewpoint: Everyone's eventually gonna catch COVID-19 and it can't be stopped. All the travel restrictions, testing, school closures, quarantines,

by csense 5y ago

Contrarian viewpoint: Everyone's eventually gonna catch COVID-19 and it can't be stopped. All the travel restrictions, testing, school closures, quarantines, vaccine mandates, etc. are accomplishing is imposing costs and creating chaos. People will be hospitalized. People will die. Hospitals will be overwhelmed. It's unavoidable at this point, but no politician or policy maker has the courage to admit that. COVID might have been containable with massive travel restrictions, testing, and contact tracing in the first couple months of 2020. Between the testing screwups, the factually challenged political posture adopted by a certain former POTUS in the early days of the pandemic, the WHO's general incompetence, China's questionable actions, the disease's ease of transmission, and the delay in travel restrictions, that scenario is long gone. We're all going to take our X% roll of the dice against COVID. You can have a better roll if you get vaccinated, but then you have to consider: (1) The Y% chance the vaccine has a side effect that wasn't caught in trials and won't show up for years, and (2) The cost of meekly accepting that the government of a free country has the power to force people to get a medical treatment they don't want by taking away their ability to work or travel if they refuse, and also the privacy implications of allowing airlines and employers to ask for personal medical information, and the establishment of centralized databases for that information to deal with people who fake vaccination cards. (I personally got vaccinated, but I'm not getting the booster; reason (2) above is a part of that calculus. Another part is that when I got the first vaccine, I justified that decision by reasoning that long-term side effects are unlikely as the MRNA, adjuvants, or other weird leftovers will wash out of the body within months. That justification goes out the window if the vaccine's not a one-and-done and you start accepting boosters.) It's not a choice between (a) Massively disrupt these kids' lives, or (b) they catch COVID and some of them die. It's a choice between (a') Massively disrupt these kids' lives / educations, and some of them catch COVID and die, or (b') These kids have a reasonable education and some sense of normalcy, even though some of them will catch COVID and die. It's the truth. Unfortunately, no one who has real authority to set policy is willing to admit it out loud.

valachio 5y ago
Yeah what you said is pretty much it. And not only will everyone catch COVID at some point, but they will catch it many times over the course of their lives as the virus mutates; you'll get sick but it won't kill you (unless you are really unlucky). Sounds similar... oh right, just like the flu. Imagine if you stepped on a nail. Guess what, it's gonna be painful no matter what you do. It's better to pull the nail out in 1 go and endure a large amount of pain in a short amount of time, than to pull the nail out 1cm a day and endure a moderate amount of pain over a long period of time. Right now, almost every human society has decided to do the latter and implement lockdown after lockdown; going into total mania over new variants and semi-mandating vaccines and pumping 3 shots (more to come!) of rushed, insufficiently tested vaccines within a single year. I say semi-mandating because if you are faced with a choice of losing your livelihood or getting a jab, do you really have a choice? Here in Toronto, the government just started another 3-week lockdown. I believe this is the 3rd lockdown we've had. In some weird way, I'm strangely at peace with everything that's happened. I think I have adopted somewhat of a fatalistic attitude, not towards COVID but rather towards human nature and our ape-like herd-like nature.
- Daishiman 5y ago
  40 hospitals in the state of New York had to suspend elective surgeries due to COVID. The flu wasn't doing that. Flights are getting canceled like never before due to staff shortages. Restaurants in my home town are opening on half of the shifts due to COVID. So, no, nothing similar. Stop pretending it is.
astrange 5y ago
> COVID might have been containable with massive travel restrictions, testing, and contact tracing in the first couple months of 2020. Between the testing screwups, the factually challenged political posture adopted by a certain former POTUS in the early days of the pandemic, the WHO's general incompetence, China's questionable actions, the disease's ease of transmission, and the delay in travel restrictions, that scenario is long gone. No, it would not have been possible. The simple fact that animals can catch it prevents that. > I justified that decision by reasoning that long-term side effects are unlikely as the MRNA, adjuvants, or other weird leftovers will wash out of the body within months. Vaccines don't have long-term side effects. They have side effects, but it's immediate or nothing. It's also quite likely the 3rd shot is not a "booster", and skipping the 2nd shot in the series would be effective too. i.e. the actual problem is the first two shots were too close together.

by csense 5y ago

valachio 5y ago

Yeah what you said is pretty much it. And not only will everyone catch COVID at some point, but they will catch it many times over the course of their lives as the virus mutates; you'll get sick but it won't kill you (unless you are really unlucky). Sounds similar... oh right, just like the flu. Imagine if you stepped on a nail. Guess what, it's gonna be painful no matter what you do. It's better to pull the nail out in 1 go and endure a large amount of pain in a short amount of time, than to pull the nail out 1cm a day and endure a moderate amount of pain over a long period of time. Right now, almost every human society has decided to do the latter and implement lockdown after lockdown; going into total mania over new variants and semi-mandating vaccines and pumping 3 shots (more to come!) of rushed, insufficiently tested vaccines within a single year. I say semi-mandating because if you are faced with a choice of losing your livelihood or getting a jab, do you really have a choice? Here in Toronto, the government just started another 3-week lockdown. I believe this is the 3rd lockdown we've had. In some weird way, I'm strangely at peace with everything that's happened. I think I have adopted somewhat of a fatalistic attitude, not towards COVID but rather towards human nature and our ape-like herd-like nature.

Daishiman 5y ago
40 hospitals in the state of New York had to suspend elective surgeries due to COVID. The flu wasn't doing that. Flights are getting canceled like never before due to staff shortages. Restaurants in my home town are opening on half of the shifts due to COVID. So, no, nothing similar. Stop pretending it is.

astrange 5y ago

> COVID might have been containable with massive travel restrictions, testing, and contact tracing in the first couple months of 2020. Between the testing screwups, the factually challenged political posture adopted by a certain former POTUS in the early days of the pandemic, the WHO's general incompetence, China's questionable actions, the disease's ease of transmission, and the delay in travel restrictions, that scenario is long gone. No, it would not have been possible. The simple fact that animals can catch it prevents that. > I justified that decision by reasoning that long-term side effects are unlikely as the MRNA, adjuvants, or other weird leftovers will wash out of the body within months. Vaccines don't have long-term side effects. They have side effects, but it's immediate or nothing. It's also quite likely the 3rd shot is not a "booster", and skipping the 2nd shot in the series would be effective too. i.e. the actual problem is the first two shots were too close together.