2 ms·
> This is the thing that drives me the most nuts about so many people's reactions to this disease who treat infection as a binary: You die or you don't die and
by tharne 5y ago
> This is the thing that drives me the most nuts about so many people's reactions to this disease who treat infection as a binary: You die or you don't die and the latter is just as good as not getting it
When I hear folks say that, I always ask them, "Herpes has a 100% survival rate, does that mean you'd shrug it off as no big deal if someone gave you herpes?".
- JSavageOne 5y agoOk but herpes never shut down the world. We never shut down or severely restricted capacity in restaurants, gyms, stores, hotels, etc. over herpes, or required a herpes test to leave the house or get on an airplane. There is no herpes vaccine, but I imagine that even if there were, you'd never be required to show your proof of recent herpes vaccination to go to a restaurant or even ride public transportation or stay at a hotel (the situation in Italy). Nobody is denying that COVID causes problems for some people, the argument is that it doesn't justify forcing everyone to wear masks everywhere, get vaccinated multiple times to do anything in society, get COVID tested anytime one needs to travel (for countries that haven't shut down borders), and force remote learning on children. Maybe it's possible that the side effects from these authoritarian policies don't outweigh the benefits, and disproportionately harm the youth for the benefit of the elderly since COVID is only statistically dangerous for those close to the median age of life expectancy. Perhaps people should be able to vote with their feet.
- unethical_ban 5y agoActually, yes, you can basically shrug it off. It rarely poses any issue for people and the stigma around it is worse than the disease.