I care.

I'm vaccinated. I can still catch it - I'm much more unlikely to end up in hospital, but it's still an unpleasant illness to have, with a small chance of long-term complications that are not at all well understood.

And if I do catch it I can still spread it to others, who may not be vaccinated.

I very much care about not killing someone else by spreading Covid to them, even if they deliberately chose not to get the vaccine. I'm furious with them (and with the information sources they consumed that lead them to that decision) but I absolutely don't want to contribute to their suffering or death.

It's obviously perfectly fine for you to feel that way about Covid, but in my opinion the correct thing for you to do would be to isolate yourself and try to minimize the chance of being infected instead of wanting further damaging restrictions to be forced on other people (I don't mean relatively non-intrusive measures such as mask wearing, but any form of lockdowns).

Even masks. Because covid is here forever and people need to accept that and live with it.

>I can still catch it

Yes, you can still catch it regardless what we do with NPIs. Stop living in fear.

Judging by how many of my well thought out comments got downvoted… lots of people here are living in fear still.

It’s son intellectually dishonest to downvote people who express valid criticism. It’s pure tribalism… which is what is just about 40% for all our actions the last 1.6 years.

I think the most economical way of thinking about it is that we're stuck with a percentage of refuseniks and have to deal with them continuing to spread covid.

I am of a certain population that is more succeptable, and I just accept that there are people who would welcome my death from covid if it would save them from the slightest inconvenience.

I admire you for making reasonable arguments, you have more patience than me by far.

I hate to be blunt but sometimes life is unpleasant, even more so now. Do you think that it's fair to demand people change their way of living because you don't want an unpleasant illness? I think it's unpleasant when people eat seafood (I don't like the smell) but I don't demand everybody stop eating seafood.

"Do you think that it's fair to demand people change their way of living because you don't want an unpleasant illness?"

I think it's fair to demand that they change their way of living to prevent more deaths - 645,000 and counting just in the USA.

If we weren't living in a sea of unvaccinated people this conversation would be a lot easier.

Manners change over time. Maybe masks will join normal etiquette with other polite things, which benefits everyone around. (such as: closing your mouth when coughing, washing hands after going to the toilet, wearing at least shorts)

I advise you don't go into forests to enjoy nature, there is a small chance you'll get bitten by a tick and contract chronic lyme disease which happened to my brother in law. It could happen to you too, there's a chance. Better not risk it.

You do you. Just don't force society to continue doing any of this, that's all I ask. It's time to move on.

Let me try and follow your logic here.

You say the vaccine doesn't stop you from catching or spreading the virus, it just stops you from getting as badly sick. If that's the case then why do you care whether others are vaccinated or not? If it doesn't change the chances of them passing it on to you, and just changes how sick they'll get, then surely it doesn't make any difference to you?

> If it doesn't change the chances of them passing it on to you

Where are they saying that?

> Who cares? If you and your loved ones are vaccinated y’all are good to go.

The effects of COVID complications aren't somehow magically isolated to the patient. Good luck to anyone who's young, healthy, and COVID-vaccinated, but has a bike or car accident, gives birth in a hospital, falls down some stairs, or otherwise requires inpatient care.

Remember the endlessly repeated mantra to "flatten the curve" from circa March 2020? The "curve" refers to ICU occupancy. Max that out and suddenly the effects of COVID spill beyond just sickening and killing its direct victims to complicating your health system.

I thought we already flattened the curve. In March 2020. So why aren't we back to normal now?

Because the privileged tech worker class is still afraid even after everybody they know got vaccinated.