If someone were struggling with alcoholism, and I offered them an FDA approved shot to remove their addiction to alcohol, I would consider them fairly stupid if they refused it. Handling diseases and addictions is a long term struggle, not similar to a one time choice at all. It is orders of magnitude easier to get a covid shot than to rid yourself of an addiction.

There are FDA approved medications which are effective in treating alcoholism.

https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/features/fight...

Those are all drugs which try to make curing addiction easier, but it's still hard and you're going to suffer withdrawal symptoms and take these drugs for months. Very different from this magical hypothetical. Probably taking something like one of these is, however, advisable if trying to get off alcohol?

It's not really fair to compare a healthy person to someone "struggling with alcoholism".

If you run into a bar shouting about the dangers of consuming alcohol while promising an injection that makes a person never want to drink again, I would consider you fairly stupid.

That's my point. Falling victim to alcoholism is not an apt analogy to getting a covid shot. People don't generally choose to become alcoholics. If you really want to make your contrived example fit, it would be something like a shot that prevents organ damage from alcohol, not desire to drink.

If such a thing were available, and people refused, and then got alcohol poisoning, then it is arguable that, on some level, their stupidity is to blame here.

Ok, but would you call them an idiot? That’s my point. Do you think calling them idiots makes them more or less likely to make the right choice?

I’m glad your not a doctor then?

First off, the vaccine does not eliminate the risk of Covid. If you went to an alcoholic and said “this shot has a 90% chance of curing you of alcoholism but had side effects and you might end up quitting anyways” would you still call them an idiot for hesitating?

Type 2 diabetics can prevent most of the complications if they adhere to a strict diet and medication regimen. When they end up getting a limb amputated do you call them idiots as well?

> If you went to an alcoholic and said “this shot has a 90% chance of curing you of alcoholism but had side effects and you might end up quitting anyways” would you still call them an idiot for hesitating?

Depends on the side effects obviously. If clinical trials revealed nothing but rare allergic reactions to shots themselves and priors based on established medical knowledge predicted a very low chance of anything unusual happening over the very very long term, it'd be a no brainer. Nobody just quits alcoholism. It's by definition a difficult process.

> Type 2 diabetics can prevent most of the complications if they adhere to a strict diet and medication regimen. When they end up getting a limb amputated do you call them idiots as well?

I would call them idiots if they were presented a single shot to cure them of type 2 diabetes and they decided not to, then lost their limbs.

> obese

Requires lifestyle change

> alcoholics

Requires lifestyle change

> people who don’t take their medication

Requires lifestyle change

> Vaccine

Requires a choice and a half day off.

There is a BIG difference there.

There's a little bit of an unfair comparison here. You say the vaccine is a single choice, but what I see, continued boosters, masks, social distancing forever, "I'm willing to make a small change in my life to end this." And you might say "I'm not arguing for those things though" but if you stop at one shot, a year from now someone is going to be calling you an anti vaxxer or covid denier for not wanting to turn this one shot into a lifestyle change. And that's what is expected of us if we are being honest, not one quick shot, but a permanent lifestyle change. Some people don't even want to start down that road.

The lifestyle change is a choice that we make. For those people that HAVE made these choices, should also have a choice into taking a vaccine when they don't need it, just to satisfy those that have not taken the choice to do the same. Those who are obese, alcoholics or whatever can then take the choice to get vaccinated to better protect themselves

The problem is that, by not getting vaccinated, they're not _just_ impacting themselves. They're more likely to get, to pass it to others, to introduce a variant, etc. We're all much safer if everyone gets immunized. Or, at least, so the prevailing scientific theory and minds indicate... and you can either believe them or chose not to with no actual facts to back up your position... and be called an idiot ./shrug.

What you call lifestyle changes I call “need to make a decision”. Patients make terrible healthcare choices all the time. If we’re going to hammer them on vaccines let’s go all in, huh?

Obesity causes massive costs and burden on our healthcare system yet I don’t see people calling them idiots.

A lifestyle change is something that you need to actively pursue forever. It's not just a one time decision and action. I can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse, or you actually can't see the difference.

And yes, all the issues listed are ones that can (usually) be corrected by action of the person involved. But the _level_ of action is on a totally different scale.

>I can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse

Given this guy's attitudes towards vaccines, I doubt it's intentional.

Then we agree - these are are healthcare choices where people fail to make the right one?

> What you call lifestyle changes I call “need to make a decision”.

Well I'd suggest not downplaying it that way. Going from a junk-food-and-soda diet to a healthy one is a huge shift in lifestyle. You don't just make a decision one day and that's that. You have to make that decision several times a day, every day, for the rest of your life.

Not getting enough exercise? You don't just sign up for a gym membership and consider it done. No, that's just the first step. Now you need to show up at the gym several times a week, and put the work in over and over again.

An alcoholic doesn't just decide to stop drinking one day, then poof they're cured. That decision is just the beginning. What follows is some mix of white knuckling in the beginning and an ever-present vigilance to maintain sobriety. It's not just "I don't drink anymore", but also "I need to come to terms with this issue or that relationship", and "I can't hang out at the bar every night anymore". It's a long-term project, not just a decision.

Getting a vaccination is not like that at all. It really is a single decision, once made, and never thought about again.

Obesity is also way more complex than taking a shot. Its not as simple as "eat as much as your neighbor". Minor systemic differences in metabolism can have huge long-term weight implications.

>Calling the unvaccinated idiots is about as effective as calling the obese, alcoholics, people who don’t take their medication, etc, idiots.

I mean, we should. And I say that as someone who is overweight and drinks more than I should. (Hm. Are they connected?!)

I'm fully aware that one of the most significant changes I can make to reduce my risk profile for all cause mortality is dropping weight, and have at times done so, and at times slipped back into poor eating and exercise habits. I'm in the middle one of the trends to improve it, but who knows if it will stick this time.

And yep, I'm stupid for not sticking to it. Or lacking in willpower. Or some combination of things that you would be fully justified in ascribing some sort of negative label to.

But if I could take a shot that makes me significantly less likely to die from my love of craft beer and cooking delicious, delicious, high calorie meals full of carbs and fat and not enough veggies, I sure would. If I could take a shot that made my body recover from doing strength training now in my 30s like it did back when I was in my early 20s, and less likely to have minor injuries, or even more likely to get me to return to the habit after recuperating from those injuries instead of staring wistfully at my garage door and thinking "man I really should get back to lifting weights", I would definitely do that.

I know I'm an idiot for not taking enough control over my own life to take care of some of the single largest health concerns. But I'd be an even bigger idiot if there was something as simple as a two or three dose vaccine regimen available to take care of those risks that I ignored.

The unvaccinated are putting others at risk, including kids. I can't say the same about the obese or people who don't take their medication.

There is no significant risk to healthy kids.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02423-8

Obese people take up health care resources that could go to keeping kids healthier at lower cost or making those resources more available to kids in an emergency.

asides from obese people / poor lifestyle choice people taking up health care resources, not only from Covid but they're also taking up resources from all other ailments that comes up BECAUSE they're obese. As well the culture today encourages plus size, like it's asking to overwhelm the healthcare system

obesity spreads too https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa066082 just not the way you think they do as a virus