Your argument is an old and tired one. Maybe we should all be on mandatory medically supervised diet and exercise regimens, not allowed to drive, not allowed any alcohol or caffeine or other drugs. If your dream is to optimize for longevity over all else, you can do that, at home. For many people, living life is actually important, not just living long. You have no right to tell them how to behave, or to rob them of life moments because of your personal criteria you're trying to optimize for.

You argue diametrically and it isn’t any better. There is room for civic duty and living life, which should be a stark and valuable lesson to all ages.

My parents raised me with the mantra “life isn’t fair” and while trite, it’s even truer today than it was all those years ago.

There is room for civic duty, sure. What there isn't room for though in my mind is people thinking they can dictate intimate aspects of my life to me in the name of civic duty.

Thank you for giving the reduction to absurdity, for the above line of argument.

His point is that people should be doing their own risk management. If you want to go on the road even though there are other cars around you, that's your choice to make.

> I would think that not having a high school graduation / prom /recital /wedding etc to be a lot less ruinous than having a close relative die from one of these?

The vaccine has been available for anyone who wants to get it for the better part of a year now, boosters have been released, and it's effective at preventing both transmission and severe cases (to include death).

If your relative is vaccinated, the odds of them getting severely sick from an unvaccinated person are incredibly small, and as such, various gathering restrictions are not only ineffective, but straight-up immoral.

(if your relatives aren't vaccinated, then they've made a choice to increase their risk exposure, and that's on them - given the effectiveness of the vaccine, it's pretty clear that safety is a personal choice, not something that other people impose on you - which is reinforced by both of the links you posted, wherein unvaccinated people died from the virus, not vaccinated ones)

You realize that means we have to cancel all high school graduations / proms /recitals /weddings etc forever, right?

I'd be ok with that.

Would you be OK with doing that for just yourself, or forcing something you're OK with on others who are not? Because if it is the latter (which seems all too common these days), you're an authoritarian.

I wouldn't be the one doing it!

People will call you an innumerate drama queen but I definitely sympathize with your emotions. Nobody should die, especially for what’s almost certainly the result of some Chinese lab screw up. Don’t take the downvotes to heart.