You're expected to take simple, cheap precautions, proportionate to the expected consequences.

You're also expected to not take what you think is the best case scenario, and extrapolate that it's the scenario that we are actually in.

One cannot live in 2022 without catching covid, the level of precautions I would have to take to avoid it would be extreme and damage my quality of life and probably my mental health.

I've definitely had it once, likely twice, just doing basic things exposes me to it now, so what can I do?

Try wearing an N95 mask, for starters

That doesn’t really work if people around you do not. One less trip out of your house so you only leave 4 times a week instead of 5 is several orders of magnitude better than going out with an N95 the 5 times.

If you actually care about Covid the answer is to not leave the house. Putting an n95 on when the mandates are gone so nobody else is wearing one is just a religious act at this point.

that's quite an exaggeration, and it hurts me personally to think that when I go out and im the only one wearing a mask, people are looking at me as though I'm engaged in a "religious act". For people who aren't immunocompromised, the N95 will grant a significant level of protection even if others aren't masked, especially if you're outdoors or in an otherwise well ventilated space, if you have short interactions from those who aren't masked and maintain distance, it all helps. obviously if I had my N95 and spent three hours in a crowded bar, that's a bit pointless, talking here about places that aren't tightly packed with non-masked people who are all talking 2 inches away from each other.

It is obviously not absolute protection and of course going nowhere at all is the best protection, but a properly worn N95 combined with up-to-date vaccination goes pretty far for someone who is fortunate enough to not be already immunocompromised and is fine avoiding places like concerts, clubs and bars.

> especially if you're outdoors or in an otherwise well ventilated space

Citation needed that it’s not being outdoors or a well-ventilated space that is doing all of the work and not the mask.

> but a properly worn N95 combined with up-to-date vaccination goes pretty far for someone who is fortunate enough to not be already immunocompromised and is fine avoiding places like concerts, clubs and bars.

You’re all over the place here. I’m talking specifically about avoiding all of those things as well but just skipping the mask. The risk profiles between those two are so negligible that skipping a single trip out to an enclosed space is orders of magnitude better than the difference between them.

That’s why what you’re doing is just a “religious act” at this point. There is no good medical reason for you to wear it if you’re already going out. 99.999% of the risk comes from the “going out” part if everyone else is unmasked, so wtf are you doing at a grocery store/restaurant/whatever if you are actually worried about getting COVID?

It’s no different than bringing a parachute on a commercial flight. The chance of you crashing on a flight are tiny and the probability of you being able to use a parachute if you are in one of those scenarios and surviving are less than 1% as well.

Replace "N95" with "single layer cloth mask"