For example, skiing is fun. Flying airplanes is fun. And general aviation is quite safe for those who take it seriously. So while there's risk, there's also a reward. And that risk / reward ratio may be what they choose to personally accept.
There's no reward for getting covid! There's no fun in it! And many people either don't want to get it at all (given the risk of either bad immediate symptoms or long term impact), or had bad experience and don't want to recur, or don't want to contribute to chain and infect others yet.
Heck... I'm persuading myself to start wearing mask again (the only reason I stopped is that I work from home, but have a 2yo in daycare and 4yo in kindergarten which massively outweighs any risk I bring into house).
(I do want to ask though - are they wearing like n95 or surgical mask... Or as you mentioned in original post a full painting-sryle respirator with two big round filters etc? That, I'll agree, is a significant comittment if they don't have significant personal risk factors)
I sometimes also mask in public, because it bothers me approximately zero.
So? These are situations where he is kinda in control no? Out in public, how much control does he have about people, with or without symptoms, going to the same shop?
So… spending micromorts on worthwhile activities, rather than on queueing at the supermarket? Sounds pretty consistent to me.
Spending 3 weeks in bed with COVID before the vaccines existed made me super risk adverse to people and especially people coughing. You have no concept of how long a week in bed is, let alone 3 of them. The long nights in pain. The long days just wishing you could get through the enormous headache to rest and sleep. The powerless feeling that you can't even sit up enough to do anything you have previously enjoyed. Heck, I still remember my son bringing in my copy of Cyberpunk that just came out and I didn't even have the energy to turn on my laptop on my lap to install it. Even when I got COVID again 2 years later and it was just a couple days in bed, I get super pissed off when people belittle it and the people who try to stay away from it.
Just last Saturday night, I was out shopping and some lady was walking around with a "smoker's cough". I tried to stay away and not go back into places she had been. When I got in line to check out and got stalled in front from a lady with a huge cartload and the cougher got behind me and started hacking her brains out, I just abandoned my cart and left.
I am not spending that many days of my life being sick again like that if I can ever help it. So when I say that YOU NEED TO REPRIORITIZE YOUR EMPATHY. Take that to mean that if this wasn't on a forum that I need to talk nice-nice, I would not be talking nice-nice.
The symptoms of long covid can be pretty debilitating and a lot of people just don't get better.
> For some people, Long COVID can last weeks, months, or years after COVID-19 illness and can sometimes result in disability.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/...
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/i...
Yeah I get that, but with him it seems very out of character. He likes to ski and is a general aviation pilot; these aren't low risk activities. I hope he comes to term with the new normal soon because he's still young and spending the rest of his life paranoid behind a mask would be truly sad.