Others are (and should be!) free to live in fear and isolation.
Let’s see how it works out in a few generations.
I expect there to be a huge, sustained upsurge in travel and socializing after Covid disappears.
The predictions that - for example - air travel will never recover, are just bizarre. If anything, there will be waiting lists to get a plane ticket.
I think it's quite unlikely that it leads to a permanent taboo on large gatherings. They're too much fun.
Hopefully we can agree that years where we lose 100,000 people from influenza are tragic, even if we've become accustomed to it. The optimistic possible outcome from this pandemic is maybe that rapid, inexpensive in-home testing for common virus infections becomes widespread. That'd allow a responsible person to test themselves before they went to a sporting event.
It'd also be wonderful if we invested more in a universal influenza vaccination. That's been right around the corner for decades now.
It turns out to be very hard to handle health risks politically rather than medically. Most early deaths are caused by cancer and heart disease, and both are preventable. Covid is terrible, but in terms of death toll it's not in the same league as the regular killers.
When it comes to avoidable death, this supposedly enlightened and scientifically educated culture actually operates at Victorian levels of public health. Obesity and poor nutrition are at epidemic levels and there's barely any formal cultural awareness of the political and social problems caused by emotional stressors, personality disorders, and other forms of psychological illness promoted by toxic workplace conditions and both social and mainstream media.
The cat’s free to go outside at any time, but nowadays prefers the comforts of being indoors.
The only solid argument against my strategy is nosocomial infections from the vet themselves.
> A cat that no longer goes outside and occupants that don’t interact with other cats basically means the cat is under total isolation.
Which is not entirely true. Even indoor cats can get worms, and periodic deworming is part of preventative care as vaccinations. The fact that deworming vs vaccinations interact with the cat’s immune system differently is an implementation detail that is inconsequential to this discussion.
> so I think it's safe to say he's not avoiding the vet in general.
That’s not how I understand it.
And I “can get” yellow fever if someone with it comes back to my neighbourhood, a mosquito bites them and then bites me. But it’s largely a waste of money for me to get vaccinated anyway.
Considering risk vs. cost of prevention seems to be lost when dealing with vets (whom also often lack strong evidence for their interventions).
If anything, it’s the humans in the household that could benefit from preventative de-worming, not the cat exclusively eating canned cat food.
If you have a habit of nibbling on the bugs and the flies that wander into your house like cats do, I think indeed you could benefit from deworming.
Besides, if yellow fever is carried as frequently as worms in your neighborhood, you should definitely get vaccinated.
Finally, your cost-benefit analysis is a strawman argument. OP thinks their cat is completely isolated, I posited that it is not. I am not saying they have to get treatment nor I am moralizing them not doing it. It is perfectly fine to take an educated risk, but that hinges on the education of what vectors are still available to your indoor cat.
I’ll consider anecdotes and case reports on a new unknown disease, but not for one that’s been around since antiquity. Or there was research indicating that the risk is low in these circumstances, but it’s suppressed because it’s not the narrative that the study sponsors want anyone to hear.
It happens in human research, I wouldn’t put it past vet research.
I consider the move from "my cat is completely isolated indoors" to "there are still vectors of transmission" an improvement of that model. Demanding that we need the exact likelihoods or otherwise completely reject the possibility is fallacious.
> Or there was research indicating that the risk is low in these circumstances, but it’s suppressed because it’s not the narrative that the study sponsors want anyone to hear.
It is interesting that your standard of evidence is much lower for this hypothesis of conspiracy and you use it to negate your cat's threat model.
I agree the risk is low, but your initial responses "what virus would live in cats and bugs" "the cat is under total isolation" "cat is too slow to catch a mouse" etc show that you were not informed on this topic. To give an anecdote, an odd fly, spider, mosquito etc walks in to my friend's house all the time, despite all windows being screened, and their fully indoor cat would go after them with joy every time he finds them (he would try to eat them). They don't do periodic deworming either, but they still accept that there is a risk albeit small, and don't externalize their discomfort to conspiratorial veterinarians.