Apparently we have sympathy for people who fail to make good health choices except for the unvaccinated.
Not effective at all.
https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/features/fight...
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Obesity causes massive costs and burden on our healthcare system yet I don’t see people calling them idiots.
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.
Given this guy's attitudes towards vaccines, I doubt it's intentional.
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.
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.