I don't have to worry about getting HIV every time I go out in public just because some jerk decided he has a god-given right to breathe viral particles into my lungs even though a simple and safe vaccine is readily available.
AFAIK that's not true.
I think this Fridman podcast interview explored such things, either way it was quite informative on the subject:
1-3 days of additional self-quarantine solves this issue.
I agree that, for the average person, COVID is easier to contract than HIV. But by the same token, COVID is much less severe than HIV, even with modern treatment plans. It's not at core about some abstract principle about how preventing disease spread trumps all other concerns but is instead a cost benefit analysis. Keeping the country shut down perpetually is an extreme cost that we are continually incurring.
Do you have a source for this? This wouldn't surprise me for the Omicron variant, but I'm surprised that (for example) someone getting the Delta variant in 2021 was "much less severe" than someone getting HIV in 2021.
HIV was and is invariably fatal. Yes, current drug regimens are remarkably effective. They are also very complex, required for the rest of your life, and do not affect the odds of you infecting someone else by unprotected sex.
*No one*, not even the most ill centenarian, would choose HIV over COVID19 if required to be infected by one.
I'm still amazed that the person I responded to thought that HIV would be preferable to COVID19! What does that say about the effectiveness, so to speak, of media campaigns about COVID19's dangers?
In abstract, given the choice between something that had a (say) 30% chance to kill me but was mostly harmless in the long-run and HIV, I would "prefer" the former over the latter. But I also think that the former is more severe. In my view you're equating two things which are not the same.
For some context, I lost 6 family members in a short period of time to the Delta variant of COVID. My experience with COVID is not "media campaigns" but funerals.
You wrote
>I'm surprised that (for example) someone getting the Delta variant in 2021 was "much less severe" than someone getting HIV in 2021.
I do not think that my
>No one, not even the most ill centenarian, would choose HIV over COVID19 if required to be infected by one.
and
>I'm still amazed that the person I responded to thought that HIV would be preferable to COVID19!
are so far off.
>In abstract, given the choice between something that had a (say) 30% chance to kill me but was mostly harmless in the long-run and HIV, I would "prefer" the former over the latter.
If the only two choices were infection by something that had a 30% chance to kill me, or HIV (presumably followed by the appropriate drug regimen to control it), I think I'd probably take HIV!
But that's not a choice between COVID19 and HIV. Let me repeat: COVID19 has a 0.6% IFR. Yes, IFR increases by age, but even 85-year olds' IFR is 15%; not great, but (as I understand it) pretty comparable to the flu for the cohort.
>But I also think that the former is more severe.
This is more support for the accuracy of my paraphrasing of you.
>For some context, I lost 6 family members in a short period of time to the Delta variant of COVID. My experience with COVID is not "media campaigns" but funerals.
I am sorry to hear that about your family. But (thankfully for society, if not so much for you or your loved ones) your experience is very atypical. Unless all had multiple comorbidities (immune suppression + obesity + something else), what happened to your family members was very, very, very rare.
Agreed, I wasn't attempting to extrapolate it over the general population. But you may consider your "media campaigns" comment from my POV.
The point I was attempting to make is that (as a relatively young man) I would risk many illnesses over a long-term debilitating illness that affected my sexual health, even if the former were objectively worse for my overall health. That's why I don't think severity and preference are necessarily correlated. Anyway, the "8 replies deep semantics argument" is not a good use of time for either of us, especially since I don't think our viewpoints are that far off.
If nothing else, I have learned more about HIV from this subthread than I expected, so there is that.
Nope. The existence of simple, effective countermeasures and ease of accessing them set the level of moral culpability for refusing and then infecting someone else as a result.
I'd agree that the cost-benefit is nearing the point of "fuck it, let the selfish jerks have what they want."
It's far easier to accidentally infect someone with COVID than it is to infect someone with HIV, and the harm of the former is less than the harm of the latter. The latter per incident is significantly more costly to society as well.
Should the government require Grindr and gay bars to require customers to show an up-to-date negative status and proof of being on PreP in order to be allowed to participate? With poz people banned from participating at the venue/platform?
Which country is this that is perpetually shut down? Even the most mask and vaccine forward (ergo "shut down perpetually") parts of the US are pretty operational. Offices are open as are restaurants and schools Disneyland is packed.
We've learned how to keep society running during the pandemic: vaccines, masks, testing, and occasionally heightened indoor occupancy restrictions during large waves to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed.
That's nothing at all like a "perpetual shutdown".