Don’t obsess over this. It’ll distract you and stress you out, which comes with its own health risks. None of us get out alive anyway. Go live as healthy a life as you can, find happiness, and help others when the opportunity presents.
They were, of course, speaking from a position of ignorance of long-term side effects, because the data wasn't yet in. It's been two years, and in many ways, the data is still not in yet.
We'll have another go-around[1] on the COVID rodeo next holiday season, if another dangerous variant emerges.
[1] Just because the news has forgotten about the virus, doesn't mean that the virus has forgotten about us. There are more daily worldwide cases right now, then there have been at any point prior to November 2021. That's a lot of opportunity for variants to mutate.
But we hopefully aren’t expected to hide until the data are in?
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.
I've definitely had it once, likely twice, just doing basic things exposes me to it now, so what can I do?
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.
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.
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.
I'm not saying I want to go live recklessly, but I'd rather die slightly less old and happy, than old and miserable because I spent it worrying only to realize on my deathbed that I never lived.
So you're somewhere in the middle, like basically everyone else? Or are you saying that you're the reasonable one and anybody who takes precautions against COVID infection is living their life in a miserable state of worry?
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/refuse-quarantine-frustr...
But your raise an excellent point - if only there were solutions that allowed you to live life to the fullest with negligible risks...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_washing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_control_(respiratory_di...
That’s a two-way street (which I don’t think you’re denying). In 20 years it may turn out that the shot was worse than the disease.