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Comment by anarchogeek | Hacker News Reader

There are people who've only caught covid once? Everybody I know's had it multiple times.

Zero times here (: I make all of my own meals and always wear a mask out. I interact with old people so there's no room for me to act like a child about health anymore. I can't really fault the people who are vaxxed and choose not to mask up anymore. So many people are refusing vaccinations that we will never see the end of this disease.

Plenty of people who got the covid were taking similar precautions. It's pretty infectious!

I would 100% have caught it at least once if I was doing service work. I'm lucky to never have to be in proximity of others for work

Not in my case. Been using the best masks I can get my hands on (KN95 from late summer 2020, switching to N95 last spring when those started to become available. Surgical and cloth masks have basically been cosplay since at least delta.

I find people taking this strategy interesting, especially as we approach the 3 year mark. Do you plan on doing this forever? Is there something you expect to change that would lower your/the risk thus allowing you to live a more normal social life? ("Normal" for lack of better word)

For context, I've been back in the office for more than a year at this point (haven't worn a mask in a year either). I'm pretty sure people come to work sick like they always did and don't even get a covid test most of the time any more. It feels kind of like flu/colds were prior to Covid; where it's an honor rule with no benefit of being honest and staying home when sick. I'm pretty indifferent towards people still taking the extra measures (your choice) but it does seem like an inconvenience with no end in sight (IMO).

Edit: They added more context to their comment after mine. "Zero times here (: I make all of my own meals and always wear a mask out." is all there was previously. I can't comment so maybe I got flagged. No ill intention, you do you and I'm sure you have reasons that are none of my business but we're here to talk. I'm mostly just curious because I see this a lot online and it seems like there's a whole class of people that intend to just be hermits forever now (my assumption) and it intrigues me on why you'd just give in to it like that; unless you already had hermit tendencies or some increased risk factors.

I'll do it forever at the grocery store or any other place that has lots of people. I do plan on going to a maskless social weekend soon with a half dozen buddies, but everyone there will have up to date vaccinations and be tested

They said they interact with old people - the group with the highest death rates. Not that anyone has to explain why they don't want an infectious disease to anyone else.

I would like to see a lot more masking in general. In asian societies it has long been normal to see people masked up in public, not sure why we can't have that in the west other than a culture of extreme individualism. Why can't people who come to work sick just wear a mask? I kind of enjoy wearing the mask though so a bit biased. Just feels pretty rude to knowingly expose other people when you are/might be sick.

An N95 mask or better protects maybe. The other common masks are useless against Omicron.

Maybe a respirator type mask?

COVID is here with us just like the common cold/flu. It's never going away.

For someone who is hearing impaired masks are awful. I hope that wearing of masks is never normalized. Why are people going to work sick. That is the issue. Of course masks don't really do much for COVID.

Maybe get a hearing aid.

People go to work sick because their job doesn’t give them sick days. Or because they want a promotion and figure perfect attend next is how to get it. I don’t think it’s reasonable to stop people from coming to work sick unfortunately.

> like flu/colds were prior to Covid; where it's an honor rule with no benefit of being honest and staying home when sick

no benefit, except for your own health? If you have the flu, Covid or any other serious infection, you should definitely stay at home and get some rest - not for others, but for yourself.

Sure, but without mandated paid sick leave, people don't stay home. When it's the difference between going to work to scrape by, or stay home and have trouble making rent or buying food, most folks choose to go to work sick.

We're a society that doesn't value collective health very much.

You should add a qualifier that you are from the USA. Where I live it's completely frowned upon to go to work sick, to the point where you will be told off by your manager, your colleagues will think it's rude and disrespectful, etc.

I simply do not understand how the USA doesn't provide sick leave for workers, does that stem from a lack of trust between employers and employees? It seems to me that the only reason to make it difficult for people to get paid leave when they're sick is that employers feel it'd be abused and hence treat their employees as children, perpetuating the cycle of mistrust. I cannot see another reason for such a basic need for the general health of society to be missing...

That's fair that I should add a qualifier that I'm from the US.

The only reason I can think of is exactly what you pointed out: that it would be abused. It's really not. Most people want to work. Most people want to feel productive and that they're meaningfully doing something. It's why the myth of the welfare queen is so ridiculous or employees exploiting paid leave is equally ridiculous. The abusers are the exception to the rule, so don't punish the majority for the acts of an extreme minority.

Personally, I have no issue with continuing to wear an N95 mask indoors for years to come.

>So many people are refusing vaccinations that we will never see the end of this disease.

I'm not the one making you wear a mask, you are. it's your choice to make yourself miserable and stupid looking. I can't believe there are still people like this, three years on. just get over it .. you're like those japanese soldiers who didn't know the war was over.

Which war?

It seems to be luck more than anything. After I got vaccinated in April of 2021, I've just lived life normally: Going bowling with friends, going to bars, etc. I only wore a mask if someone ordered me to. I still haven't gotten covid. Meanwhile one of my friends has been living like a hermit since March of 2020 and he got covid the one time he left his house. He was outdoors and wearing an N95 mask.

Well, I was careful too trying to protect my elderly parents (86/87) - and then (in November 2021) I got it from my father! No idea where he managed to get it from, as he doesn't go out much, except when I drive hime somewhere - probably from a delivery guy (although I told him to wear a mask when going to the door - he was living on his own at the time). Needless to say I was worried sick, but, being vaccinated, he got through just fine. The way he tells it, he barely had any symptoms except for a sore throat (which was the reason why I insisted on testing him). My wife and I then both got it, were sick for ~ 5 days, nothing really bad, just losing your sense of smell is a bit scary...

Of course, this is all just anecdotal evidence, but it supports the point that vaccinated old people are generally not that much at risk anymore. What's bothering me most at the moment is that everyone's pretending things are back to normal, but to visit my mother in the nursing home I have to get an appointment, get tested, wear a mask the whole time, and, especially during wintertime, they will still regularly be in Covid quarantine for weeks.

>So many people are refusing vaccinations that we will never see the end of this disease.

I'm one of those people.

I didn't want the vaccine after having long covid, because I believed natural immunity was much better than training my immune system on an earlier version of the virus. I was right.[1] Not only that - but unvaccinated were shown to have the same viral load even if they did get infected.[2]

So why are you blaming the unvaccinated? Right now there are more excess deaths than any time during the pandemic.[3] Even people who were provaxx are questioning why it's happening now.[4] If the vaxx was so great less people should be dying or was that not the point?

[1] https://brownstone.org/articles/how-the-cdc-buries-the-truth... [2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... [3] https://twitter.com/EthicalSkeptic/status/159384008954467942... [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGZJfVR9-wo

Do you have a favorite vaccine? If you had to get 1

BCG vaccine isn't a covid vaccine, but it works better than any genetic shot IMO.

https://hms.harvard.edu/news/tb-drug-vs-covid

If you had to get a covid vaccine which would you pick

> So why are you blaming the unvaccinated?

Because the media did. Uncritically parroting what the media claims is a tried-and-true path to social acceptability.

Noting that the vaccines are non-sterilizing, and that their transmission attenuation was at best 15%, was a great way to get uninvited to the "right" kind of parties with the "right" kind of people.

Truth doesn't stand a chance against social conformity pressure, and it never has.

Same here, I handled covid fine, a full 2 years after it all started. Was 4 days of feeling lame with fever. Before I didn't take many precautions, stopped masking after it was obvious that the spread was mostly seasonal and cloth masks had no evidence behind them.

Now I've got an immune response based on the complete virus, rather than a no-longer-existing subunit of a single protein. I expect I'll fare better than the immune chaos of infinite boosters.

People at risk should take precautions of isolating, otherwise it's time to move on with life.

What do you mean by "during the pandemic"?

The mRNA vaccines do not prevent you from getting COVID or spreading it. All they do is prevent you from getting really sick and maybe dying. That's it.

Pfizer didn't even test if their vaccine prevents the spread of COVID because that's not what it was designed to do.

The politicians lied that if u got vaccine it would help prevent the spread of COVID. It does not.

Do you have a favorite vaccine?

Haven't had it even once. I'm vaxed (original 2 doses of Pfizer) but not boosted. I still mask when I'm indoors (outside of home). Don't go out a lot, avoid crowded indoor venues, WFH, still kind of cautious.

I only had it once, lost taste & smell last December, after a trip to Chicago's Thanksgiving parade. Seemed to come down with the flu two weeks later.

By January, I was back on my feet, and I think taste & smell were fully back by March.

I haven't had it since, and I really haven't been cautious. I was at the parade again last week.

They are getting better at not ripping the floats.

https://i.redd.it/1lhbtkhv9yz11.png

> There are people who've only caught covid once? Everybody I know's had it multiple times.

Weird, everybody I know has had it one or zero times.

I only had it once. Have been out and about since the beginning of the year.

On day 6 of my first time.

I never get respiratory diseases. 20 years so far.

Consider donating some blood so they can run tests to find out your immunity secret? :)

I've only had it once, and I had it this year.

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