I also prefer not to live in fear, which is why I wear a seatbelt in a car, a harness and a rope while climbing, and get a vaccine when there is a pandemic. Not living in fear doesn't have to mean pretending that life has no risks. It's about being aware of what the risks are and taking appropriate measures to protect yourself.
> Not living in fear doesn't have to mean pretending that life has no risks.
Ha, I faced more risks growing up when I had to avoid the local gangs walking to school as a kid than I do now. Most people never gave a shit about that (and still don't), esp those that didn't live there. I won't really pretend that people really care about my safety or the safety of others any more so than their personal preferences.
> when I had to avoid the local gangs walking to school
Following your logic, its a great thing that local authorities didn't do anything stop the local gangs, nor encourage taking any safety measures to protect yourself. Yay freedom?
> Following your logic, its a great thing that local authorities didn't do anything stop the local gangs, nor encourage taking any safety measures to protect yourself.
They did, always another task force this that or another (I was only aware of some of this growing up), but never really changed the realities on the ground that some were exposed to more than others. Just learned to grow up and not expect that much and try to work with the people around me and watch each other, which wouldn't be possible if we were just trying to coerce one another to do things we didn't want to do (and was already kind of hard because I couldn't necessarily trust some around me).
By all means, live where you want to live and shoot your self up with the latest drug someone is pushing (whether that is some kid selling "water" on the corner or Pfizer incentivized doctors in a pop up tent) to your ability to do so.
I don’t understand your response. Getting vaccinated for Covid has orders of magnitude less risk than not getting vaccinated. Desiring to live where there are no vaccination requirements has nothing to do with wanting to be free. That you’ve lived through more risky situations than Covid has nothing to do with these facts.
> Getting vaccinated for Covid has orders of magnitude less risk than not getting vaccinated.
I'm gonna have to fact-check that. In the UK, for under 50s with a delta infection, there is basically no risk reduction for death. For over 50s, the risk reduction is currently about 75%[1]. You would then have to scale that by the risk of getting infected, which would be a reduction of up to 90%, depending on when you got your vaccination and how well your immune system picked up on it. You might hit a single order of magnitude.
> In the UK, for under 50s with a delta infection, there is basically no risk reduction for death
I am really not sure how you reached this conclusion from the 44 page paper you linked. That paper explicitly says that being vaccinated reduces risk of becoming infected, and only mentions that Ct values (detectable virus) are similar in infected people whether they are vaccinated or not, but similar Ct values does not imply similar disease trajectories or outcomes.
> I am really not sure how you reached this conclusion from the 44 page paper you linked.
The data is on page 18/19. In the vaccinated group 13 out of 25,536 infections resulted in death (0.051%). In the unvaccinated group, it's 48 out of 147,612 (0.032%).
> That paper explicitly says that being vaccinated reduces risk of becoming infected.
Perhaps, but then even if you are infected, your risk of death (under 50) is still effectively the same. It's also not clear how big that risk reduction of infection is. It started out at 95% during the trials, Israel last reported 39%:
