I mean... you probably shouldn't ignore the thing that kills the most people, to deal with something that kills less people than that. And yes, we basically do the calculation (deaths vs convenience) all the time.. look at speed limits for cars, they're just a calculation of traffic deaths per year vs time losses due to lower speed limits.. a few deaths is ok, because everyone can get to work faster, but a lot of deaths is not ok.
Especially now, with vaccines... if someone doesn't want to vaccinate, who exactly are they endangering (except others, who also chose not to vaccinate)? Thinking the vaccinated won't get in contact with omicron from other vaccinated people who got infected is stupid, but we still don't let unvaccinated people go to the bar, while I can go there, even infected (and with omicron, i could be infected right now, but noone tests us, the vaccinated ones).
> I mean... you probably shouldn't ignore the thing that kills the most people, to deal with something that kills less people than that
Smoking isn't ignored ... I don't think any illness is ignored in favor of any others. Doctors have been insisting people do not postpone medical procedures and checkups because they're worried about covid in hospitals (which has been happening, and causing more deaths).
One of the main reasons to get vaccinated against covid is specifically so hospitals don't get overwhelmed to the point where patients have to turned away, regardless of what they're suffering from.
> look at speed limits for cars, they're just a calculation of traffic deaths per year vs time losses due to lower speed limits
I doubt that speed limits have anything to do with "time lost". The difference in covering 30Km at 150Km/h vs 120Km/h is 3 min, negligible. Wake up earlier :)
Faster driving doesn't cause more accidents, but it does cause greater injury (complicated subject with lots of research, no time to dig all this up).
> with vaccines... if someone doesn't want to vaccinate, who exactly are they endangering
You're also endangering vaccinated people. The risk of serious illness is greatly reduced but you're not guaranteed not to die. A vaccine is like a seat belt (works super well but doesn't make you invincible).
And it's not just 1 or 0. People die from covid and survivors can have long lasting afflictions from it. I think the statistic is for every person that dies, there's 5 that will be "marked" for life by covid. Not "long covid" or whatever, but life long problems with reduced lung capacity, problems with kidneys, heart etc - things they will suffer from in varying degrees for years to come, burdening the healthcare and social welfare system and the economy in general (global cost is already in the trillions of dollars).
And it's still not ok to endanger those who aren't vaccinated because they can still end up in hospital, using up valuable resources. So if you want to have your covid parties that's fine if you sign a contract saying you'll receive no medical help whatsoever should you get infected. Anything else is morally wrong.
It's extremely tiring having to explain all this basic, obvious stuff to people. I'm sure if you thought it through you could figure it out for yourself.
> Smoking isn't ignored ... I don't think any illness is ignored in favor of any others. Doctors have been insisting people do not postpone medical procedures and checkups because they're worried about covid in hospitals (which has been happening, and causing more deaths).
Doctors have been saying that, but then rescheduling procedures. Some have even been stopped for some time. Here in slovenia, they even caught doctors, giving their timecards to a security guard to check them in/out out of the government hospital (so they get covid benefits) while they worked in private practice, because their government-hospital procedures (whole programme) was stopped.
> I doubt that speed limits have anything to do with "time lost". The difference in covering 30Km at 150Km/h vs 120Km/h is 3 min, negligible. Wake up earlier :)
But if we lowered the speed limit to 10km/h, there'd be almost zero deaths. And yes, we have speed limits lowering the speed from 130km/h to 110km/h in many places, because it loweres the chance of accidents there, while an accident at that both of those speeds are pretty bad anyways.
> You're also endangering vaccinated people. The risk of serious illness is greatly reduced but you're not guaranteed not to die. A vaccine is like a seat belt (works super well but doesn't make you invincible).
But vaccinated people also get ill and spread covid, and with omicron it's pretty much guaranteed that everyone, vaccinated or not, will get in contact with covid. The vaccine is basically helping only the vaccinated person, and has pretty much no effect on the spread itself (which is pretty much logical at r0=10 or whatever it is for omicron).
> And it's not just 1 or 0. People die from covid and survivors can have long lasting afflictions from it. I think the statistic is for every person that dies, there's 5 that will be "marked" for life by covid. Not "long covid" or whatever, but life long problems with reduced lung capacity, problems with kidneys, heart etc - things they will suffer from in varying degrees for years to come, burdening the healthcare and social welfare system and the economy in general (global cost is already in the trillions of dollars).
Again... we'll all get it, and you either trust your immune system, and take the risk for yourself, or you trust the vaccine+immune system, and take a lower risk, or you well.. stay at home, because vaccines won't prevent the spread of a virus so contageous as the omicron variant.
> And it's still not ok to endanger those who aren't vaccinated because they can still end up in hospital, using up valuable resources. So if you want to have your covid parties that's fine if you sign a contract saying you'll receive no medical help whatsoever should you get infected. Anything else is morally wrong.
Should we expand this to smokers and obese people, and extreme sportists? I mean.. getting covid is a one time "mistake", getting morbidly obese is years and years of self abuse, same with cigarettes, those take many years to destroy your lungs.
> It's extremely tiring having to explain all this basic, obvious stuff to people. I'm sure if you thought it through you could figure it out for yourself.
It's also exremly tiring to take away peoples basic human rights in the name of a disease that (with vaccines) kills less people than the flu (and who cares if someone doesn't get vaccinated, it's their problem).
> But vaccinated people also get ill and spread covid, and with omicron it's pretty much guaranteed that everyone, vaccinated or not, will get in contact with covid
Well yes, vaccines don't stop the spread but it will reduce it (definitely with Delta, maybe less so with Omicron). And then you have other problems like mutations happening more among non vaccinated.
And even with omicron, a vaccine will prevent serious illness.
Even if it just makes a 1% difference, among the almost 8 billion people in the world that's still a huge number. So why not get vaccinated?
It seems to me people are either scared for irrational reasons or just want to be different and think they know it better than the medical establishment.
> Should we expand this to smokers and obese people
Yes, I definitely think you could make a case for that. If people could reduce their craving for McDonalds by receiving a yearly injection and they refuse then yeah, you'd be in the same situation. But things are more complicated, being related to addiction, socio economic status etc ...
> It's also exremly tiring to take away peoples basic human rights in the name of a disease that (with vaccines) kills less people than the flu (and who cares if someone doesn't get vaccinated, it's their problem).
Again, nobody is forced to be vaccinated and it's not just their problem if they don't. You may be refused entry to bars & restaurants but that's not a basic human right, afaik.
> vaccines don't stop the spread but it will reduce it (definitely with Delta, maybe less so with Omicron).
Not with omicron, atleast not really.
> And even with omicron, a vaccine will prevent serious illness.
So, it's like smoking, the vaccinated get lesser chance of serious illness, and the unvaccinated have themselves to blame.
> Yes, I definitely think you could make a case for that. If people could reduce their craving for McDonalds by receiving a yearly injection and they refuse then yeah, you'd be in the same situation. But things are more complicated, being related to addiction, socio economic status etc ...
I mean.. they could reduse mcdonalds by just not eating at mcdonalds.
> Again, nobody is forced to be vaccinated and it's not just their problem if they don't. You may be refused entry to bars & restaurants but that's not a basic human right, afaik.
But curfews (restriction of movement) is a basic human right, that was taken away from us. And again, if vaccines only help the vaccinated, why not let the unvaccinated ones into bars (or mcdonalds)?
The limitations are there, so that hospitals don't get flooded with people. Without the limitations the healthcare system would collapse. If that were to happen, doctors would have to decide whether to help you because you had an accident or to treat somebody else with covid or somebody else with some other emergency.
Especially now, with vaccines... if someone doesn't want to vaccinate, who exactly are they endangering (except others, who also chose not to vaccinate)? Thinking the vaccinated won't get in contact with omicron from other vaccinated people who got infected is stupid, but we still don't let unvaccinated people go to the bar, while I can go there, even infected (and with omicron, i could be infected right now, but noone tests us, the vaccinated ones).