> You might protest that I could still infect you if I get COVID on the opposite side of town by infecting someone else who infects you. This is false. The person who actually infected you infected you
If you had reasonable actions available to you (wearing a mask, getting vaccinated) that you chose not to pursue, then yes, in my view you do bear some responsibility for continuing the chain of infection. If you had taken those reasonable actions then you bear no responsibility: it’s an act of nature that the chain passed through you.
If everyone who could get the vaccine did get it, then it’s almost certain that 10’s of thousands of people would be alive today just in the US and hospitals would not be under strain. Who are responsible for those 10’s of thousands of deaths if not those who chose not to act to protect their own lives and their communities?
You can choose your "freedom" over your life and your community, but you bear culpability for doing so. "Freedom isn’t free," as the saying goes.
Patient zero had reasonable actions they could have done. They could have followed protocols better, so should we still blame them?
If I get a vaccine and suffer an adverse reaction, should I receive blame for getting the vaccine? After all, since compensation for adverse reactions are paid for by society (the government), I failed to protect my life and my community, as you say.
By the way, hospitals have been under strain long before COVID. That's how they operate.
Also, if I get vaccinated and found get myself tested regularly, I could spread COVID. Is taking a test weekly to prevent spread as a vaccinated person a reasonable action?
> Patient zero had reasonable actions they could have done. They could have followed protocols better
Patient zero being the first person who contracted COVID-19? I wasn't aware that they had been identified.
> If I get a vaccine and suffer an adverse reaction, should I receive blame for getting the vaccine? After all, since compensation for adverse reactions are paid for by society (the government), I failed to protect my life and my community, as you say.
All of the evidence at this point is that the harms from getting vaccinated are orders of magnitude less than the harms from the disease. So no, you should not receive blame because you took the best action known to you at the time.
> By the way, hospitals have been under strain long before COVID. That's how they operate.
They are under strain now because of COVID, out of all proportion to the strain experienced in recent memory from any other cause.
> Also, if I get vaccinated and found get myself tested regularly, I could spread COVID. Is taking a test weekly to prevent spread as a vaccinated person a reasonable action?
I don't know what you're trying to say here. Yes, get tested if you are worried about being exposed to COVID, irrespective of whether you're vaccinated. Leading epidemiologists have long called for widespread rapid antigen testing to prevent asymptomatic spread.
> Patient zero being the first person who contracted COVID-19? I wasn't aware that they had been identified.
They haven't. Neither can we identify with certainty who spread COVID to who. Yet you want to blame the unvaccinated.
> All of the evidence at this point is that the harms from getting vaccinated are orders of magnitude less than the harms from the disease. So no, you should not receive blame because you took the best action known to you at the time.
For those who might be at risk for one or more of the adverse events from the vaccine, or have already recovered from COVID, the best action would be to not get the vaccine. Yet you still want to put culpability on their shoulders. Your can't have it both ways.
> They are under strain now because of COVID, out of all proportion to the strain experienced in recent memory from any other cause.
They are under more strain, yes. How much of that is COVID, and how much is that hospitals are not willing to pay enough to stay staffed?
> I don't know what you're trying to say here. Yes, get tested if you are worried about being exposed to COVID, irrespective of whether you're vaccinated. Leading epidemiologists have long called for widespread rapid antigen testing to prevent asymptomatic spread.
I'm saying that if it's reasonable to blame the unvaccinated for spreading COVID, it's also reasonable to blame the vaccinated who don't get tested weekly because getting tested weekly is, in your terms, a "reasonable action." In other words, if you think the unvaccinated are culpable, so are the vaccinated who don't get tested weekly.
If you claim that requiring the vaccinated to get tested weekly is not reasonable, then my answer is that neither is it reasonable to blame the unvaccinated. In fact, in my opinion, it's as reasonable as requiring weekly COVID tests. You and I would have different definitions of reasonable. We are not going to agree.
You want to blame me for COVID and to force me to conform to an orthodoxy that changes daily, and you call that reasonable. I want to be left alone and call that reasonable.
If you had reasonable actions available to you (wearing a mask, getting vaccinated) that you chose not to pursue, then yes, in my view you do bear some responsibility for continuing the chain of infection. If you had taken those reasonable actions then you bear no responsibility: it’s an act of nature that the chain passed through you.
If everyone who could get the vaccine did get it, then it’s almost certain that 10’s of thousands of people would be alive today just in the US and hospitals would not be under strain. Who are responsible for those 10’s of thousands of deaths if not those who chose not to act to protect their own lives and their communities?
You can choose your "freedom" over your life and your community, but you bear culpability for doing so. "Freedom isn’t free," as the saying goes.