>>"Also, are you vaccinated? Yes? Then the answer is almost certainly no risk at all"
That is not my lay person interpretation of the currently best available data.
A vaccinated person can get infected, can get seriously ill, and can spread out to others more vulnerable. It helps, drastically, and I sure as heck got mine, but my understanding is that it does not confer individual invulnerability.
> A vaccinated person can get infected, can get seriously ill, and can spread out to others more vulnerable.
I can get hit by a car when I walk down the street, but I've been doing it my entire life and I'm still here. I can die in a horrible plane crash when I fly, but I still do it. I can have a heart attack when I go to the gym, but it's still a net positive for my life.
Do you have a grasp on the actual risks involved here? You do realize that, even unvaccinated, unless you're elderly or obese or severely immunocompromised, the risk from this virus is measured in fractions of a percent, right? And if you've had even a single dose of an approved vaccine, you can take that number and divide it by 10?
At some point, you have to let the terror go.
> my understanding is that it does not confer individual invulnerability.
I think we agree on a base point of personal risk assessment. With that in mind, some people jaywalk, some take extra minute to get to a crossing. Some run across, some double check both sides. Some wear black pants and leather jacket at night, some have reflective strips. And it's all good. We share the old adage that "whoever drives faster than me is a maniac whoever drives slower is an idiot" - but most of us understand when pressed that different people have different risk acceptance in their life and that's ok.
The Thing that makes covid tricky is which actions am I making for myself vs others. Safety belt and helmet are largely for myself (but still enforced in many places due to agreed societal cost that goes beyond Individual). Mask, we don't have common universal agreement to yet. (this is not to say I don't have am opinion on it, but I understand looking around that while mainstream it's not universal).
So while I think we have agreement in framework, we may disagree on personal implementation. Mostly, I don't know that I agree with "at some point you have to let terror go". This ain't over yet, may never be over, so some mitigation steps may never be over, is the sobering world to raise offspring Into. Alberta took foot off the brake for just a little while and next thing they were begging other provinces for ICU spots. And there's a whole conplicated interlocked system of individual causes and effects rather than some simple binary rule that have rise to that reality.
Actually, no. I live in a big city. We're apparently all just free-wheeling, death-defying risk-takers here. YOLO.
But you make an excellent point: the average NYC citizen probably takes bigger risks crossing the street on a daily basis than she would by going un-masked.
>>"I'm doing great without one. No need to worry about longterm risks from a rushed vaccine. 1 year does not equal 10. Ever."
There are categories of knowledge where I'm profoundly uninterested in any individual's experience (best friend or stranger on the internet alike:). Simply put - a person surviving Russian Roulette does not make playing Russian Roulette a good idea, no matter how convinced they are and loudly proclaimed that it worked out great for them :).
I do not know your situation - maybe you've gone hermit; maybe you're in an area of low risk; maybe you're being careful; maybe you're the one asshole around and everybody else is vaccinated/wearing mask/implementing lockdown while you're taking credit for not getting your sorry ass sick; or (most likely but I have no way of judging), you're just lucky - see the Russian roulette above.
But in risk evaluation of this sort, again, I'm far far more interested in verifiable statistics than individual's lived experience.Don't get me wrong - we can have a nice round of drinks and talk about how last year's been to us and approaches we've taken and it'll be interesting and we can share; but it's not a policy-guiding thing.
That is not my lay person interpretation of the currently best available data.
A vaccinated person can get infected, can get seriously ill, and can spread out to others more vulnerable. It helps, drastically, and I sure as heck got mine, but my understanding is that it does not confer individual invulnerability.