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rule #1: be kind
Got COVID from my cousin during Christmas, still feeling terrible.
He went to the doctor and they didn't even test him. they just assumed it was the flu and gave him Tamiflu.
Tested myself after I got it and came up positive for COVID. It seems that our medical professionals are complicit in the cover-up of diagnoses. Once it left the news people just assumed it was gone.
I don't think that at all.
People are now just accepting that COVID is part of our lives. It's only a risk if you're extremely elderly, obese or otherwise particularly infirm, in which case, you're also vulnerable to bad flu's, not just COVID.
COVID is not something that can be beaten. No amount of lockdowns or vaccines will eliminate it. You'd only be postponing the inevitable. Permanent lockdown would obviously be an unsustainable idea, even if it was a popular one and vaccinating COVID is like vaccinating flu, it's impossible to keep up!
What is even the point of testing for COVID anymore? If you have bad symptoms, stay at home what ever sort of flu, cough or cold it might be!
I feel like you haven't thought this through. My cousin is young so he has very low risk of having serious side effects from his COVID. The thing is we had elderly grandparents at Christmas as well, one of which with stage 4 cancer.
There is a point to testing for COVID. If we don't test for it we have no idea how much it is spreading.
I used to get the flu once every 10 years, roughly. I've been getting COVID nearly every single winter.
There are relatively young people who are completely bedridden from long COVID. I've never heard of someone having years of their lives taken from them because of the flu.
Ever since I first got COVID I have had a irregular heartbeats and periods of extremely low energy
I find it funny you're creating a false dichotomy of either locking people in their homes for eternity or being free. We all had a chance to stop this in its tracks, nearly everyone around me was completely unable to sacrifice one summer of vacations. I know people who literally went on vacation knowing they had COVID, breaking state laws in the process.
If you didn't lose anybody to COVID that's great for you, but a lot of us did.
A lot of people believed our president at the time who said that it was nothing more than the flu, similar to what you are saying today.
I believe there should be legal repercussions for those who have spread that misinformation, leading to needless death
Please don't open your comments with statements like "I feel like you haven't thought this through". We can have an adult debate without needing to imply that the other person is an idiot.
I do understand your point however, presumably your elderly and frail grandparents are also vulnerable to flu's, colds and all the sorts of different risks to their immune systems. So why stop at COVID? Presumably, if you were coughing up a lung or shitting through the eye of a needle, you wouldn't give grandma a big hug and a kiss just because it's not COVID, you'd stay at home anyway.
Sorry, I don't buy your idea that we had a chance to "stop it in its tracks". Even if we had a coordinated world wide lockdown that everyone abided by, it still would remain dormant in non symptomatic carriers or animal populations. COVID would just be waiting for us to unlock and it'll be back just as it was.
You then have to factor in that not everyone can lockdown. We still need the workers that produce our water and power, our food workers, our bin men and sewage workers, all the people that actually keep our countries running. A full lockdown is an impossibility.
Many people have the false impression that lockdowns were "to stop covid". They weren't, they were for bringing pressure off of over crowded hospitals.
We are both adults here, right? I think you can handle being told you didn't think it through. I'm not going to use kid-gloves with you and lie to you to serve your ego.
you are still going on implying that COVID is the same as the flu or a cold. The flu has never altered my heartbeat rhythms for years after.
You are still ascribing to the false dichotomy I stated in my comment when you say "not everyone can lock down" absolutely, except tons of people I personally know were still going out on vacations, some knowing they had COVID before flying to their destination.
Just because a full lockdown wouldn't have 100% wiped out COVID doesn't mean we should have given up on stopping the spread. It's not one or the other.
I feel like you are trying to make excuses for endangering the lives of other people so you can not be bored. My Grandfather is buried under 6ft of dirt because of this mentality in Texas. He died needlessly. He was an active man who was writing a novel and was constantly physically active. He had at least 10 years left
A lot of us are not going to forget the actions of our fellow man during the peak of COVID, especially those who lost loved ones needlessly
Ok. A well written argument of your own can make me look like I haven't thought things through. But if you feel the need to state it additionally for no other reason than I don't wholly agree with you or because put downs make you feel better or superior, then good for you. This isn't about my ego, I'm just trying to help you improve your debating skills.
I'm not going to debate long COVID. I don't doubt it is a real phenomena but this is because the facts around it are far too vague and this means that making serious policy decisions could be foolhardy. There is no real test for long COVID other than a random assortment of ailments that some people get some of and others get none of, supposedly related to a primary COVID infection in a minority of people.
I'm not arguing about people that broke lockdown laws. I'm suggesting that even with maximum possible levels of compliance that COVID can only be slowed, not stopped.
There is a debate to be had about freedom Vs proposed safety but I don't think we're going to agree. We'd just be wasting eachothers time and getting upset. Sorry you lost your grandad unexpectedly.
Some times shit things happen and there is no reason. It might make you feel better to blame "other idiots" but that doesn't change anything.
I caught it for the first time a few months ago, relatively fit/healthy guy and it gave me the whammy for a full week (I could barely move, didn't want to eat at all, sweats, dizziness) I've never felt that bad in my life. Thankfully, no long covid here, aside from randomly coughing to clear up something left in my lungs once a day, but it put a 2-3 week sized hole in my life, it can show up with a vengeance, no joke.
I got COVID after taking all precautions because my father didn't wear a mask and took it home. I was sick for a month. I only left my bed to use the bathroom or eat. I literally slept the rest of the time. I probably should have gone to the hospital because I could hardly stay awake even just to eat. I remember waking up one day, and just knowing that I was recovering.
Recovery was hell. I couldn't taste, or smell anything. I had awful flu like symptoms. I was lethargic and I could hardly walk. It took two weeks to feel functional, and for three months my sense of taste was completely fucked.
The masks don't really do much to prevent getting covid. Their main purpose was to stop people from spreading their covid.
Well first off yes, it does help prevent you from getting covid. But also if it prevents people from spreading covid then by extension it also prevents other people from getting covid.