People with compromised immune systems (there are millions) will get limited to zero benefit from being administered the vaccine themselves. The real benefit comes from a large enough fraction of the population not buying into conspiracies about about the reality of a global pandemic and measures to mitigate the effects of it. Infection didn't and doesn't provide as much immunity as vaccination, despite the ludicrous and dangerous calls to aim for herd immunity by more people getting infected.

I happen to be one of those people I referred to in the start of my post. And I know a great deal of other people who are, as well. I've got two kids who were 3 and 6 when the pandemic hit and a month later my wife was laid off, so I know pretty well how one's world can be flipped upside down by what we went through.

I also know quite a few people in the medical community, particularly those who deal with infectious diseases and immunology. The measures taken were not all perfect and almost all were taken later than they should have, but there is almost no debate as to whether they saved tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of lives. And not just old folks who were on their way out and the morbidly obese, either. At a certain capacity, each person taking up a bed and a ventilator in the hospital due to advanced COVID is one fewer who could have been saved from a preventable trauma or disease or by a surgery. Then there are the medical personnel, patients, and friends/families of each who become vectors due to exposure. Oh, and don't forget long COVID, the effects of which were really only beginning to grasp; the costs from this are likely to balloon in ways we almost certainly won't be ready for.

With the benefit of hindsight, of course there are things that could have been done better or not done at all. At the time, the medical community was playing whack-a-mole with a virus that was deadly and contagious as well as a president, party, and various other dim or nefarious opportunists that aimed to capitalize of the incredulity, confusion, and general ignorance of the public by weaponizing bullshit and bad science.

Folks like yourself buy into narratives that 'feel' right without spending much, if any, effort to understand things that don't fit into a chosen political philosophy. It's just too hard to accept it. And it's too easy to cup one's ear to the warm sounds of the echo chamber. You're so sure of everything that fits into your nescient little box and so distrustful of anything that calls for collective effort that you've molded yourself into a total shit. A disingenuous turd donut. Which is fine except that you're not alone. You fucking idiot.


[Post edited by SchmHoo at 11/21/2023 4:33PM]