It seems really clear that even people who aren’t high-risk are much better off avoiding infection. You’re not the only healthy person I know who’s taken a month to get better.
As a practical matter, kids need to learn, adults need to work. Our national and personal economic health can’t easily absorb people being under-productive for 4-8…
It seems really clear that even people who aren’t high-risk are much better off avoiding infection. You’re not the only healthy person I know who’s taken a month to get better.
As a practical matter, kids need to learn, adults need to work. Our national and personal economic health can’t easily absorb people being under-productive for 4-8 weeks a year. The US labor market just doesn’t have that kind of wiggle room. Even if only 20% of people are hit that hard, that’s a lot of lost productivity. (It goes without saying that those who develop long Covid are losing so much more, and they’re being largely abandoned, which is a national disgrace.)
Really good comment, C.T.B. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that vaccination is supposed to keep one out of the hospital, but not necessarily from getting sick. But, that doesn't really seem to account for how different COVID is from, say, the flu. COVID seems to be the perfect storm; not that bad for most people, certainly not bad enough to have bodies lying in the streets (anymore, for current variants). But, it's much more debilitating and costly (short and long term) than endemic first -world infections have been for maybe more than a century. Unfortunately, misinformation and extreme polarization don't make already difficult risk and cost-benefit choices any easier...
It seems really clear that even people who aren’t high-risk are much better off avoiding infection. You’re not the only healthy person I know who’s taken a month to get better.
As a practical matter, kids need to learn, adults need to work. Our national and personal economic health can’t easily absorb people being under-productive for 4-8 weeks a year. The US labor market just doesn’t have that kind of wiggle room. Even if only 20% of people are hit that hard, that’s a lot of lost productivity. (It goes without saying that those who develop long Covid are losing so much more, and they’re being largely abandoned, which is a national disgrace.)
Really good comment, C.T.B. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that vaccination is supposed to keep one out of the hospital, but not necessarily from getting sick. But, that doesn't really seem to account for how different COVID is from, say, the flu. COVID seems to be the perfect storm; not that bad for most people, certainly not bad enough to have bodies lying in the streets (anymore, for current variants). But, it's much more debilitating and costly (short and long term) than endemic first -world infections have been for maybe more than a century. Unfortunately, misinformation and extreme polarization don't make already difficult risk and cost-benefit choices any easier...