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Comment by patrec | Hacker News Reader

> I have not gotten the vaccine as I prefer the known, extremely low risk of contacting COVID

Your risk of getting Covid if not vaccinated (and leading a remotely normal lifestyle) is close to 100%. With an R0 of 6 you can't just free-ride of people who take the "unknown longitudinal risk", because even if a lot of people take the jab it's extremely unlikely we will achieve herd immunity any time soon -- even if the jabs (or prior infection) granted perfect and permanent immunity which they don't. I'm suprised you think otherwise, and would like to hear your reasoning, in quantitative terms if possible.

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Not OP but if he has not gotten it so far with his lifestyle in 16+ months then it could be easy to think you won't get it for another 16+.

Other's just don't care, me for example. I lived in a heavily lockdown country and then said fuck it, travelled to somewhere with (near) 0 covid rules and went nightclubbing almost daily till I got it. Wasn't that bad for me. And my preference is to have it again than being coerced into putting something I don't want into my body.

If my employer makes that decision for me, then that is fucked up and I am quitting, or better yet, questioning the legality of it.

If an employer mandates it, then the employer is liable for anything bad that happens, the employers don't have immunity like the vaccine manufacturers. This of course assumes that there is rule of law.

The thing missing from this perspective is the additional people you come in contact with while contagious (potentially while asymptomatic). Saying, “I don’t care if I get sick” ignores the others you may spread the virus to.

This is why folks are pointing out the public health aspect as opposed to a focus on individual health.

> it could be easy to think you won't get it for another 16+.

And the relevance of 16 months would be? At this point it's pretty much a given that covid will become endemic. Due to general idiocy we've missed our chance of eradication.

In the 16 months you cited Covid has become both more virulent and almost twice as infectious. We'd now need around 85% population immunity to stop it from spreading, and the best vaccines only have below 90% effectiveness against symptomatic infection, and less against asymptomatic it seems. And evolution likely still has more low hanging fruit to find to make a virus that only made the jump to humans very recently better adapted to its new host.

So even if OP only has a 20% chance of contracting Covid in any one year interval (and it's likely higher), over 10 years that's a 90% chance (and 99.5% over 25). I have no idea what OP's belief that they have a extremely low chance of contracting covid is based on (that's why I asked, but unsurprisingly received no answer).

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