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Comment by fundad | Hacker News Reader

I know it's intimidating to go places alone and try to make friends there, it's what a lot of us have had to do any time we moved away from our social groups.

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Finding a new group of friends who disregard health experts isn't exactly a great long-term plan.

It's amazing that everyone's responses are basically, "the answer is simple! we just completely ignore the experts! we've been doing it all along!"

I'm wondering when even the experts start saying "Damn this isn't worth it". What year of masking, remote learning, social distancing, etc. do they start to give up too? 3 years? 4 years?

I got hints of it reading some doctors who have been hardened proponents of masks, vaccine mandates, etc. over the holidays where they were basically like "yeah the holidays are going to be a shit show but I'm still going to see family, even if it's not a good idea". Paraphrasing of course.

Have you considered that maybe at some point, especially 6+ months after a highly effective vaccine has been available to everyone that wants it, that people are going to want to go back to living their lives? Get vaccinated, get boosted, take precautions if it makes you feel better, but the show will go on.

Who are we to make that decision? I'm not an immunologist or infectious disease expert, and I'm assuming you're not either.

I don't need to be.

It is ok to have critical thinking. Especially after the experts have shown time and again that they aren’t great at making sociopolitical choices. The experts were telling you not to wear masks in March and not to get booster shots in August and not to vaccinate children in September.

You live your life. You are the one to make your own choices. COVID is on its way to being flu 2.0 (the experts will tell you this if you ask the right questions). Compare it to the flu (especially if vaccinated) and ask yourself if not living your life for a minuscule risk is really worth it. Especially when most of the people actually at risk of death (the unvaccinated in the rich world) have been going out of their way to be at risk for many months.

There is no "we" here. There is personal choice about your own body. If you are scared then stay home and isolate. If you are not then go about your normal life. No once is forcing you to do anything.

At some point you need to take personal responsibility and make your own decisions instead of waiting for some "expert" to tell you how to live.

What do you want? Someone to whisper soothing words and tell you to just wait until X, it'll all be ok?

That's not how life works.

Where do you get that it's a personal choice? It's not.

I'm not afraid of Covid. I just don't want to contribute to the spread and death.

>I'm not afraid of Covid. I just don't want to contribute to the spread and death.

This is doublespeak.

No one is being forced out in public around people. Anyone doing so has a made a personal decision and they have accepted the consequences. You are not responsible for other people's decisions.

Giving up is the long term plan, what makes it worse if your new friends are there already?

Is it more comfortable to wait for your current friends to decide that it’s not worth it to social distance so they socialize more?

BTW School is open, kids are in-person. Indoor masking is here to stay wherever there are humans.

> Indoor masking is here to stay wherever there are humans.

Huh? Indoor mask usage is low to zero in many parts of the US (and I assume the rest of the world too).

I should say "wherever most humans live". Here in the states, businesses within city limits require masking except for last June and July. Are the many parts you are talking about the low-population outskirts that never required masking? That's true I guess and they add up to a lot of people and businesses but not compared to where most of the population lives.

> Here in the states, businesses within city limits require masking except for last June and July.

This simply isn't true across the board anywhere except the West Coast. It's not even true in NYC which is relatively cautious about Covid. It's _certainly_ not true in Arizona, Florida, Texas, etc.

Am I correct in guessing that you live in the Bay Area or Seattle?

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