Specifically thinking of stuff that make your life better in the long run but all kinds of answers are welcome!

I’ve recently learnt about lifetraps and it’s made a huge positive impact on how I view myself and my relationships

  • @unwellsnail
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    1188 months ago

    That “coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, can have lasting effects on nearly every organ and organ system of the body weeks, months, and potentially years after infection (11,12). Documented serious post-COVID-19 conditions include cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, renal, endocrine, hematological, and gastrointestinal complications (8), as well as death.”.

    This is true regardless of symptom severity or health status, every person is at risk. I think most people really aren’t aware of this, they absorbed the narrative that it’s gone, mild, only kills/harms the vulnerable, etc. This isn’t really their fault, there are a lot of factors that have led people to that belief, but people should know their lives and livelihoods are much more at risk now than 4 years ago.

    And that this isn’t inevitable, there are simple methods of disrupting transmission and protecting yourself and others. COVID-19 is here to stay (unless we do something about that) and it has impacts on every person infected and on society at large. That shouldn’t mean folks accept illness and worse quality of life. We adapt and adopt precautions in our life to reduce long-term health impacts, like we’ve done before with many other illnesses that plague humanity.

    • athos77
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      338 months ago

      And the possible risks are compounded with each infection. People are acting like covid just isn’t a problem anymore, like it’s gone away. Meanwhile, roughly 100 Americans are dying of covid every day - and we’re not even in a surge at the moment.

      • AggressivelyPassive
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        68 months ago

        I’m too lazy to verify your numbers, but realistically, covid nowadays is simply just another life risk. Yes, people are still dying and that’s bad, but most of them are just in the age where people tend to die of such infections.

        I’d guess, there are about 4 million deaths a year in a country the size of the US. So having something on the order of 100k per year due to covid isn’t that concerning, if the lifespan isn’t affected that much.

        We have vaccinations against covid. If you’re properly vaccinated, you’ll probably be fine and younger children will grow up in a world where you just get covid once in a while and get better immunity than we old folks could ever have.

        • @makeasnek@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Get this though: many children still do end up hospitalized. The majority of them have no underlying comorbidities or conditions. Their only reason for ending up in hospital is luck of the draw. That was presented at the CDC meeting where the recent booster was approved. It’s not just the elderly or infirm who end up in the hospital and die from it. It’s still killing, hospitalizing, and making seriously ill way more people than flu.

          • AggressivelyPassive
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            08 months ago

            Yes, but as I said: this is just life now.

            You’re getting all raved up about covid, but in reality, this is just a tiny bit more risk. Yes, more risk is bad, but what is the alternative? Continuous shutdown forever?

            You have to accept, that there are just some risks that we have to accept. If you’re going out on the street, there’s a chance you’ll be run over, do you stay indoors all the time because of that?

            • @unwellsnail
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              128 months ago

              No, we don’t have to just accept continuous illness and death. Why do you think that it’s necessary for people to suffer when there are simple solutions? There are steps between nothing and total shutdown, read above for some of them.

              Covid isn’t like people going in the street risking getting hit. Covid is a communicable illness spread by others, not a personal choice someone makes. People can’t just choose to never be exposed even if they wanted, we have to interact with others. Further, people can and do avoid being run over in the street by walking on sidewalks and crosswalks, riding in vehicles with protections, with lots of traffic safety rules in place to minimize accidents. Right now our covid elimination strategies are similar to that of traffic safety in the early days of automobiles when there were no safety regulations. Right now we have a bunch of people driving wildly with at best ineffective vaccines, we need a lot more than that if we want to stop repeatedly trying to dodge covid crashes and have any sense of stability in actually living with covid.

              • AggressivelyPassive
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                -18 months ago

                There are no simple solutions. Vaccines solve 95% of the problem, but not 100%, and the remaining 5% are what you’re complaining about.

                All other solutions can only be temporary, since they require massive changes in pretty much any aspect of our lives, and they will cause massive problems in other areas.

                You’re basically proposing suicide for fear of death.

                • @unwellsnail
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                  58 months ago

                  Actually I’m proposing life is valuable and we should protect it.

                  The vaccines don’t solve the problem and the solutions do not require massive change, but they do require people reflect on what’s important and adjust their behavior accordingly. I think that living a good life is important so I believe we should do things to better those odds, like reducing the amount of damage covid does to the body. Choosing continuous illness and your worse years coming much sooner sounds closer to suicide to me. Masking, improved ventilation and filtration, paid sick leave, and other simple steps are not absurd and shouldn’t be temporary. We know easy ways to reduce massive suffering, it’s ridiculous to me that people oppose it.

                  • AggressivelyPassive
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                    -28 months ago

                    You still don’t seem to understand the opportunity costs you’re overlooking here.

                    Reducing people’s freedom is justifiable to a certain extent, if it saves lives. But that’s a trade off. Currently, the death and illnesses due to covid are very rare, so overall the “sickness load” is rather low. Changing behavior in a way that reduces that load significantly will necessarily cause reduced freedom for huge amounts of people. You’re taking away more than you’re saving.

                    That’s what I meant by suicide for fear of death. Sacrificing very much to protect very little.

        • athos77
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          18 months ago

          The CDC disagrees with you. Do you have a source for your claim?

          • @Whirlybird@aussie.zone
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            8 months ago

            The CDC themselves, from the very link you just posted…

            100 a day is 36 500 deaths per year. Have a look at the deaths per year on your link:

            2010-2011: 37 000

            2012-2013: 43 000

            2013-2014: 38 000

            2014-2015: 51 000

            2016-2017: 38 000

            2017-2018: 52 000

            From 2010-2011 to 2018-2019, a 9 year range, 322 000 flu deaths were estimated. That is 35 778 deaths per year from the flu. That’s over 100 per day.

            Covid onward can’t be used because anyone that had covid or covid symptoms just got ruled as a covid death, even if they died with covid but not because of covid. The actual deaths caused by covid are significantly lower than what is reported due to this, and this isn’t some conspiracy theory either. This is just how covid deaths are counted. Died and had covid? Covid death even if they had a heart attack or got hit by a bus. Many of the covid deaths actually would have been flu deaths in reality.

            What exactly were you looking at on that page to make you think I was wrong? That’s literally where I got the numbers from in the first place lol

            • athos77
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              18 months ago

              I apologize. For some reason, when I read your comment, my brain said, “100,000 flu deaths a year?! That can’t be right!” So yes, there’s an average of 100 American flu deaths per day. Thank you for the correction, and I apologize again.

    • @Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com
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      208 months ago

      Anecdotal evidence but I have collected the 4 big strains and albeit vaccinated correctly it was quite the hassle each time (a week in bed or more), and yeah short of breath and more after each (once for around 3-4 months with brain fog, with the addition that I didn’t really feel spicy food at all spicy during that period, just very good).

      It’s definitely not a joke and I hope I won’t catch it again.

    • @makeasnek@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      To add to this, SiDock is an awesome project working on an open-source, patent-free, self-stable antiviral for covid using the computers of volunteers. Anybody can volunteer their spare computational power with a few clicks. I have been crunching it since 2020 and find it very fun.