[CydeWeys]

> Living in a flat as a single person in the big exciting city? Literally everything you do has been illegal or restricted in some form for almost a year now.

And unsafe, too. I'm not not going to restaurants because I'm not allowed to (they're actually opening back up a little bit here now), but because under the present circumstances it's not safe to do so.

[toby]

Open-air dining with six feet of separation is almost certainly safe. There's literally no evidence to the contrary despite multiple court orders to produce any.

[CydeWeys]

It's below freezing here right now, currently snowing, and with high winds. No one's eating outdoors. I did it a bit before winter started but this entire season has been a wash.

[Uberphallus]

Unfortunately when restaurants around here could open, they didn't have the required distancing between tables because that'd mean they'd make half the money. Your country culture may vary.

[Wintamute]

Have you quantified that? How unsafe it is to your personally?

I don't know anything about your personal situation, but if you're healthy and relatively young the risk from Covid (first catching it, then having a bad time with it) in resuming these aspects of normal life may be extremely low, even compared to activities you wouldn't think twice about doing pre-pandemic - like taking a short car ride for example.

I think there are probably a lot of people struggling with this sort of thing. Cognitive behaviour therapy incorporating aspects of exposure therapy could be useful here.

[CydeWeys]

> How unsafe it is to your personally?

That's a very selfish way of looking at things. The problem with being a communicable disease is that even if I'm fine, others I give it too might not be. I'm trying to be a team player here.

Also, I'm not in a low-risk group personally anyway.

[Wintamute]

No, not selfish. See answer below

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26194718

[CydeWeys]

There's currently around 80 people dying from COVID-19 per day here in NYC, and the highest death rates have been from food service workers. 80 is way too high (it's over 10X what it was late summer), and I'm not going to do anything to potentially contribute to that. And Cuomo the nursing home reaper doesn't exactly have the moral high ground here in saying what is and isn't safe.

I'm going to go back to my normal life once I've been vaccinated. At this rate there's only a couple more months to go. I've already made it 11 months, I can do a couple more.

[Damogran6]

Are the young as at big a risk as older folks? No. CAN THEY COMMUNICATE IT TO OLDER FOLKS? Yes. Yes they can.

This kinda falls into the 'social obligation' column. Just because it doesn't affect you personally, doesn't mean you shouldn't be part of the solution. Sooner or later something WILL happen to you and you'll benefit from being a member.

[Wintamute]

I understand that aspect. Vaccinations, social distancing, mask wearing, mass testing, self isolating with symptoms or while vulnerable - these are all tools designed to get society running again, while minimising risk. The OP said they felt unsafe about going into restaurants which were open in their region. My opinion is that is incumbent on all of us to get back to normality as swiftly as possible within the guidelines set out by our local governments. That is my idea of social obligation, thanks.

[criddell]

> within the guidelines set out by our local governments

Your local government may not care about you. I'd look to respected civilian experts or at least government agencies staffed by respected experts.

I'm basing this on Texas' Lt. Governor Dan Patrick being willing to tolerate a lot of death for the sake of the economy:

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/21/texas-dan-patrick-ec...

[Wintamute]

I understand that aspect too.

I mention local guidelines since I wouldn't want anyone to get in trouble with the state.

The economy is not an abstract thing, it represents living people and their lives. People who feel its important to prioritise the economy and a return to relative normality generally don't think that way because they're callous about Covid deaths, they're simply more concerned about the death, ill health and strife that result from a long term economic downturn. We can discuss the degree to which those views represent reality without impugning people's characters.

[CydeWeys]

Local guidelines have been highly politicized throughout this pandemic though and a lot of governors have been making terrible decisions for political reasons. I'm not seeing any rational reason to listen to local guidelines when the guidelines are politically-motivated (not evidence-based) and are set way too loose even while COVID-19 was in the midst of tearing through a community.

Many of these states couldn't even get on board with masks, let alone anything else more stringent (like reducing capacity).

[zo1]

That argument means nothing unless you're also able to decide for yourself what to do about something "unsafe". Consent is key, and we're watching in real time as we are turned into human livestock under the care of the "state".

It boils down to: "Shut up, stay in your pen". I'm not a crazy person and I agree with herd immunity and generally think we should strive for it and not fight it for the sake of the unhealthy, but excuse the language, holy-shit people... it's been a year of "flatten the curve", "lockdowns" and "stay at home orders"!! I stand by this fully: This disaster could have been solved in a month with closed borders, tracking and a dedicated, absolute and draconian effort. But, we didn't get that and instead treated the potentially "misbehaving" people like cattle because they threatened the wider herd.

It all rests on what happens after a wide rollout of the vaccine.

[kelnos]

> I'm not a crazy person and I agree with herd immunity

You're not crazy, but you are incorrect. Herd immunity only works for COVID if a) you can get 60-70% of people infected, and b) getting the disease confers immunity, and for a meaningful amount of time.

Getting to that 60-70% in the time frame that most people would tolerate would absolutely destroy our health care system, resulting in many more deaths (due to people being unable to get the treatment they need). Consider that hospitals in many areas were overwhelmed without most people going out and trying to get the disease.

And the immunity bit is still an open question. Many people have suffered re-infection, and it's not clear that post-infection immunity lasts more than a few months, which might not be good enough for herd immunity to stick.

The second bit is a bit of a gamble, so I'm totally open to argument there as to whether it's a gamble worth taking, but the first bit includes unacceptable outcomes. I'm not saying our current outcome is acceptable, but trading one bad thing for another isn't clearly better here.

[JohnCohorn]

< Many people have suffered re-infection

Citation needed. Every source I’ve heard has said reinfection is rare in both percent and absolute terms. And resistance to the disease is proven to last at least ~9months and estimated by the medically knowledgeable to last much much longer.

[_uwiz]

Nah, me staying inside for years on end with no or very limited social contact is less safe for me.

It guarantees a horrible outcome (psychosis), versus a slight risk of a bad outcome.

I'm not going to put myself into a coma for multiple years on the off chance that someone else gets ill. Best of luck.