[gathly]

My mask is N95 in public, but my main strategy is to almost never leave my apartment, which I live in alone. I think when people start talking about mask efficacy, it also depends on what you're doing with that mask. Are you only going to the grocery store once a week, or are you going out every day, to work inside a building, and going in and out of buildings all day? When they talk about a poorly fit KN95, is that on a person who runs into the gas station for 2 minutes, or someone who works at a concert venue?

[timr]

> my main strategy is to almost never leave my apartment, which I live in alone.

This is incredibly sad. How many years of your life are you going to lose for a virus that is never going away? (A virus from which you are extremely well-protected after vaccination.)

Now, I don't know you. Maybe you have some serious immune compromise condition -- like a recent bone marrow transplant -- that prevents the vaccines from being effective. But if not, what are you doing? Even if you're a 65 year old with multiple co-morbidities, your risk of serious illness after vaccination is in the 1-per-10,000 range, and death is in the 1-per-100,000 range. I'm not exaggerating:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm

[gathly]

I have diabetes, which makes it extremely dangerous to contract covid. I'm fully vaxxed and boosted, but Omicron breaks through vaccine protection. I also like my apartment and there's plenty to do here.

[timr]

> I have diabetes, which makes it extremely dangerous to contract covid.

The paper I linked above covers diabetes. Please read it. In a population of 1.3M elderly (> age 65; aka "high risk") people post-vaccination, a total of 98 diabetics had a "severe" case of Covid (i.e. not just death). The adjusted risk factor was found to be 1.47, on a baseline of 0.015%.

In other words, if diabetes is your sole concern, it certainly qualifies as elevated risk, but in no reasonable world is a risk measured in hundredths of a percent "extremely dangerous". And remember: these are elderly people. Your risk is almost certainly dramatically lower -- if you're in the demographic of the typical HN user, divide this by ten.

I can't emphasize this enough: this virus is not going away. It will be with us for the rest of our lives. If you can't go outside now, you will never again be able to go outside.

[gathly]

I'm seeing things like this. I should have more specific. I have metabolic syndrome. With variants like Omicron that have higher ability to bypass vaccines, I'm not taking the risk. Covid of some sort will be with us, but hopefully it won't be at this level of risk for people like me always.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211222153102.h...

[timr]

> "Our study found that if you have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, mild obesity and pre-diabetes or diabetes and are hospitalized with COVID-19, you have a one in four chance of developing ARDS, which is significant,"

This article is incredibly misleading. Please don't take it seriously.

First, note the dates: this study is pre-vaccine. You are vaccinated. This doesn't apply to you.

Second, note the wording: if you have X,Y and Z and are hospitalized -- that second part is extremely low probability, even if X,Y and Z are true. In other words, they're conditioning the statement on a rare event to make it sound like it's common for people with diabetes to end up with ARDS. It is not common. It's very rare (but maybe 30% less rare for people with 3+ risk factors.)

To be more specific, read this part carefully:

> Researchers from Tulane University, the Society of Critical Care Medicine and Mayo Clinic followed outcomes for patients hospitalized between mid-Feb. 2020 to mid-Feb. 2021...Researchers compared 5,069 patients (17.5%) with metabolic syndrome with 23,971 control patients (82.5%) without metabolic syndrome. They defined metabolic syndrome as having more than three of the following criteria: obesity, pre-diabetes or diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol.

> Patients with metabolic syndrome were 36% more likely to develop ARDS, almost 20% more likely to die in the hospital, more than 30% more likely to be admitted to an ICU, and 45% more likely to require mechanical ventilation.

In other words, if you restrict yourself to looking only at the sickest of the sick (i.e. people who are hospitalized; a small sub-population of everyone who gets Covid, strongly skewed toward the elderly), then those with 3+ risk factors are slightly more likely to die than those who do not have 3+ risk factors.

That's all that this study says. The MMWR study I cited more relevant to your situation, if only because you are vaccinated. You are very, very well-protected against severe disease. Even with diabetes.

[president]

Hypothetically if it ever comes out that Covid was not the killer virus it was made out to be, would you regret wasting 2 years of your life not leaving your apartment? I find it interesting because I know many people who have lived life to the fullest in these past two years that rarely mask, are unvaccinated, and have travelled frequently. None of them became sick in any way. Obviously I know nothing about your age or level of health but I don't think prescribing isolation is the best strategy for the whole society.

[fooker]

>my main strategy is to almost never leave my apartment

Wow. I feel lucky to have had a mostly normal social life during the pandemic.