[scarmig]

Minor point of correction: someone who is HIV positive but has an undetectable viral load is very unlikely to give someone else HIV. It's riskier to have sex with a random at a bar of unknown status than it is to have sex with someone with an undetectable viral load. (If you trust that they do indeed have an undetectable viral load and strictly adhere to their medication protocol.)

[TMWNN]

Thank you for the correction.

I'm still amazed that the person I responded to thought that HIV would be preferable to COVID19! What does that say about the effectiveness, so to speak, of media campaigns about COVID19's dangers?

[reallyagain]

You've misquoted me twice in a short period of time, I didn't say that HIV would be preferable to the Delta variant. You're right, I would "prefer" COVID over HIV, but my personal preference is not a good metric of the overall severity.

In abstract, given the choice between something that had a (say) 30% chance to kill me but was mostly harmless in the long-run and HIV, I would "prefer" the former over the latter. But I also think that the former is more severe. In my view you're equating two things which are not the same.

For some context, I lost 6 family members in a short period of time to the Delta variant of COVID. My experience with COVID is not "media campaigns" but funerals.

[TMWNN]

>You've misquoted me twice in a short period of time, I didn't say that HIV would be preferable to the Delta variant.

You wrote

>I'm surprised that (for example) someone getting the Delta variant in 2021 was "much less severe" than someone getting HIV in 2021.

I do not think that my

>No one, not even the most ill centenarian, would choose HIV over COVID19 if required to be infected by one.

and

>I'm still amazed that the person I responded to thought that HIV would be preferable to COVID19!

are so far off.

>In abstract, given the choice between something that had a (say) 30% chance to kill me but was mostly harmless in the long-run and HIV, I would "prefer" the former over the latter.

If the only two choices were infection by something that had a 30% chance to kill me, or HIV (presumably followed by the appropriate drug regimen to control it), I think I'd probably take HIV!

But that's not a choice between COVID19 and HIV. Let me repeat: COVID19 has a 0.6% IFR. Yes, IFR increases by age, but even 85-year olds' IFR is 15%; not great, but (as I understand it) pretty comparable to the flu for the cohort.

>But I also think that the former is more severe.

This is more support for the accuracy of my paraphrasing of you.

>For some context, I lost 6 family members in a short period of time to the Delta variant of COVID. My experience with COVID is not "media campaigns" but funerals.

I am sorry to hear that about your family. But (thankfully for society, if not so much for you or your loved ones) your experience is very atypical. Unless all had multiple comorbidities (immune suppression + obesity + something else), what happened to your family members was very, very, very rare.

[reallyagain]

> But (thankfully for society, if not so much for you or your loved ones) your experience is very atypical. Unless all had multiple comorbidities (immune suppression + obesity + something else), what happened to your family members was very, very, very rare.

Agreed, I wasn't attempting to extrapolate it over the general population. But you may consider your "media campaigns" comment from my POV.

The point I was attempting to make is that (as a relatively young man) I would risk many illnesses over a long-term debilitating illness that affected my sexual health, even if the former were objectively worse for my overall health. That's why I don't think severity and preference are necessarily correlated. Anyway, the "8 replies deep semantics argument" is not a good use of time for either of us, especially since I don't think our viewpoints are that far off.

If nothing else, I have learned more about HIV from this subthread than I expected, so there is that.