[yardstick]

I believe the ops point was that if a covid test was optional, and you felt sick, you wouldn’t bother to get tested. Travel which mandates testing is a separate matter.

That’s been my position for a while. I’m pro-vaccine, and pro-initial lockdown (only), and lived in London during the first years of the pandemic. At some point we just have to get on with our lives, we need to stop living in fear. We need to stop the them vs us divide.

[vwcx]

'Living in fear' is such a charged, politicized statement. Can you dissect what you mean by it?

For me, testing before I visit my elderly parents isn't a decision made of fear - it's a basic precaution I can take, causes me no more than 5-10 mins of extra effort, and costs nothing to me (a privileged position provided by employer-subsidized insurance, of course). Is this fear making decisions on my behalf? Is this pragmatism prompted by fear?

[1123581321]

I don’t really follow the news, so apologies if I’m missing some connotation, but to me, “living in fear” refers to the people who will miss things they shouldn’t have to miss, not the people who will try to do everything they should and test to do it with a clear conscience.

For example, a local singing event was held last month, a dearly treasured annual event. They took precautions as if it were summer 2020, doing as much as possible outdoors, masking indoors, not letting people get food together, requiring vaccinations, and so on. As the event drew near, though, the people asking for those things largely backed out anyway, citing concern about COVID. I found it terribly sad that they couldn’t bring themselves to do this favorite activity despite receiving so many accommodations. I see that sort of behavior as succumbing to fear in a way that doesn’t benefit them.

[yardstick]

If your parents are vaccinated, and you are vaccinated, and you don’t have any symptoms then yes I would call it unnecessary worrying. Elderly parents are vulnerable to not just covid, but the cold and flu etc. That’s why elderly normally get free flu jabs.

I never needed to take a test to know to stay away from people if I felt sick (family or work colleagues).

I guess if I knew it wasn’t a transmittable sickness (which is normally quite obvious, eg headache, sunburn, hungover, muscle pain, etc) then I would still visit. Coughing, sneezing, etc anything involving fluids I’d probably just stay away. No test needed. Just common sense, same as before covid.

[guiambros]

> I never needed to take a test to know to stay away from people if I felt sick

What if you're asymptomatic?

Why it's so hard to spend 5 min taking a test before situations where you'll be with a bunch of people (airplane, large meeting, event, etc)?

[yardstick]

That’s the living in fear aspect. Before covid, did you test for cold, flu, chickenpox, measles, or any other number of transmittable diseases before meeting a bunch of people?

[vwcx]

I see your point, but I also raise you: if a test was available for any asymptomatic illness, and you could take it easily before engaging with a population whom would suffer if they contracted it from you, would you?

It's like an Intro to Ethics problem...and as I observed in that class during undergrad, the answer is not obvious.

[yardstick]

How often would you do this test? How many types of illnesses would you test for? Would you test weekly? Daily? Hourly? Would you lock your bedroom door and test every time you left it. Don’t even get me started on much resources would be required for the world to continuously test this way. Maybe someone ends up making a smart watch that continuously samples every few minutes? Where’s the threshold for sensibility?

And for what? Covid is no longer the covid of 2019. It’s not the same threat.

This isn’t about theoreticals, this is about getting back to normal. Which is not testing for relatively harmless things like covid (now we have vaccines and other meds being developed to help with the symptoms), cold, flu, etc, especially when vaccines exist. Just use your common sense.