Besides being vaccinated, you just take your chances. Not much more you can do. If the person you are with has Covid, you probably have a 95% chance of being exposed even with masks, hand washing etc. You are inches away and breathing the same air. In most places right now, perhaps 1% of people have COVID. Perhaps 2/3 have symptoms or know they have it. So probably 1/300 potential cuddlers is going to have a transmittable Covid infection. If you are young, healthy and vaccinated, you are probably not going to get a severe case anyway. So looks at the odds and ask yourself whether you think it is worth it for you. The numbers above may vary BTW but the magnitude is about right. The key to stopping Covid is not to reduce all possible exposure. It’s to reduce the number of people you are exposed to to keep the risk manageable. If everyone did that, the number of secondary infections per case would be less than 1. In that case, the number of new infections will decrease exponentially which is the goal.
@Ironman294 - This is starting to get comical. Omg. I'm trying to kill people because I went to a concert.
@Ironman294 "who said they didn’t matter, just stating facts."
You implicitly have by responding with "And they were elderly."" when the deaths/hospitalization of 4000+ people was brought up in support of why continuing to take other precautions such as wearing a mask * is important *.
"The vaccine is readily available for a long time now for every adult and for a time 12-18. So it’s us that are vaccinated that are selfish if we don’t mask to protect the ones without medical conditions don’t wanna get the vaccine?"
We can control what each of us does and the more of us strive to make better decisions, the sooner we will get out of this. The fact is, vaccines aren't enough to stop the hospitalization/death of 4000+ people who, wait for it. . . are vaccinated, which is why continuing with other precautions is still needed to help protect more. Also wearing a mask around those who can and don't get vaccinated, still benefits us in staying protected, because we are moving around and we don't know who we will come across, who they will come across, and so on. My main point isn't to convince you to wear a mask, though to recognize that not doing so is doing harm and that it matters. Most of all, it is to help others get the facts they need to help them make better decisions.
It was 6500 infections with 1200 deaths of the vaccinated. Both @Mike403 and myself said there’s been 160 million vaccinated Americans so while it’s sad that 1200 have died the vaccines were supposed tos top hospitalizations to 95% effectiveness and judging by the numbers it’s 99.999% effective. But you haven’t expressed sympathy for the 40,000 motor vehicle deaths per year. That’s 100% preventable if we reduced the speed to 3 mph or banned the use of all motor vehicles. Anyway this is going in circles be well. Thank you for not using profanity even if you have implied I don’t care about deaths. The use of profanity by adults I think shows a general lack of substance in ones points of view.
The 1918 Spanish flu is still here.
No it isn't. It disappeared entirely and had to be reconstructed.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/1918flupandemic.htm
Please stop saying things that are not true.
According to the CDC, fully vaccinated individuals don't need to social distance or mask up when outside. Some recommendations they gave is when you're indoors.
@Ironman294
The use of profanity by adults I think shows a general lack of substance in ones points of view.
I wouldn't be so sure ....
NSFW. Sound up.
Here are some facts to help you gauge the size of the risk. https://www.heritage.org/public-health/report/statistical-analysis-covid-19-breakthrough-infections-and-deaths
The chance of a fully vaccinated person dying of a breakthrough COVID infection is almost exactly the same as dying from a lightning strike according to these numbers. In other words, negligible, compared to more common risks we take every day. If you go meet someone for cuddling, the 10 mile car ride you take is still probably the more dangerous part of the outing. The odds of you being assaulted by the person you meet is far higher than the chance of you being hospitalized for a Covid breakthrough infection resulting from it.
The chance of being exposed from an infected cuddler is probably close to 95%. But you are taking that chance from a single person. The odds of you being exposed from visiting a crowded bar may only be 20% but there could be 100 people there over the evening and so it's a far riskier thing to do because you are rolling that dice for every person there.
In my estimate, there is not much risk of me being seriously harmed by Covid now that I am vaccinated. It's just not near the top of the riskier things that I do. The worst thing that would likely happen is that I might contribute to the spread and that's my main concern.
I don't really get the relevance of the traffic deaths data, but since it's been brought up .....
____________USA _______ UK ______ Japan Peak ......... 55,500 ...... 9,200 ....... 16,800 Recent ...... 36,100 ...... 1,800 .......... 2,800 Change ...... -35% ........ -80% ........... -83%
Take the numbers (Wikipedia) with a pinch of salt since there will be numerous differences in basis, population change, vehicle-miles and so on .... but I think the general point is clear.
@Ironman294 "But you haven’t expressed sympathy for the 40,000 motor vehicle deaths per year."
That sounds like a load of red herring with "x is worse than y, so doing y is okay" sprinkled on top.
We aren't discussing car accidents and I've no interest in getting into the "but - but - car accidents kill even more people" argument. The fact is, wearing a mask helps protect whether or not you want to be part of that effort, is up to you.
@CuddleDuncan I seem to agree with you about cuddling not being that risky for vaccinated people but I think you are making the mistake of thinking you can prevent infection through all those cumbersome actions. Unless you are wearing N-95 masks, wearing a mask and washing hands, it is not going to matter. At the distance of 1 foot between faces the aerosol transmission channel is going to be plenty effective. The both of you are basically basking in a cloud of the same moist air. It is going right through typical masks and carrying plenty of the virus with it. So, as I mentioned, the case for it not being that risky has more to do with it being a single person and that breakthrough infection chances leading to severe cases are very low. I don't even think there is much point taking steps to reduce the chance of transmission in the case of cuddling. All those steps, masks, washing hands, sanitizing etc are things that help in cases of semi-close contact such as a brief conversation with a bank teller. They don't do much to stop the aerosol channel unless you take extreme measures which would be too uncomfortable in this situation.
@dave31415 agreed, if according to some people on this thread all spread is bad, the responsible thing would be to stop all cuddling until every single person is vaccinated. And if all cuddles stopped on the website the website would probably cease to exist if no money changed hands and the website did not get the 15% of the hourly fee
And just cause some people are asymptomatic or don't die/get hospitalized doesn't mean they aren't at risk of damage.
"COVID-19 (coronavirus): Long-term effects COVID-19 symptoms can sometimes persist for months. The virus can damage the lungs, heart and brain, which increases the risk of long-term health problems."
"Organ damage caused by COVID-19 Although COVID-19 is seen as a disease that primarily affects the lungs, it can damage many other organs as well. This organ damage may increase the risk of long-term health problems. Organs that may be affected by COVID-19 include:
Heart. Imaging tests taken months after recovery from COVID-19 have shown lasting damage to the heart muscle, even in people who experienced only mild COVID-19 symptoms. This may increase the risk of heart failure or other heart complications in the future. Lungs. The type of pneumonia often associated with COVID-19 can cause long-standing damage to the tiny air sacs (alveoli) in the lungs. The resulting scar tissue can lead to long-term breathing problems. Brain. Even in young people, COVID-19 can cause strokes, seizures and Guillain-Barre syndrome — a condition that causes temporary paralysis. COVID-19 may also increase the risk of developing Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. Some adults and children experience multisystem inflammatory syndrome after they have had COVID-19. In this condition, some organs and tissues become severely inflamed."
"Many long-term COVID-19 effects still unknown Much is still unknown about how COVID-19 will affect people over time, but research is ongoing. Researchers recommend that doctors closely monitor people who have had COVID-19 to see how their organs are functioning after recovery."
Many large medical centers are opening specialized clinics to provide care for people who have persistent symptoms or related illnesses after they recover from COVID-19. Support groups are available as well.
It's important to remember that most people who have COVID-19 recover quickly. But the potentially long-lasting problems from COVID-19 make it even more important to reduce the spread of COVID-19 by following precautions. Precautions include wearing masks, social distancing, avoiding crowds, getting a vaccine when available and keeping hands clean."
@dave31415 no, you're absolutely right that you cannot prevent risk of infection. That's why I labelled it 'best practice' - it's the best you can do if you are going to cuddle.
You can pretty much kill the droplet and surface transmission but yep, you are screwed on the aerosol.
In my experience it does depend on the details of the circumstances. I have cuddled with masks in a small space and it was blindingly obvious that the masks - and everything else - were a complete waste of time. But I have also cuddled with masks inside when the open windows created a lovely draught on the cheeks, and there I felt that the precautions might be doing something.
Actually, on that thought I'm just going to edit the original post.
My view is that if both people are vaccinated, then the risk of covid is small.
We have to take risks every day when we step outside our house, and the risk of covid transmission between vaccinated people becomes just another one fo those small risks.
They dropped the mask mandates because we are no longer at risk of overwhelming our hospital system like we were for much of 2020. If you still want to wear them that's fine. I wear a mask when delivering food with DoorDash/Grubhub because it's required by the company that the drivers do so, so I'm not gonna argue with them.
Multiple multiple multiple flags on this thread.
You're welcome to your opinion on Covid and vaccinations. You are not welcome to disregard safety protocols (masks, social distancing, vaccinations) and science in the face of a global pandemic that now includes multiple variants.
Thanks for playing the "I saw it on Facebook and I know more than immunologists and healthcare professionals" game.
Did I mention there were flags on this thread?
This thread is closed/locked.