Which of these "covid view camps" do you fall into?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Camp 3, and my opinion will be reinforced once we have a vaccine that specifically prevents Omicron.

The vaccines completely eliminated original COVID-19.

The Delta variant was almost entirely a pandemic of the unvaccinated, who died in droves while the vaccinated population was well-protected and mostly avoided the virus entirely or suffered extremely mild symptoms.

With Omicron, it seems the vaccines are no longer very effective at preventing you from contracting the virus, but the vaccinated (and especially the boosted) still experience far milder symptoms than the unvaccinated, who are still dying by the thousands every day.

At this point in time, being vaccinated will not help prevent the spread of the virus, all it will do is save your life.  But we're probably about 4-6 weeks away from that changing, at which point vaccines will once again become a critical weapon to prevent the spread.

In the meantime, masks continue to be the most effective way to prevent the spread.

So if you are against vaccines and mask mandates, then you are in favor of maximizing the spread of the virus and/or the government doing nothing to protect its people and keep them from suffering and dying.  To me that doesn't seem like a morally defensible position.  And the fact that so many COVID libertarians have chosen to hide behind "masky hurt facey" and phony anti-vaxx garbage is just pathetic.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I find it interesting that only 8% of this forum actually supports options 1-2, but Republicans constantly act like that's what the entire Democratic Party supports.

The Biden administration is in camp 3, and most Democrats are split between camps 3/4 while most Republicans are split between camps 4/5.  We're really not that far apart according to the poll.

The problem is that camp 5 should actually be split between two camps -- camp 5 and camp 6, where camp 6 is camp 5 but you also believe the vaccine is a brain chip, COVID can be cured by drinking piss and eating horse dewormer, Dr. Fauci is an international supercriminal who should be executed, and Biden is the ringleader of a vast conspiracy to use COVID to create the New World Order.  About 30% of the Republican Party is in this camp, and Joe Rogan constantly brings them on his show to promote this viewpoint while he nods along in agreement.  There's not really any equivalent to this on the Democratic side.  And this is what's causing so much societal chaos.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Anyway there's one other thing I want to add.

Option 1 is totally unreasonable now, but was very reasonable early in the pandemic, when we had absolutely no idea what was going on, people were dying by the thousands every day, hospitals and morgues were slammed and we were threatened with total societal collapse.  That is not the case today, which is why option 1 no longer makes sense TODAY.  But it made sense in March 2020.

Option 2 is totally unreasonable now, but was reasonable during the original COVID, which was very deadly but also within our power to control, especially once the vaccines came out.  Now that we've basically defeated original COVID, it's no longer reasonable.

Options 3 and 4 are both reasonable now, when Omicron is still spreading and killing like wildfire and we don't have a vaccine tailored to it.  Yes, for most people it's just the cold.  And yes, even though it's killing the unvaccinated, that is a choice they made.  But there are still lots of people who are unprotected and we should still be taking basic, easy steps to try and limit the uncontrolled spread of the disease and protect those who have an intense desire to avoid getting it.  This has been true for about three weeks now.  Even during Christmas, it was still Delta we had to worry about.

At a certain point in the near future, we'll either get an Omicron-specific booster, or the disease will just collapse from herd immunity (which we are already seeing).  At that point, and that point only, option 5 becomes the only rational option.  COVID is still going to pop up, but we've reduced it to its mildest form and created a regimen to control and defeat it.  Yes, at that point it will be like any other endemic disease.  But that's only because we (most of us) fought so hard for so long to achieve that end.  You're welcome.