Thread by @ASlavitt

COVID Update: Why I still don’t want to get COVID, thanks. 1/

I like parties as much as anyone but an omicron party doesn’t do it for me.

Messing around with a contagious disease is like playing with matches at the gas station. 2/

I don’t want COVID. But even more than that, I don’t want to give someone COVID.

If I get it, I could be contagious before I even know I’m sick. 3/

And if I got sick and got my wife, Lana sick, who would bring me chicken soup and show me the sympathy I so desperately deserve when I’m not feeling well?

Oh yeah. Plus I don’t want to get her sick because that’s the great husband I am. 4/

“Let her rip” sounds like a strategy but it’s really the absence of a strategy. The virus is already ripping. The question is what we’re doing about it. 5/

This is one of the most contagious respiratory viruses in history. Let’s say it’s only as bad as the flu for vaccinated people.

I ask you— what kind of people are comfortable spreading the flu. 6/

When you have the flu, you know it. And unless you really don’t care about others, you stay home.

With COVID, since it can spread asymptomatically, we have to be more careful & wear masks when it’s everywhere. And it’s everywhere. 7/

And if you infect others, some may have a flu like reaction. Some may barely get sick.

And others will have a pre-existing condition, be unable to get vaccinated, or have a weakened immune system. COVID can seriously endanger them. 8/

Even if it ends up being a bad flu for those of us vaccinated, sorry but I don’t really want to get the flu. (See tweet 4.)

I don’t go to a lot of “flu parties.” But that’s me. 9/

Of course there’s no guarantee it will be the flu. This virus is still mysterious. 15 months later our son is still having intermittent symptoms.

10/

Of course there’s no guarantee of not getting COVID— even if we’re careful. Most of us take risks to see family, friends & do certain things.

But minor temporary inconveniences like a mask or a test or meeting outdoors make those things safer. 11/

Cases will begin to subside in this wave and the vaccine will have done a remarkable job despite all these viral mutations from omicron. Thee vast majority who get COVID will be fine as a result. 12/

In the meantime, to those who say “it’s inevitable” that we get COVID, it probably is for them.

But despite this, it’s still ok to say no thanks, I’d rather not.