Well not really "projecting". Maybe imposing my view of others who are afraid of Covid onto you, but if so I apologize. You seem to have your head in the right place.

I'm mainly trying to define/understand the fear, because I'm still not getting it and think it's irrational and overblown. Moreso now with Omicron.

> I’m not so blind to my own bias that I can’t acknowledge that other people who feel more worried than I do

I live under the same roof with an 83 year old. I've had two jabs, because I was under the false impression that vaccination would prevent transmission. I am sick and tired of having people call me selfish (I know you didn't!).

Immunocompromised people are, as I acknowledged before, a problem in this equation. But we as a society have always had to accept a certain level of risk, and inconvenience to minorities.

We could have every document/sign/book ever produced done in braille as well, but that would be considered an enormous waste of energy and resources. Are blind people worth any less than people with vision? Most would argue no (aside from economists). Blind (or otherwise impaired) people will inherently have inconveniences compared to their healthy counterparts. We should strive to remove their suffering, but we cannot go about our lives engineering everything tailored to every handicapped group.

We've simply gotten another coronavirus in circulation and it's nastier than the ones we had before. Naturally, as I see it, this should lead us to accept a higher level of risk in our daily lives (like when we started using cars instead of horses for transportation) instead of trying to irrationally cling to the previous one. Overall mortality raised by some 0.1-0.3% or whatever percentage and we need to accept it.

Of course everyone in a risk group should go get vaccinated ASAP. I assume many also overestimate their own health. But I still think it's wrong to shun and shame them and lock them out from society.

Instead we should be able to have reasonable discussions about things, like we're having here right now (I think), but instead I see ideas like vaccine mandates for everyone in the US, including all children and those with previous infections, which is just insane, and there is no open debate allowed about this. And this censorship only leads to stronger echo chambers, exacerbating the problem to begin with.

If we could be open and honest we might come to a conclusion together that there's no point in mandating vaccines for young men or children and we should instead focus on the elderly and the risk groups. Point out to people that there are risks of myocarditis but they're small in comparison to the risks of Covid, for most people. Now you can barely say anything negative about anything without getting "canceled" or "deplatformed". That's what I'm mainly worried about. And also why I the mainstream view is so skewed. Anyone who has any kind of skepticism/criticism is an "anti-vaxxer", which is countered by more censoring, shaming, whatnot. Creating a world of division where we have two people, the ones who are compassionate, and the ones who don't give a fuck about the rest of the world and only themselves. The truth is more nuanced than that.

Sorry about the rant. :D