@medigoth I have a loved one who is in the **extreme minority** of ppl who had a negative reaction to a covid vaccine--mild long haul case. She became cat3 while trying to find treatment. With rest/time she recovered & is doing leaps and bounds better than most of us who got long covid.
It's not a competition, but having seen the severity of both forms of long haul, & how cat2 can be more welcoming & predatory than us in cat1, I think we need to find ways to reach cat3 people before bad actors.
@medigoth I'm not sure what that looks like, but I think it's deeply important. The bad actors in category 3 are spending so much time and energy messaging and preying on everyone they can.
I am strongly pro-vax, pro-mask, pro-fresh and clean air, pro-public health. I worry about how many people I see who are falling into cat3 and the disintegration of public health because of these bad actors.
@moss Yeah, it's "viral" in an almost literal sense: all the Cat 2s have to do is start the infection, and large numbers of Cat 3s will happily take it from there. I have no idea what to do about this on a large scale, and given the current state of US politics I'm afraid there may not be much of a chance for anyone here to do anything about it much longer. Hopefully the rest of the world will carry the torch while we live (or don't) through the plague years.
On a small scale, I've had luck with a few antivaxers by trying to be kind and patient. Same with creationists and climate change deniers. But it's a long shot: for every one I get to consider the evidence, a hundred or a thousand react with confusion, mockery, and/or rage. At this point I'm just not sure how much I have left in me to keep trying.
