virus vs govt reaction

Actually getting the virus looks a whole lot worse.

Most of the people who got it are like me and it is like a week-long flu. Meanwhile, millions of people lost their businesses that they spent decades of work trying to create. If you want to compare the worst case scenarios, you will be comparing young, healthy, emotionally sensitive people who commit suicide, poison their livers with alcohol or overdose on drugs with extremely old people and people who were not taking care of their health.

Exactly

For less than 2% of people who get it. Just like ANY disease can get bad with complications. This isn't polio and it isn't smallpox. Heck, I don't even think it's as bad as chicken pox or measles (which we used to accept as an acceptable and manageable risks before vaccines).
Now masks and social distancing (when practical) are reasonable expectations to manage risks. Shutting down large swaths of the economy and eliminating people's livelyhoods is not.

2% of 350,000,000 is 7,000,000. Are you okay with those numbers? (Disproportionately the poor, the rural, people of color, etc.)
7 million is about 10 North Dakotas, or Both Dakotas, plus Hawaii and Louisiana. That's a lot of death.

The numbers look inflated due to the recategorization of other causes of death that were going to occur anyway. Everyone who died with it was listed as dying from it. But, they got it at the hospital or nursing home, where they were residing due to their failing health in the first place. It seems like the establishment media wanted to make a big deal out of it since they wanted to attack Trump politically. I got this thing, so I know it will kill anyone already on death's door. But, most people just develop antibodies and move on. And I think antibodies are going to prove more effective than the vaccine anyway. The press just literally wants to make a federal case out of everything. It used to be a joke: when somebody was upset about something, the other person would say, "well, don't make a federal case out of it". Nowadays, you'd be afraid of giving them an idea.

Well, yes, antibodies! But it looks like this virus, like its relatives, mutates enough that infection with one strain doesn't mean you can't get it again. So this may be a situation where many of us (or at least those working or living with vulnerable populations) will have to get an annual shot.

https://www.ajmc.com/view/first-case-of-covid-19-reinfection-detected-in-the-us

If you're a healthcare worker, work with the elderly, or work in a school in most places, you have to certify that you're not passing on TB, and that you have relevant immunizations.

The other thing that frets at me is that yes, the fatality rates for Covid-19 can be low, but that assumes that the resources are there. When the medical facilities got overwhelmed in northern Italy this spring, they were logging fatality rates (for confirmed cases) at a brisk 18.3%. Now, there must have been some asymptomatic cases, but that's the model that the rural Midwest is looking at for January as regional hospitals and critical care facilities go down under the surge.

(Source: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30099-2/fulltext )

And demographically, that's an older population with more health complications than the urbanized coasts. I don't want to write off Kansas or any significant portion thereof.

As long as it is optional, I will choose to catch all the viruses and mutations so my body can learn to defeat them. Adaptability > band-aids.

Hooray for adaptation! Let's out-adapt the undead buggers. Vaccinations teach your body to adapt without putting those around you at risk with a live infection. Think gym training rather than just lifting things that you happen to come across to strengthen your muscles.

It has taken a lot of scientists a lot of time to come up with something the human body did automatically. I am a lot more impressed with our innate immune systems than with vaccinations. There are times when it is a good idea to get vaccinated against things, but everyone needs to decide for themselves when that is.

for you, for you hon. both my parents are dead from it and i live with my grandma now and have to stay in the basement to not get her sick so i dont have to go to a foster home.

Not just for me, but for most people and for society at large.
As for you and grandma, remember that being healthy in the first place is the best vaccine we currently have.