Ask Lemmygrad

I feel you... I don't have any diagnosed condition that would put me at greater risk of viral infections etc, but I guess I do have a weaker immune system than the average person, getting ill more often and more severely than those around me despite keeping a fairly healthy lifestyle.

And it pisses me off to see how people treat covid, colds, flus - heck, hygiene in general. I can't help but think we could actually eradicate these diseases for good, but it requires collective effort and drilling basic hygiene measures into people's heads since they're young.

Right now, all we can do is protect ourselves and maybe those immediately close to us. This of course helps reduce the spread of viruses etc for everyone else, but still, all it takes to ruin the effort of 10 hygiene-conscious people is just one indifferent person.

It's so much avoidable damage that we have accepted as an inevitable part of life - the only solution many see is to put up with it and hope you become more resilient by getting exposed to a lot viruses... Unfortunately that's not how it works, they mutate way too fast for you to build any meaningful resistance. And that's for healthy people; this is simply disregarding those for which getting ill is not an option. It's not too different from eugenics really. And so we submit to, at best, months of our lives wasted recovering and piling up tiny damages to our bodies, and, at worst, playing Russian roulette with our lives whenever going outside.

Sorry for the rant, it's a topic that bothers me and the lack of awareness really annoys me sometimes. I hope you will continue to have people in your life who understand you and are considerate. If anything, the successes of some countries in their covid responses is a glimpse into what's possible when it comes to fighting highly transmissible diseases on a societal level.