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I have not had covid as far as I know. I did get antibody tests early on which were all negative. My wife had it twice and i slept in the same room with her. No issues.
I also know no one that died from COVID, other than a coworker who's very old mother allegedly died from it. This person is known for his tall tales so I cant know for certain.
I find this to be a reasonable heuristic for how much I should worry about something. I know many people who passed from cancer. Many from heart attacks. More than one from getting hit by a car when cycling. I reckon most people have a similar experience.
Its impossible for me to believe that 1.2 million people died from covid in 3-4 years and reconcile that with my experience.
It's a good point that "I don't know anyone who died of covid" is not the only part of their personal experience that people will use to form an opinion on its severity -- virtually everyone has had or been exposed to covid by now, and if their experience was that the disease itself was no big deal, it's hard to reconcile that with a large death toll.
Like -- I don't personally know anyone who's died of prostate cancer, but I do know lots of people who've died of other kinds of cancer, so I'm prepared to believe that prostate cancer is a serious problem. If my doctor had said to me five years ago "hey, you've got prostate cancer -- this is a big deal, you might die" and I just... ignored it and it went away with minimal symptoms, I'd be less inclined to think that prostate cancer is a serious thing.
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