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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2330 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 2, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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COVID Omicron is endemic and, for the healthy and young/middle aged, a few days of light flu-like symptoms. Is there now any steelman justification for keeping unvaxed like me (who’ve had all vaccines except any of the COVID ones) from getting an organ transplant? (Not that I need one now.)

I mean, if you need an organ transplant you're no longer really in that category of healthy, low risk where you'd just worry about a few days of symptoms. You'd be on life-long strong immune-suppressing anti-rejection medications so the risk profile is pretty different at that point.

The only argument that sounded half plausible was this one:

  1. Donated organs are rare so there will be lots of people who don't get them.
  2. People who receive organs need to maintain a mix of anti-rejection drugs and regular doctor check-ins.
  3. People who have not received the Covid vax are less likely to listen to doctors, less likely to take the anti-rejection drugs, etc.
  4. Therefore, people who have not received the Covid vax should be further down on the recipient list from those with a proven track record of doing what their doctors say without backtalk.

I think it's a false equivalence because maybe your primary doctor actually didn't recommend the Covid vaccine because of a contraindication or something, but you're highly unlikely to have a doctor not recommend needed anti-rejection drugs. But that's the argument that seems most logical.

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