i've learned more about the real on-the-ground ugliness of COVID from r/nursing than I've learned from any other source. Even the most unflinching media portrayals of what COVID does to the unvaccinated and the people who have to care for them leaves a lot out.
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for example last week i learned that a lot of nurses have had to deal with maggots in the intubated bodies of COVID patients, because anybody who has to be intubated for as long as many COVID patients do makes an attractive home for fly larvae, even when they're still alive
I hear about a new awful symptom of COVID-19 every month that sounds so awful it makes the media coverage of it look like even more of a cover-up so they can get things "back to normal" so we can "live with COVID".
Honestly the stuff that got me to vaccinate ASAP was what can happen to you in what's noted as a 'mild' case where you don't go to the hospital, otherwise I might have been more partial to hesitate with that "psh it only gets the olds, I'll wait until it's proven safe" BS.
Myocarditis, people who did marathons not having enough stamina to go up stairs, brain fog, the Texas Roadhouse ceo who committed suicide because he got tinnitus, long term effects we don't even know (like people who got Russian flu in 1890s were more likely to die in the Spanish flu after WW1), etc.
There's even a trumpy NHL player who was antivax, got covid, now has myocarditis after 'recovery' so they won't medically clear him to play and his career might be over.
It's honestly amazing how little anyone talks about the "long covid" effects.