As the news about the coronavirus variants continues to pop up on a daily basis, I find myself becoming increasingly numb to it. I know why this is; it’s because my brain is shorting out and can’t take it. I’m so angry at the assholes who refuse to get vaccinated out of defiance (not those who can’t or POC who have reasons to be wary). We had a chance to get this thing on lock, but, no. We couldn’t be arsed to do that and I’m furious.
The fury is buried under layers of numbness, however, because I simply cannot. It’s the cumulation of the last four years and it’s my self-defense mechanism. I’m not proud of it, but I’m also not proud of how Americans are acting right now. It’s American individualism run amok and it’s a disgrace. I’m also pissed at the Republican leadership for fomenting the dissent strictly as a political move. A week ago, 50% of the Republican members of the House of Congress refused to say whether they were vaxxed or not. While shouting about how it was personal choice and no one got to tread on their freedom.
Riddle me this. If they truly believe that the vaccination is from the devil and to be refused at all costs, why won’t they say they’re not vaxxed? It’s simple: they’re vaxxed. They just want to keep their base riled up as a way to get at the Democrats. I don’t doubt there are some who are not vaxxed, but I’m pretty sure they’re fine with saying so. One of my Twitter people tweeted about a kid (well, late teens) posting on his Facebook that he was getting the vaccination, but don’t worry, he was still a Republican. This was in an article about the faces of the anti-vaxxers. I tweeted to her, “Tell me that the Republicans are terrible without saying the Republicans are terrible” because the vaccination should not be political.
Side Note: The CDC has not handled the messaging well at all. I understand when you make a message to the public, you want to be as definitive as possible. I once had a doctor (the best doctor) who, when I told her I smoked two or three cigarettes a day, she said it wasn’t that big a deal. I asked why the message around smoking, then, was that it was the very worst and if you inhaled one lungful of smoke, you were doomed to die before the age of thirty? She said because if doctors said one or two cigs a day was ok, the nuance would get lost and most people would take it to mean they could smoke a pack a day.
I saw her point, but there had to be people like me who would prefer the unvarnished truth. It was the same during the pandemic. At the beginning, the message was that masks were unnecessary for the hoi polloi. Supposedly, that was because they didn’t have enough masks for the health care providers. I call bullshit, but even if that was true, it was the worst way to get the message across.
Then, with the vax, the emphasis was on how once you got doubly-jabbed, you were in no danger of getting the coronavirus! You could go about unmasked and be as close to anyone you like without a care in the world! Except…oh, look. The Delta variant decided to rear its ugly head and what do you know? You could still get the coronavirus from a vaxxed person even if you were vaxxed yourself. You wouldn’t get it as bad and most likely would not need to be hospitalized, but you could still definitely get it. Unfortunately, even a few days ago, Biden was saying you couldn’t get it if you were vaxxed.
There’s enough misinformation and distrust floating around when it came to the vaccination. We don’t need to add to it by making sweeping generalizations that aren’t quite true. But, we do have to accept that we are not going to make it to 70% vaxxed. We just aren’t. We’re not going to reach natural herd immunity so whatever we do has to be predicated on that premise.
I don’t like how bitter I’ve become, either. I spent 16 months almost completely isolated in order to do my very best not to get the coronavirus. I gritted my teeth at the idiots who didn’t care if they spread it and told myself that once the vax came along, it was going to be different. And it is. I don’t want to pretend it’s the same. It’s way better now, but in a way, it’s more frustrating. There’s something out there that will make this whole situation much better, and, yet, there’s a sizeable chunk of the population that refuses to do it.
I saw a video on people who refused to get vaxxed and then got the coronavirus. The reporter talked to two of the men, both who were still hooked up to machines. The first said that he was getting the vax as soon as he was able. The second said he wasn’t going to get it. When the reporter said incredulously, “You’re not?”, the patient went on to explain, while the tubes were still jabbed in him, that the vax wasn’t FDA-approved. They had only been emergency-approved. The reporter finished by saying he had spoke to the doctor who had treated the patient and the doctor pointed out that the treatment he used on the patient was also only emergency-approved.
My immediate instinctive thought when the second man said he wasn’t getting the vax was, “I hope you die.” I’m not proud of it, but that’s the rage inside me burning brightly. At this point, I’m done with the excuses, the posturing, and the rank selfishness. If they refuse to get the vax, then let Darwinism run its course. What I wish in my ideal world is that we can round up the defiant unvaxxed and drop them off on an island somewhere. If it just affected them, then fine. Let them do what they want. But it affects the whole society and this is where I want to punch them in the face. But I wouldn’t because they’re unvaxxed.
Add to that the fact that children under 12 can’t be vaxxed and we’re a month away from school–this is a recipe for disaster. I’m reading in horror that many schools refuse to allow teachers to inquire as to who is vaxxed and who isn’t, which is just cruel and unusual. From what I’ve read, I’m not the only vaxxed person who is fed up with the unvaxxed, which is going to make for an uncomfortable upcoming few months. I don’t know where any of this is going, but if I get the coronavirus because people are dragging their feet on getting vaxxed, I’m going to be extremely displeased.