On Tuesday, President Biden gave an address from the White House. He spoke about a variety of things: The Supply Chain and how things are getting better at the ports; his fervent belief that his Build Back Better bill can still pass the Senate. But mostly, he talked about a pandemic that has been raging across the globe for nearly two years, and like he's done more than a dozen times, he urged those who haven't gotten vaccinated to do so.
He did his best to reassure a concerned nation that this was not March 2020, that over 200 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, and that for those who have received their booster shots, the new Omicron variant is far less virulent than its predecessor. But for the remaining 129 million Americans who haven't been vaccinated, he predicted a "winter of severe illness and death." It was like watching a parent plead with his children to eat their vegetables. The only thing missing was the Enya song from that Kraft commercial in the background.
I have tried to wrap my head around the madness that has engulfed this nation and all I've gotten for my trouble is a headache. I have read or listened to every conceivable argument from the anti-vaxx contingent and remain aghast. Despite all the available evidence from the scientific community, the overwhelming majority in this group remain unpersuaded.
This didn't have to happen; this was avoidable. With the enormous resources the United States has at its disposal, we should've been at herd immunity by now. Hundreds of thousands of people need not have died; our healthcare system didn't have to be pushed to the brink; and millions of businesses across the country could've been spared most of the economic hardship they endured had sanity simply prevailed.
There's ignorance and then there's recklessness. In the name of free speech, we have given dangerously unhinged people - politicians, artists, athletes and media personalities - a powerful platform to spread their disinformation to an all-too gullible audience, and we are reaping the just rewards for it. We have allowed them to shout "fire" in a crowded movie theater and then sat back and watched in stunned amazement as they blamed us for the souls that got trampled.
This wasn't the case when I was a kid. When my parents were informed that I needed to be vaccinated against Polio, Smallpox and the Measles, they didn't say "we'll do some some research and get back to you." They said "yes" and that was the end of it. I know this not because they told me, but because I carried the mark from the injection site on my left shoulder for years. Every person over the age of 40 had one of these marks. It was a badge of honor.
There was no such thing as alternative facts back then. Those who spewed wild conspiracy theories were thoroughly repudiated from both sides of the political spectrum. And if by some chance they found a sympathetic ear to bend, both they and that ear were dealt with swiftly and harshly. As Mary Hopkin sang, "Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end."
Nowadays, these crackpots go on cable TV or social media and multiply like rabbits. Like modern day Patrick Henrys, they cry, "Give me liberty or give me death." They toss around words like "tyranny" and "my body, my choice" as if they were punch lines in some sick joke that only the initiated are privy to.
No matter what argument you come up with to try and convince them, they've got a dozen, ready-made answers. When you explain to them that the overwhelming majority of cases, hospitalizations and deaths occur among the unvaccinated, they look at you like you've got two heads. Even their hero, Donald Trump, was recently booed when he said he'd been fully vaccinated. Jesus, you'd have more luck banging your head against a wall to alleviate a headache. Jim Jones had nothing on these loons.
The majority of us have done everything that was asked of us. We wore our masks when we were out in public; we avoided large gatherings; we socially distanced from others. When the vaccines came out, we got vaccinated when it was our turn; when the boosters came out, we got boosted. If another booster is recommended, we'll get it. When we boarded airplanes, we didn't wear underwear on our heads or threaten flight attendants. We did the right thing not out of some sense of altruism, but because it was in our own best interests. And we naturally, and perhaps naively, assumed everyone else felt the same way. Clearly, we were wrong. As I wrote in an earlier piece, "In all my years on this planet I've never witnessed such a psychosis grab hold of a population the way this one has."
Frankly, we're exhausted and we've had it up to here with the roughly one third of the country that thinks this is a joke. They may choose to live in the Twilight Zone, where up is down and down is up, but for the rest of us this has become a living nightmare. They talk about their rights. What about our rights? We're just as sick and tired of this pandemic as they are. The difference is we're not willing to pretend it doesn't exist or believe it will magically disappear if we just ignore it.
If this were simply a case of the un-vaxxed killing themselves off, we'd be all for it. To quote Charles Dickens, "If they would rather die, they'd better do it and decrease the surplus population." Unfortunately, what these morons are doing is affecting all of us. The fact is the longer it takes to reach herd immunity, the more variants we will have to contend with. And the more variants there are, the greater the likelihood that one of them will eventually render the vaccines ineffective. And if that happens, we are all screwed.
There is no other way around it. Either we swim together or we sink together. Speaking on behalf of the majority, I prefer the former.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
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