Those who refuse to get vaccinated are menaces to society
Los Angeles County, the biggest county in the country, will now be requiring masks to be worn inside regardless of vaccination status. That is a terrible idea. Those who are vaccinated are extremely safe and those who are unvaccinated are not going to wear masks given that they will not even take the most basic step needed to protect themselves. If anything, moves like this are going to make getting more people vaccinated harder, as part of the appeal of getting vaccinated is no longer having to wear a mask. Since vaccinated people are protected and do not spread the CCP Virus, requiring them to wear masks will not make any difference in reducing the number of cases.
Cases are down substantially from their peak in January even though they have been increasing lately. It is absolutely critical to note, though, who is making up the new cases. It is almost entirely unvaccinated people. For those who are vaccinated, the pandemic is over. It is almost entirely because of those who are unvaccinated that cases even exist. It is grossly unfair to those who did their part and got vaccinated to make them have to inconvenience their lives to save those who have been irresponsible.
My sympathy for the willingly unvaccinated is zero. It is bad enough that there is a large amount of vaccine “hesitancy,” but in some Republican circles it has morphed into outright hostility. At the recent Conservative Political Action Conference gathering, when a speaker said that 90% vaccination in the US would never happen, the crowd roared with applause. Efforts by the Biden Administration to have healthcare workers visit houses to administer vaccines have been vilified as some kind of evil plot. In Tennessee, outreach to teens for all vaccines has been stopped entirely because of pressure from Republican elected officials. To top if off, conservative media and media figures like Tucker Carlson spew anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and misinformation every day.
But that is not all. Multiple states have passed laws protecting those who refuse to get vaccinated. Leadership in those states is all but encouraging people not to get vaccinated. What makes me the angriest about those who refuse to vaccinate is that they want to have it both ways. They love to talk about freedom of choice, but that is not really what they want. What they want is freedom of choice without any consequences. Nobody will be tied to a chair and stuck with a needle. Someone who resolutely refuses to get vaccinated will be able to avoid it if it is that important to them. But just as they have that freedom of choice, others should have their own freedom of choice, which can mean excluding the unvaccinated from their business premises. Of course, those who refuse to get vaccinated do not want that and many states, all led by Republicans, have obliged. Florida, for example, has made it illegal for businesses to require proof of vaccination for customers. So much for respecting property rights.
Inevitably, more people are going to die and it will almost all have been preventable. I want to have some sympathy and to empathize with those who refuse to get vaccinated, I really do, but I just cannot. It is an article of faith among many Republicans that the pandemic is a hoax or no big deal. While a handful of them maybe could change their minds, most of them are beyond redemption and that is on them. If not even Trump can convince them to get vaccinated, they are truly hopeless. I do not care what kind of economic or social hardships some of them may have been through. I do not care that they feel “disrespected” by “elites.” There is no excuse for buying into conspiracy theories or vaccine misinformation. That is 100% their choice. Nobody forced them to do that.
When I hear stories like this one about a woman in Missouri who refused to get vaccinated and then died after contracting the Delta variant, I do not feel the least bit of sorrow. She had plenty of time to get vaccinated and refused, entirely by choice. Her death is nobody’s fault but her own. There have been many other stories like that one in the news lately and there will continue to be and my reaction will be the same. Sadly, some people are only capable of learning the hard way. In this case, that may mean they lose their lives, but that is entirely on them.
Who I do feel bad for are the healthcare workers who now have to work extra hard and long just to take care of those who have been irresponsible. After all they have done and been through since March 2020, they deserve a break more than anyone else. They endured so much over the last year and put their own lives on the line to save countless lives. That some of them are now having to work as if no vaccines exist is infuriating. Again, virtually everyone who is hospitalized now is someone who is not vaccinated, making almost all of it completely predictable and avoidable.
Those who refuse to get vaccinated are taking advantage of the rest of us. They are free riding off of those of us who have gotten vaccinated, which has drastically reduced the number of cases and reduced the threat to them. They are taking advantage of (good) laws requiring hospitals to treat anyone who shows up at an emergency room. They are taking advantage of (good) laws preventing insurance companies from charging more for pre-existing conditions. They are taking advantage of the American creed of responsible individualism and turning it into a justification for selfish narcissism. I would have a lot more respect for that crowd if they were willing to live with the consequences of their decisions, but, of course, they are not.
The biggest threat the CCP Virus poses to those of us who are vaccinated is that a variant that is vaccine resistant could emerge. The more people who remain unvaccinated, the more likely that becomes. For those who are unable to get vaccinated because of immune problems, those who refuse to get vaccinated pose a special threat. Just imagine, for example, a business owner or worker who cannot get vaccinated because of immune issues and is forced to serve people who refuse to get vaccinated. That is what is going on in the states that ban businesses from requiring customers to show proof of vaccination.
I doubt many of those refusing vaccination are deliberately trying to harm others, but that is exactly what they are doing. We will never be truly safe from the CCP Virus with so many people unvaccinated. I do not know about you, dear reader, but I do not ever want to go through again what I went through for the last year. I do not think many people would be willing to go through lockdowns again, myself included.
What to do about those who refuse to get vaccinated? As far as carrots go, persuasion still should be tried for those with any hope. It is clear though that we are going to need sticks. I hope that employers will start requiring it, but that may not happen until the FDA fully approves it. Why the FDA has not done that is beyond me and my patience with them is all but gone. As bad as Trump was in handling the pandemic, the FDA and CDC were atrocious and arguably even worse, but that is for another blog post. I am glad to see many universities requiring vaccination for students, including the University of California system, the biggest public university system in the country. I hope more schools and other public institutions (local, state and federal) will require it.
Long story short, it is going to be a real challenge to get people who refuse vaccinations to get vaccinated. No one thing will do it, but it is clear that sticks will have to be used. I do believe we will get to a high level of vaccination, especially once vaccines are approved for people younger than 12 and the FDA gives the vaccines full authorization. In the meantime, though, there will be a lot death and suffering, almost all of which will have been preventable.
As for those who spread and promote anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and misinformation, if there is a hell, I hope that is where they go. They are not people who are well-intentioned, but mistaken. They are bad and malicious and are responsible for getting people killed. There is no redemption or going back from that and they should never be forgiven. If there is any justice in the world, they will be ostracized and friendless for the rest of their lives and nobody will mourn them when their time comes.