Seems like a joke
It’s become a kind of religion.
In the year since the first shots began going into arms, opposition to vaccines has hardened from skepticism and wariness into something approaching an article of faith for the approximately 39 million American adults who have yet to get a single dose.
To be fair, there’s also a kind of faith involved in thinking people should get the shots. I don’t have any medical expertise, and most people who get vaxxed also have little or none. Why do I trust the people who say get vaxxed more than I trust people who say don’t? I guess largely because of the record – there’s a pretty long record now of vaccinations working. The choice is binary, and getting vaccinated seems quite a lot safer than refusing to get vaccinated, in the way Anthony Fauci seems more trustworthy than Lauren Boebert.
But unvaccinated people like Eric Dilts, 45, a DoorDash delivery worker in St. Joseph, Mo., said he felt like the imperfect nature of the vaccines and shifting messages from public officials about boosters and breakthrough infections had validated his skepticism.
“Now you need a first shot and second shot, and now they’re talking about all these boosters,” he said. “How many shots do you need? It seems like a joke to me.”
Well, you need as many as it takes, that’s how many. Why is that such a stumbling block? To drive a car you need a steering wheel and tires and an accelerator. There’s no law of nature that one vaccination is all anyone ever needs no matter what the virus is. They’re “talking about all these boosters” because that’s the nature of this particular virus.
Meanwhile Fox News personalities continue to tell people to defy the grownups and continue to refuse to get vaccinated. It’s quite sickening when you pause to think about it: they are telling credulous people not to do a thing that will protect them and others, and they’re doing it for the sake of ratings, their personal careers, a warped version of “politics” – in short for selfish frivolous reasons. It’s a kind of slow-motion onscreen mass murder, alternating with commercials.
Even Trump and O’Reilly (who would have ever imagined that pair of dipshits in the 90’s?) had a vaccine booster party, probably complete with hydroxychloroquine shooters and laser enemas. It’s less political than the politicos are making it methinks.
Us younger, whiter and more Republican Americans would rather die or have our innards blown to shreds than do anything the Givvermint says we should do. We is rugged indeevidualists, just like Davy Crockett was, and Daniel Boone.was. We is like them, and they was like us.!
Down wif the Givvermint.! And pass me anuvver can of beer. No, make that a can of rye whiskey. Jack Daniels, of course. Who needs them innards anyway? For that matter, who needs a brain.? Down wif innards.! Down wif brains.!!!
Omar: your post brought a patriotic tear to my eyes! Bravo! Trump 2024!
I was corresponding with my sister on this topic, uhhh…last summer. I wrote
She responded
@4 yeah, I was just going to comment on something similar, which I have commented before in similar circumstances–there seem to be plenty of people out there who think ‘before you said A, now you say B’ is some kind of ‘gotcha’, or ‘hypocritical’, whereas normal people actually have a word for this behaviour: learning.
It’s used in climate change debates as well: “Fifty years ago they said we would have global cooling. Now they say global warming. It’s a hoax!”
Science take time to get right, and yes, as the science gets better the results can change. But, it’s true, we had mixed messaging from multiple sources in the early months of the pandemic, including whether or not masks were effective or not. Now we know better because more science has been done.
But what gets me is the ignorant idea that if someone is currently young, strapping, and healthy, they don’t need to worry. A virus is not concerned if you work out daily.
And I don’t know what to make of this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/25/vaccine-mandate-supreme-court-covid/
Apparently we need to turn the other cheek to the haters.
@omar, #2 – Until this very day, I did not know that Jack Daniels made a rye whiskey. I don’t drink anymore, but I do think of Jack Daniels as only being good enough to mix with Coke. I can’t imagine anyone wanting a rye to mix with Coke. Rye goes with ginger ale, if anything other than ice.
I think at least part of the early downplaying of the use of masks was to attempt to forestall ‘panic buying’, or ‘ordinary’ people stockpiling masks that were so desperately needed for medical and other frontline workers. Though I do remember that video of the surgeon general showing us how to make a mask with a piece of fabric and two rubber bands–I did that early on, before buying masks for myself. But unfortunately this message seems to have perversely stuck with people who use it as (another) excuse not to wear one in public.
Yes, that was a big part of the issue, but also one of the science podcasts I listened to, “Science Vs,” broadcast a show in which they reviewed the effectiveness of masks on blocking incoming virus and found them only marginally effective so they concluded that masks were not worth the bother. They didn’t check into the actual purpose of masking, which is to block the virus riding on droplets that we breathe out.
No matter how many citations you check, science isn’t really very informative if you don’t ask the pertinent question. And many of the Facebook friends I had who caught the virus despite masking came to the same conclusion. It didn’t protect them, so it was useless. The purpose of the mask is to reduce transmission to others, and a proper mask is only 70% effective at that, while only about 5% effective at preventing incoming viruses from reaching our schnozzes. But combined, they are 95% effective and reducing virus transmission between people who are both masked.
I suspect that this is why, after decades of anti-vax being fairly apolitical (as common among hippie-leftists griping about it all being a conspiracy by Big Pharma as it was among the homeschool for Jesus crowd), it’s suddenly crystalized into an almost purely right-wing phenomenon. Conservative religious beliefs, specifically, hinge on the notion that an ancient text reveals ALL Truths, which are immutable by nature. Thus, any source of knowledge that can actually adapt and change is inherently suspect.
Meanwhile, the hippie woo-sters are likely to hold the belief that ‘everything is true’, or something similarly amorphous–which, while arguably just as false, allows for a more easy pivot in the face of real evidence (and more particularly, danger).
Michael @#7:
Jack Daniels rye whiskey and Coke..! That’s what sorts true patriots out from the rest. Betcha Trump drinks it all the time. Betcha Stormy Daniels does too. Come to think of it, Jack was probably her father. Or somethin’.