The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Ending: The Nihilist Scourge Isn't
I think it was Michael Smolens’ column in the Union-Tribune that pushed me over the edge. He described a San Diego platform offering to match up unvaccinated job-seekers with employers who offer positions regardless of what ‘medical choice’ was made.
The company behind the platform, which I won’t name here, says they have no position on the issue; that they “respect both sides of the vaccine debate.”
The two sides of the debate at this point are, as far as I can tell based on actual data: some people die, or more people die.
Right now, I think more people are going to die, not because public health efforts will stop, but because the absolutism of science-deniers justifies cheating in their minds.
There will be no herd immunity; original estimates of desirable vaccination levels are no longer valid, given the increased contagiousness of the Delta variant. Members of the medical profession saw the handwriting on the wall last spring, even before the fourth wave killed a couple of hundred thousand additional people.
If the coverage is 95% in the United States as a whole are vaccinated, but 70% in some small towns are not, the virus doesn’t care. It will make its way around the small towns. And vaccination is not an absolute shield; it lessens the severity should somebody get sick.
The actual number of people who’ve thrown sand in the wheels of progress is actually minimal.. Polling by POLITICO-Harvard puts that number at 8%. (Note: this is the number of people who have acted in some fashion in opposition.) This number is different from those who are described as “hesitant;” the vast majority of whom end up getting vaccinated.
Currently, the anti-mask/vax crowd is trying to gin up their numbers; more rallies and publicity about defiance is already in the pipeline.
Stories of cruel, seemingly irrational and sometimes-violent conflicts over coronavirus regulations get big media. Kansas residents attending legislative hearings are wearing homemade yellow stars, drawing a comparison between themselves and the millions of people who perished in the holocaust.
This is pure projection, of course. Nobody’s rounding up anti-vaxxers. They are facing social and economic consequences for their inactions. So they feel persecuted…. If they only knew.
I haven’t seen any news coverage of people wearing masks or having been vaccinated punching airline attendants, threatening elected officials, or using racial slurs to denigrate health workers, but, hey, maybe I’m just not watching enough Fox News.
What I have seen, and am seeing, is a firehose of LIES being spewed to keep the sand throwers motivated, and, most importantly, insulated from rational conversations. There is no “cure” too bizarre for people who entertain the notion that an injection will cause non-magnetic metals to stick to flesh.
Here’s a sampling of corrected make-believe stuff I saw over the weekend:
Gov. Gavin Newsom did not have an adverse reaction to a booster shot
Gov. Newsom was not “arrested” by the military following his booster shot
COVID 19 cases in Vermont have not risen by 16,700% in the last four months
The COVID-19 vaccine does not contain a hydra species that can infect a human host
Australia is not freezing bank accounts of unvaccinated people
Detox baths containing borax, etc, won’t undo the COVID vaccine
This is about a virus that has already had a hand in 5,118,527 deaths (as of this writing) and a huge kick in the pants (no matter how you calculate it) to the economy, except billionaires, who saw a 62% increase in their wealth.
What’s deadlier than the virus, however, is the exploitation of economic and social anxiety by an array of forces unified by the premise that democracy is a failed experiment… evangelists who proselytize with the aim of creating a theocracy… libertarians who believe in themselves and nothing else… authoritarians who exst by feeding on people’s fears… seekers of fame and fortune who see themselves as winners in a society without guardrails…
These tribalists succeed when they don’t see opponents as humans. All the threats, the vile language, the suggestions of violence, the disruptions are based on this understanding.
The woman who berates employees at the market over masks sees those asking her to conform as extensions of some great evilness, not as somebody making an hourly wage with familial responsibilities. The guy who punches a flight attendant sees himself as a freedom fighter, not as an irrational idiot ruining a plane full of other humans with places to be and people to see.
At this risk of becoming who and what I oppose, I now believe that the only way past this crisis in empathy is to plow forward. There is nothing to be gained by mud wrestling with pigs; they like it too much.
Unfortunately, I don’t hold with the majority viewpoint, which says there must be some reasonable accommodation. Try talking about “reasonable” with a child having a temper tantrum-- that’s where I think we should be at.
Despite the fact that colder weather is bringing an uptick in the number of COVID-19 cases, the disease now presents the sort of risk most people unthinkingly accept in other aspects of their lives.
COVID is not going away, ever. The tools exist— vaccines, along with an emerging group of treatments — to turn it into a manageable virus, similar to the seasonal flu. Smart people, like those of us who use seat belts, will continue to take precautions.
I think the bigger issue is the social and political consequences of what the (necessary) health protocols triggered. If you think anti-vaxxers are going to stop with COVID-19, think again. Get ready for spikes in measles, polio, and HPV.
The incorporation of far right elements in anti-vax/anti-mask groups means other “causes” will take center stage. Already we’re seeing overlap with opponents to teaching honest history, library content, and non-discrimination policies for transgender students.
This may sound a little silly coming from somebody who has been anti-establishment, but the best defense may be reliance on the rules of the road when it comes to the exercises of democratic engagement.
I happen to agree with the general notion of what the County Supervisors did in the way of policy changes for conduct during meetings; it may need some tweaking, and I’d like to see it sunsetted.
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Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com