Raise your hand if you’re super sick and tired of the novel coronavirus affectionately known as COVID-19. Wow, I haven’t seen this many hands in the air since Rock Master Scott and the Dynamic Three dropped “The Roof Is On Fire” in 1984.
“Throw your hands in the air like you just don’t care. We don’t need no water let the mother#
@%$er burn! Burn, mother#@%$er, burn.”
Except we do need water and we want to put this mother#@%$er known as COVID-19 to death. The question is how far are we willing to go? How much more inconvenience are we willing to endure to save lives?
As of late, news stories about the vaccinated “losing patience” with the unvaccinated have exploded. How do we get those suffering so-called “vaccine hesitancy” to take the plunge? Should we reward the irresponsible? Should we bribe the ignorant?
That seems to be what’s happening in a new press release from the city of San Luis Obispo that announced it would offer $25 gift cards for each dose of the vaccine received “from a county of San Luis Obispo Public Health Clinic or mobile vaccination clinic.” Hey, where’s my 50 bucks? I got jabbed twice, like, three and four months ago!
Apparently, if you’ve been shirking your patriotic duty to help your community reach herd immunity or if you’ve been too dumb up till now to believe that vaccines are safe and effective, we’ll give you money. Sheesh!
“While I hope the gift cards are a helpful motivator,” SLO County Public Health Director Dr. Penny Borenstein said in the press release, “the true value is being protected from the cost and suffering of COVID-19.”
Duh. Apparently Penny and the Public Health Department read this column because two weeks ago (“Stingy, snotty, stupid,” July 22) I asked—and I quote myself—”Wouldn’t it be great to have some data about current COVID-19 cases in SLO County, such as the percent of new cases among those vaccinated and unvaccinated, including hospitalizations?”
Well, that very same bribery press release laid down the stats: “Data shows that since Jan. 1, 2021, residents who are not fully vaccinated have represented 98.5 percent of COVID-19 cases, 97.5 percent of hospitalizations, and 99.2 percent of deaths in SLO County.”
I know these numbers can be hard to comprehend when your online anti-vaxx “research” tells you over and over that vaccinations a) cause autism (they don’t), b) haven’t been fully researched (they have), c) are just a profit scheme for Big Pharma (how’s that free COVID vaxx doing?), or d) vaccine injury is common (nope, exceedingly rare). For the record, a new study showed that most anti-vaccine conspiracies online originate from the same 12 people and their organizations, which have been dubbed the “disinformation dozen.”
I mean, sure, you can believe these bad actors using your paranoia and ignorance to line their pockets, or you can believe the American Medical Association, which recently reported that 96 percent of all practicing physicians in the U.S. are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. And those remaining 4 percent? Almost half said they plan to get their vaccination. That means about 98 percent of all physicians believe in the power of vaccines.
One more math problem: Do you want to trust vaccine advice from 12 unqualified people or should you believe 980,000 or so doctors who trained for 11 to 16 years? Hmm, puzzler, amirite?
Now go collect your $50 in gift cards, slackers. Protecting yourself and your community is worth the potential sore arm and next-day mild COVID-19 symptoms, which by all accounts are much less distressing than being intubated on a ventilator.
And speaking of math and other academic subjects, K-12 schools will reopen this fall, but students, teachers, and staff—regardless of vaccination status—will all be required to mask up indoors, which makes perfect sense as the Delta variant continues to thwart our attempts to squash the pandemic, and children under 12 remain ineligible for vaccination.
Most county school districts are happy to comply with this state of California mandate, but in a weird and ironic twist (not), some North County school districts and parents are none too happy with the mask requirement. Surprise, surprise!
“They’re living their lives and they’re healthy,” parent Christa Abma said of her unmasked children at a July 22 Atascadero Unified School District board meeting. “Let our bodies work how God designed them to work. We’re strong. We’ll overcome this.”
I guess God designed 607,881-and-counting Americans’ bodies to die after contracting COVID-19. Let’s pray Ms. Abma’s children have the “good” design, eh?
Look, if parents don’t want to send their kids to school if they’ll be required to wear masks, by all means, keep your kids at home and let them do independent study, which is an option.
Here’s the thing: These same parents who are complaining about a mask mandate are most likely the same parents who complained that schools were shut down in the first place. Well, now they’re opening, but your kid has to wear a mask for the safety of others. Get over it.
Around the world, people desperately want to receive the vaccine, but here in the U.S., where everyone has free and easy access, holdouts remain. Sigh. Δ
The Shredder avoids the unvaccinated and washes its gears regularly. Sent comments and suggestions to shredder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Education Today 2021.
This is so exhausting. So many of us masked up, washed our hands until the skin cracked, and got vaccinated the second we could. I just had to pull my kid out of school on day 4 of 2nd grade (they have a year round schedule) because someone sent their kid to school sick and it turns out they have covid. I dont get how people STILL think this is a hoax or think vaccines are dangerous (or make you magnetic or infertile or something about 5G?). The only freedoms being taken away are the ones covid deniers are taking from those of us who have followed covid protocol for 18 months despite the rest of these walnuts gleefully ignoring medical science.
OK, so a large percentage of those hospitalized, and of those who died, did not have the vaccine. Let’s say our county has 275,000 residents. How many people, out of 250,000, were hospitalized or died? I’m willing to be we are talking about tiny fractions of one percent, and it is the size of those fractions which needs to determine policy.
And then, to get closer to the real facts, how many who died were morbidly obese, or aged with severe comorbidities?
Lockdowns, mask and fear mongering can paralyze our society, doing massive damage, interfering with young people getting educated, getting their first jobs, adults tending to the massive challenges of everyday life, and the retired folks being energetic, taking risks, learning new things and living life to its fullest.
Everyone seems to haul out the most irrelevant of data to justify whatever tyranny they support. How about ALL the data so we don’t act out of immeasurable ignorance?
@clovis dad What exactly is your point?
Mr. Wilson, thanks for your thought.
I probably need to be clearer.
Today, based on CDC actual data, if you are vaccinated, you have a 0.0007% chance of dying from the Covid virus. That’s less than your chance of dying in an auto accident in the US (0.0009%).
We have to consider some actual data. If you are not obese, and are not elderly with serious health comorbidities, and you are vaccinated, the idea that you’re at risk is preposterous. Time to live our lives without this extreme “fear” of something which is less dangerous than falling off a ladder.
Though misrepresented, Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, has said that “if you’re vaccinated, in a RARE case, you MAY be ….contagious.” That’s about as far from a threat that vaccinated people are a threat to others as you can go. Needless to say, the press and the Biden administration has blown that up into a virtual requirement that you wear a mask even if vaccinated.
This is just foolishness.
I’m so tired of hearing how vaccination, masking and other protective measures are a personal choice. So is drunk driving. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, and sometimes kill, other people.
And, no, I’m not going to support your personal choice to hurt and kill others.
@ Clovis Dad So your point is that there’s no need for vaccinated people to wear masks? In a perfect world that might be true. Unfortunately, the unvaccinated are making it impossible to achieve herd immpunity. And it’s not just the “morbidly obese” and elderly who are getting hospitalized and dying right now. Hospitals are seeing more children and younger adult patients. Furthermore, the longer Covid remains in our world, the more likely it will mutate into a variant resistent to vaccines.
This virus is going to go from Pandemic to Endemic and be with us along with other yet unknown viruses so we will need to find ways to live with them.
Forcing rather than informing will not work so get busy informing correctly so that we can all feel safe.
Shaming the holdouts won’t change their minds. It will reinforce their fears and prevent their learning the truth.
Provided we do end up with real facts supporting the dangers of this and other viruses.
@Gail Katherine Lightfoot This is so true. We were warned that there may be 2-3 pandemics in the next decade if I remember correctly, but I think most of us didn’t see the warning or heed it. The increase in pandemics that we should expect will largely be attributed to the destruction of bat habitats. When these habitats are disturbed, there is higher risk of transmission to humans – to keep is very simple. I’m not an expert, so I suggest reading more about spillover infections (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spillover_infection).
@clovis dad Hospitalization is what we want to avoid. Our healthcare system is already under extreme stress, and it’s collapse is likely imminent. The best thing we can all do is agree to wear the mask for 2-3 weeks, continue with other cleaning protocols (washing hands, cleaning common surfaces, etc.), and I think we can put a major dent in this crisis so that it can finally come to an end. There has been far too much politicization over it. As for the vaccine, I understand many people are fearful of the long-term consequences, but that fear is borne from lies perpetuated by anti-vaxxers that were around before the pandemic even started. I think people have been addicted to outrage, and when they can’t find it they resort to conspiracy.