Sep 152021
 

What the hell is it with anti-vaxx and anti-mask people? Why do they refuse to take simple precautions to curb the spread of a very real and potentially deadly disease? This is no time to whine about individual rights, this is a time to take one for the team – a very big team, namely, all humanity. At last count, one out of every 500 US residents has died from COVID-19. That is a LOT of tragedies, a lot of funerals, a lot of lost loved ones, co-workers, neighbors, BFFs, drinking buddies.

As I write this, a number of COVID horror stories are making the rounds. One is about an Alabama man who died of cardiac issues after 43 hospitals with full ICUs turned him away. Why so many hospitals have ICUs that are crammed full should be obvious. And it isn’t so much because of the coronavirus, but the nincompoops who are aiding and abetting not just the spread of the illness but also the rate of mutation. The more people get infected, the more chances the virus has to change and get either deadlier or more contagious, or both.

Another involves a Florida couple whose son had appendicitis. They went to the local ER at around 1 AM, but it was already crowded – so crowded, in fact, there were not enough chairs for all three to sit. One nurse told them the reason for the long delay was simple: COVID. When the young man finally got into surgery, his appendix had burst, which is a life-threatening situation. This did not have to happen, and would not have happened if more people exercised personal responsibility.

Candace Ayers of Illinois, who was fully vaccinated, visited Mississippi, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country. She contracted COVID-19 and died. I have made two out-of-state trips in the last three weeks, one to North Carolina to visit a family member who had been hospitalized, and one to Texas for a national convention. A few days after returning home I got tested, and thankfully the results came back negative. Not only have I gotten both of my “jabs,” but I take precautions such as wearing masks and thoroughly washing my hands. Also, I’ve been fortunate.

In Colorado, a bunch of jerks threw garbage and lit fireworks at three mobile vaccine clinics, forcing them to shut down. How many people who wanted to be vaccinated had to wait another day, or several days, because of these ignorant and selfish creeps? What did they hope to accomplish? People like them are enemies of human life.

The problem with common sense is it’s anything but common. Far too many people are ignoring medical pundits who have years of education on the subject of infectious diseases, and years or even decades of experience dealing with such; and listening to ignorant knot-heads whose knowledge of medicine is scanty at best but who spew garbage as if they knew more than Dr. Fauci. These jerks cater to the ignorance-is-strength extreme right-wing crowd, the hypocrites who have purloined “My Body My Choice” to mean they don’t have to wear masks if they don’t want to.

One word very accurately describes anti-maskers: crybabies. They howl that masks make it hard to breathe, and parrot rubbish about masks blocking oxygen or causing a buildup of carbon dioxide. Bonjour! Surgeons wear similar masks for hours, yet you never hear about them keeling over in the middle of operations. FYI, oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules are way, way smaller than even the smallest virus.

Another thing they claim is enforced mask-wearing is a form of oppression. Excrementum tauri. There is a definite difference between oppression and inconvenience. Lockdowns and quarantines are temporary, and so are mask mandates. I wonder how many of those who rail against masks and lockdowns have no problem with the PATRIOT Act, or mass surveillance, or taking off their shoes before boarding an airplane. Individual rights are important, but your rights end where your neighbor’s nose begins. If you are spreading dangerous viruses with every exhalation, you are violating the bodily autonomy of everybody who inhales what you breathed out. If someone catches COVID-19 because you didn’t wear a mask, you are responsible for his/her illness, if that person dies, you have blood on your hands.

Opponents of coronavirus vaccinations belch some of the same sort of B.S. that anti-vaxx bugnuts have been using for years. One claim is we shouldn’t get our corona “jabs” because you don’t know what’s in the vaccine. Have these people ever read the ingredients of the sodas they guzzle, or the Cheesy Poofs or other junk food they shovel into their maws? Another claim about the COVID-19 vaccination is they inject you with a microchip. Even the tiniest microchip is far too large to fit through the fine needles used for coronavirus shots.

Time and again you hear about people who are anti-vaxx, and probably anti-mask as well, who come down with COVID-19 and then urge people to get the vaccine. Quite a few people have died of a disease whose existence they denied, sometimes even to the very end. Others managed to face reality, although often it was too late by then.

Fortunately, the majority of US citizens and residents are willing to listen to disease experts and follow the guidelines that the CDC recommends, such as wearing masks, social distancing, and getting vaccinated. The fact that California’s Governor Gavin Newsom survived the recall attempt should send a clear message to Republicans and other right-wingers that most people understand we all need to exercise self-discipline. We would not need mask or vaccination mandates if people heeded infectious disease experts and understood that individual rights are not absolutes. Just as the better part of valor is discretion, so the better part of right is responsibility.

We all need to accept that we are in the middle of a global emergency. We all need to put on our big kid pants and accept some temporary inconvenience until the pandemic ebbs. If we truly want a “return to normal,” the more people take the proper precautions now, the sooner we can start gathering in large groups, eating at indoor restaurants, attending concerts and sporting events, et cetera.

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  5 Responses to “SOUND OFF! 9/15/21 Anti-Vaxx, Anti-Mask, Anti-Humanity”

  1. No doubt we all empathize with these observations:

    About the only positive thing I see is …

  2. Excellent article that puts to words the incomprehension I, and possibly many others, experience when confronted with the reasoning and actions of anti-vaxxers and ant-maskers, Freya.

    At first, I was quite philosophical about it: to each his own. But as time goes by and the virus is mutating into more virulent variants because people refuse to cooperate by getting vaccinated and even worse, trying to prohibit others from getting vaccinated or wearing masks, I’ve had enough and think compulsion is the only answer to the religious-zealot-like behaviour of the antis. It’s intolerable that anti-vaxxers destroy vaccination hubs, preventing people from what is doing right for themselves and for humanity. If they impose their ill will on others and force their irrational beliefs down their throats and endanger lives, it is time for governments to make vaccination mandatory on science-based evidence.

    I liked you Latin for 🐮💩 by the way, Freya.

  3. Your Latin is impeccable, Freya.

    Yes, the stories are unbelievable – and there are unbelievably many of them  The one-year-old so fragile they need a full time nurse for him, but the parents are not vaccinated and the father just tested positive, in addition to the three you mentioned, for instance.

    Jefferson and Gilpin counties are in the same Congressional district, a solidly Democratic one (I’m pretty sure Jefferson is a solidly Democratic county, and less sure about Gilpin), But many people coming to Denver from Boebert’s district would have to pass through them.

    I do think the mindset of today’s Republican party attracts, and is designed to attract, people for whom violence is not a last resort but a viable solution to almost anything – the whole concept of the “zero-sum game,” for instance.  That’s true for the last forty plus years.  And for the last six or seven years, the rhetoric has been encouraging those same people to act out, privately and publicly.  So on that level I get where the violence is coming from.  What I don’t get is why these people are not being arrested and charged as routinely as they are attacking.  “Reckless endangerment” would, it appears, be a slam dunk conviction, six months in jail would not hurt the perpetrators a bit, and the associated fines (up to $750) would be more lucrative than traffic tickets.  That is under Colorado law.  Many states prescribe a year in jail.)

  4. Excellent article, Freya.
    It has gotten to be so flipping political with many states regarding the CDC guidelines regarding Covid-19; getting the vaccines and wearing masks. How and why these states are playing such games like russain roulette with human lives I’ll never understand. Their behavior doesn’t make me feel they give a flipping hoot about human lives. So I know if I lived in these states, I certainly wouldn’t be for voting for them the next time around, I’d be voting them out.
    Really irks me too, how much hogwash that’s being spread across our country that these anti vaxxers are believing in. 
    They really must be ones who purposely want to catch this virus and pass it onto their friends and family. Then when they do see ones close to them fighting for their lives, lying in ICUs, they cry that they’re sorry they didn’t get the vaccine and want it now.
    It’s frustrating. It’s even scarier reading the stories of the ones who were vaccinated and still getting it and dying. Plus what’s heartbreaking is the ones who couldn’t get into a hospital for other health emergency issues because there wasn’t one available room. Plus ones who needed surgeries and they are being denied services due to no rooms too. I honestly feel that insurances even hospitals need to make certain health issues override others, so this doesn’t happen any longer. 
    I’ve had my vaccines, wear a mask when I go out to appointments and or to get groceries. I’m trying my best to stay safe and pray Covid-19 stays away.
    Thanks Freya

  5. Thanks Freya I would add ID having death panels to decide who is most apt to survive if they get ventilator and ICU care; nonCovid and other overflow being sent to WA hospitals, where they have capacity because of far higher vaccination rates and mask wearing.

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