For those who, like me, are mightily sick and tired of having to continue to mask up because anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers continue to put their “rights” ahead of everyone else’s… I think maybe it’s time to take a little heart. The way I see it, changes are happening right now, as evidenced by what seems to be an accelerating trend.
Good changes.
Some doctors are tired of the antics. One doctor in Alabama, I think it was, told his willfully unvaccinated patients to get the shots or find another doctor. Three of those patients signed up for shots the same day. More doctors are following suit.
Hospitals are strained. A Kansas man suffering from a non-COVID-related condition died because the hospitals nearby had no ICU beds, and by the time he was found a bed it was too late. Other people have died under similar circumstances. So, some hospitals in Texas are considering de-prioritizing willfully unvaccinated COVID sufferers so they don’t run out of ICU beds needed by other priority cases – heart attacks, accidents, COVID in those who can’t take the shots such as kids under twelve and transplant recipients. And there are hospital systems in other states that are reported to be looking at doing the same thing to avoid running out of beds.
Delta Air Lines has said that employees can choose to not get vaccinated – but that choice will cost them an extra $200 per month on their health insurance, to help offset the approximately $50,000 it costs the company when an employee gets sick with COVID. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, some health insurers are looking at similar plans, and others are considering not covering COVID treatments at all for the willfully unvaccinated. Why should the fully vaccinated have to pay higher premiums to subsidize those who refuse to take care of themselves and their families?
There have been reports in the news of businesses telling employees to get vaccinated or find new jobs. Some shops and restaurants are demanding masks – regardless of vaccination status, in some cases, such as the pet supply store I use. There’s talk of some places considering asking to see vaccination cards before admitting customers (since – surprise, surprise – the honor system doesn’t work with dishonorable people) and I think it’s just a matter of time before we start seeing this in more and more places.
Cracks in the dam. Change is coming, and I think we’re going see a ramp-up of measures that stop pandering to the antis and start treating them as the pariahs they seem to want to be. They just love playing the victim, it seems.
Let me be clear: I don’t like having to mask up everywhere I go. Frankly, I’ve had enough of it. A few weeks ago it was beginning to look we wouldn’t have to for much longer – but then came the Delta Variant, and so here we go again, and I hate it. Thank you, antis – this is your doing.
I don’t want to have to carry a vaccine passport of some kind around with me. But the antis are making it so that we probably won’t have a choice. The antis keep saying they just want to live their lives; well, so do we all – but the fact that we still can’t is down to them. They did this. They keep doing this. All in the name of their rights – conveniently forgetting that their rights end where others’ rights begin.
We could have been over this weeks or months ago, but no. They turned it into a political issue (like the guy a couple of weeks ago who said his family didn’t get vaccinated because they’re conservatives) and, well, here we are. Risking their health and that of their families and everyone else around them to own the libs. Extending the pandemic and risking more dangerous variants because (sniggering Dr. Evil meme here) it makes Biden look bad. (And of course there’s still the rest of the world – this administration has sent over a hundred million vaccine doses to other countries, but many more are needed. But that’s another story and another blog post.)
I don’t think making vaccination mandatory is necessarily an answer (even thought we already do that – you can’t send your kids to school without shots for polio, measles, mumps, etc., etc.) but the way I see things going, I don’t think that’ll be needed.
I think it’s just a matter of time before the majority of businesses – shops, department stores, restaurants, bowling alleys, museums, movie theaters… and air lines and bus and train and taxi companies… – start making mandates of their own. No shirt, no shoes, no shots, no service.
When that happens, the dam will burst and the flood will come. We’ll all be able to live our lives. But the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers will be living their lives at home – or maybe in hospital, if they can afford the medical bills – eating delivery pizza and watching Netflix while they cough up bits of lung. And we vaccinated ones will be living ours in bars and restaurants and theaters and bowling alleys and wherever else the hell we want to, and we won’t need to be wearing masks for the most part. I don’t think it’ll be necessary for government of any kind to mandate a damned thing, because I think we’re going to see businesses taking care of business for us all.
Freedom.
Live it up, chuckleheads.
Pete Ford 