Righting the wrongs I see world in the has been a lifelong mission with the intention of making the world a better place. Arrogant? Perhaps, foolhardy? Probably… but when I see a smoke coming out of house, I have no choice, I must call the fire department.
When I know how bad pesticides are for our water, insects, human health and are a general disregard for biodiversity, I say something and do something. When I see a world bursting at the seams with too many people and too much consumption, causing all kinds of suffering, I say something and do something.
But now I have a new challenge. I have recently learned that some of the closest, smartest and dearest people I know have found their way to a steadfast resistance of getting vaccinated. I was shocked to learn that I know of at least 10 people who are choosing to remain unvaccinated against Covid 19. For reasons that appear very flimsy next to the evidence I have researched, they are next in line either to get very sick themselves or spread it to others. What is even worse their so-called choices will keep us in this pandemic cycle longer than we need to be because thanks to science, we have found a way out.
There has never been a perfect vaccine or medicine, but the efficacy of this vaccine, when enough people take it, has a proven track record of getting us out of isolation and back into our lives. Social media puts information at our fingertips has allowed us to find whatever evidence we want for whatever narrative we believe. I have been told of cases of side effects and places where the vaccine hasn’t worked. I know of otherwise rational people who are losing sleep over the vaccine’s side effects they keep reading about. They pay attention to hearsay and find reasons not to believe the CDC. They’re more concerned about the long-term effects of the vaccine when there may never be a long term to worry about. The long-term effects they need to be worried about include: spreading the virus as an asymptomatic person, further stretching our health care workers who would rather not be spending their days putting ventilators on those who paid attention to the wrong risks, and putting their own choices and independence before health mandates which keep us safe from each other’s poor choices.
I am not writing this because I think I will change anyone’s mind. I am writing this because I want a record of trying. If they end up sick or do die, I will be able to say I did my best to stop their suffering, after all I do deeply care about them all. The problem is I don’t think this is about reason and science. I think it’s about story and perspective. Like I wrote in my last book, ‘Change Our Story, Change Our World,” it’s about the stories we believe, they run our lives more than reason. Thanks to those who value power over our country’s well-being, the whole pandemic was politicized by our last president and his cronies. Only now are Republican governors stepping up to the plate because either they found their conscience or they are afraid of losing voters, a more likely scenario.
Now vaccination itself is all about emotion over critical reasoning and it is not just among those who consistently vote red. Doubt of the vaccine’s efficacy has entered the world of people with multiple political stripes as well as the apolitical. While I would love to get at least one of my unvaccinated friends/relatives to sign up for the safest way out of this nightmare we have been living for almost 2 years, I do not have much hope of that because I only have reason in my toolbox.
According to reports and to my own experience, some feel somehow that the government is in cahoots with the Big Pharma and they don’t want to support the billions they will make. Others believe that since they already have had the virus, they are now immune, still others are needing more research about future side effects. Here’s a tip, worry more about the very real side effects of avoiding the vaccine: cemeteries and sympathy cards. Just ask the families of the 600,000 victims of this fast-spreading disease. The reality is that those who do survive Covid may suffer long term side effects of lung and even memory damage. How do you avoid those side effects? You get vaccinated.
I can dismiss all of their claims with scientific evidence, and even though I am not a huge fan of Big Pharma, but we need their vast resources to mass manufacture and distribute this life saving drug. It is another sad consequence of our overpopulated world, that we will need 331,000,000 million vaccines in the US and nearly 8 billion globally. No, of course I am not interested in solving our overpopulation problem with more death, ( just fewer births and stricter immigration laws) besides just to end our world population growth we’d have to lose over 200,000 people a day to Covid. But I digress.
I could try to shame these vaccine refusers (I guess they are really not anti-vaxers) into realizing how many countries are begging to fill their understocked shelves of the vaccine while so many of us shun the opportunity to wrap ourselves it its safety net. But that isn’t working very well either. States and cities have had to resort to bribing people to get the vaccine which I couldn’t wait to get. It’s so sad, and yes aggravating, to learn that many of the unvaccinated who now have the virus are, as we speak, gasping for breath in hospital beds which should’ve been reserved for those who didn’t have a pathway out. The fact remains that 97% of the covid patients that are being whisked in desperation to emergency rooms are those who have not been vaccinated and could have been. It is too late to be vaccinated when you are in the ICU, but many are begging for it in a desperate attempt to live.
I have been told by these unvaccinated friends that they respect everyone’s choice to get it or not. Well quite frankly I don’t. Only those with underlying conditions and with a reputable doctor’s permission to avoid it are exempt in my book. With all due respect you can find a doctor to tell you what you want to hear, I have seen that story play out several times.
What does seem to be working is peer pressure. What you are not vaccinated? Well then don’t expect an invitation to my home or for me to babysit your kids or walk your dog. When there are consequences for our choices, apparently people start to reexamine their beliefs. Consider this my effort at peer pressure.