It’s been many, many months since the Polish community gathered after Mass for any sort of social event. Today, there was an informal gathering afterward with a small potluck.
I’ve mixed feelings about such things. I’m vaccinated as are K and L. E is of course not vaccinated, but he didn’t spend any time to speak of in this room. And while I’d like to assume that everyone else was vaccinated, I’m just not certain.
Numbers are rising; the CDC now recommends a mask for everyone regardless of vaccination status; such gatherings seem increasingly risky.
Yet risky for whom? The unvaccinated. That means three groups:
- Children whose parents would willingly and quickly get them vaccinated if the vaccine received FDA approval for that age group
- People who would get a vaccine if they could but have associated health issues that makes it risky and
- Every unvaccinated person who has chosen not to get vaccinated for a variety of reasons, almost all of which (no, all of which, come to think of it) I regard as willfully ignorant, idiotic, selfish, and immature.
At this point, I’d really like to say of such people, “Screw ’em. Let them get sick. Let them die if that’s the course the disease takes. They had a chance to get preventative help and they elected not to. Choices have consequences; ‘freedom’ is truly never free.”
The real problem, though, is that these people who are unvaccinated and getting sick are taking health resources from the few vaccinated individuals who contract the disease and everyone else with any other conceivable health issue that now have to wait for medical attention thanks to the anti-vaxers.
I’d honestly have no problem with hospitals setting up tents in their parking lots and putting unvaccinated covid cases there. Everyone else should receive priority.
“But you can’t do that! It’s immoral!”
Since when is triage immoral?
Additionally, insurance carriers should start applying a hefty penalty for those who can be vaccinated but are not.
It’s hard to contain my anger and frustration. There is the risk to kids who, as you say, have to wait and wait and wait, because if even one child suffered vaccine consequences, the antivaxers would raise doubt in any vaccine on the market and they would make it public and we would all pay. Never mind that so many children are filling hospitals now with Covid! There is, too, the risk to people such as my ex, who has cancer and for whom vaccines did not take. He still can’t hold a grandchild in his lap. Not with rates being what they are. And there is the risk to us seniors for whom immunity is waning and who increasingly are getting more sick with breakthrough infections. Even as we care for grandkids who are returning to schools. And you know all the fighting that’s taking place there! Then there are the people who, as you point out, can’t receive routine care because overburdened hospitals cannot provide it. So many people, refusing a vaccine, yet happily buying cattle deworming medicine because they heard on the internet… Yeah, I’m with you on the tent for unvaccinated. Problem is that it’s not only hospital space, it’s the shortage of nurses, of medical staff. What a strange species we are! Really strange. Again, it’s *really* hard to contain my anger.