I'm sorry to hear you have so many people that just don't get it. I have no sympathy for people that can't think logically about this. That includes my own family. They have the capacity to do real research by looking at real research if they wanted to, not scrolling through Facebook to see what the dark side of the internet thinks. No one has died getting a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. As some late night host joked, no one is microchipping you, they already have enough information about you through your internet usage through your phone. And as for these crazy "treatments", they'll take stuff that is more for animals, and certainly not this, but they won't take something that has undergone extensive clinical trials like everything else has to undergo before approval. (or for emergency authorization when it was that) A popular radio guy says take it, so of course they'll take it. I mean some of these crazy things have been tested for the coronavirus and it was found to either do nothing or be more harmful. (and that it could potentially be deadly) But the radio guy says so, so it's fine! It's why I have no sympathy. Even when I hear on the news about someone dying from the coronavirus, my first question is, were they vaccinated? It seems like we have had a lot of first responders in our area that have died of it and they usually don't want to talk about what their vaccination status was. So when they don't want to say, or they actually say they weren't vaccinated because someone in the family wants to make that point to try to save others, I have no sympathy for the person who died. Not getting vaccinated and/or not wearing a mask puts people at risk. I don't have sympathy for murderers or attempted murderers. And that how I view these kinds of people. If people have the capacity to know right from wrong, I have no sympathy for them putting innocent people at risk. I don't care if they are family members. This is not like someone not wearing a seatbelt. If someone were only putting themselves at risk, that would not be good, but not really much of my problem. A seatbelt law is there to try to protect people from putting just themselves at risk. This though has the potential to impact me, my family, my friends, and everyone else. And that's why mandates really need to happen. But of course the court doesn't lean in a way any longer that would likely enable that. We'll see. This is like if we decided to make red light running legal. Why put just yourself at risk when everyone can be at risk? These are the insane things that we seem to be moving toward. Just wait until we get even crazier and potentially have no vaccines of any kind required for children any longer. Then we can welcome back some things that we haven't seen much of in decades or longer.
My closest relatives thankfully believe in the vaccine and aren't on the really crazy side of the political spectrum. I can think of six of my closest family members. But other than maybe a few other people in the family who are vaccinated too, anyone beyond that and you're talking about other family in Tennessee and Alabama. I'm surprised I have that many family members that think rationally out of dozens. I know what some of the others think politically, and how reckless some have been during the pandemic, and that is among the many reasons I no longer use Facebook, even for my website, so I don't know any more than I already do. I just don't want to be around anyone not vaccinated. Or better said, I will not be unless it's some kind of an emergency. And I will always have a mask. I know at least a few are vaccinated (despite how I think they are politically), though others I assume still aren't. Maybe at this some point more have, I don't know. This includes some that have jobs where they should absolutely be vaccinated. They were putting others at risk. And of course many of them have had the virus at least once too, although in most all the cases it was rather minor. (so far) Only in another branch of the family tree have there been deaths so far. I just don't want to be around any of them for the holidays. Either on a holiday or in the weeks following it. Or really at all. (haven't seen any of those other family members in two years) They all get together with their own families, including the family members that are vaccinated. So I don't even want to be around those fully vaccinated family members too much because they get together with their other family members who are either not vaccinated or just haven't been careful. (over the summer I did see some of those vaccinated family members briefly during a period when things were better) And some of the people in my family have health conditions too that puts them at risk. I worry about any of the ones probably not vaccinated visiting my 99 year old grandmother. A few have during the pandemic and some of them are likely not vaccinated. And they may not have even been wearing a mask.
But myself and the other six family members that think logically all have a booster shot, with some of us getting it on the first day we were eligible. Only sore arms for a day or so at most. And I'll be ready for the next time I'm eligible too.
If everyone did that we really could end this pandemic in the U.S. It would be endemic. It would still be around, but things would be very normal again, though a lot of people like me would probably be wearing a mask even still. But we can't get to that point because I've come to the conclusion that one political party doesn't want it to end. If getting vaccinated and wearing a mask would end the pandemic and you have one party trying desperately to stop any enforcement of that, that party is rooting for the virus. (Florida "leads" on this particular insanity) They want it to go on because they think they've found a "political" issue that they can "win". And I can remember when that party used to accuse the other party of trying to extend the pandemic because of the restrictions they wanted to put in place to save people's lives. At first I thought they just wanted everyone to get the virus and let a few million people just die, including a lot of people that would die due to hospitals being full, so that maybe herd immunity could be reached. But they do forget that people can get it again and that this would allow for even more variants to develop. Potentially much worse variants. And some people, including children, have debilitating impacts from this virus for the rest of their lives. (and we're just learning about that still and will for decades to come) And it's cruel. But then I realized they of course don't care. They want to keep their jobs and the people lobbying them will make sure their campaign accounts have plenty of dark money.
This remains a very weird time in this country for so many reasons. And I think it's only going to get weirder because I can't see how things at this point would get saner. Sanity doesn't just return overnight. I do love the internet, but it has made it much easier for the crazy people to get together and influence other people to abandon reason. |