Now I’m not cheap, but I can be had Michael Douglas Romancing the Stone
I don’t know why this disappointed me so much. After all, it’s not like I’m new to the planet. Some of you have commented in the past on the depths of my cynicism. But it just did, that’s all.
Look, once the vaccines were tested and approved, everybody from Biden down to state Governors to local Mayors knew that eventually they were going to run into a problem with a little something called vaccine hesitancy. This was already baked into the cake, and in fact was expected in minority communities, especially the African American community, who had good reasons to distrust the federal government.
The government made plans with minority communities for outreach by trusted local community leaders, local clergy, and entertainment figures, and hit the gas. The results have been nothing less than spectacular. At this moment, 60.2% of all Americans have had at least one shot, and some 42% are fully vaccinated. The outreach program has worked out well, and as vaccines begin working their way into more rural and remote areas, it is continuing to fuel vaccine acceptance.
But now we’re getting down to the nitty gritty. Vaccine injection rates are starting to slow now that the majority of Americans have had their chance, and it appears that we’re now being presented with the more hard core vaccine resistance. But after you read the next couple of paragraphs, you tell me, just how hard core is the resistance?
Knowing that they were in crunch time, local state and local readers have gone to gimmicks to try to increase their vaccination rates. New Jersey introduced a program that I love called Shot and a Beer, where you get a crafted beer to help you through the 15 minutes of boredom waiting around after your stab. Other locations have offered free sports tickets, deep discounts on popular sports apparel, and local goods and services. And in Ohio, GOP Governor Mike DeWine went whole hog. If you’re 18 or older and walk in to get your shot, you’re entered into a weekly drawing for a million dollar grand prize. And if you’re 12-17, you’re entered into a weekly drawing for a full 4 year scholarship at the University of Ohio, including books and housing. There are other places out there with other teases.
And it’s working! These states are reporting an increase in vaccination rates as people line up to get their freebies. And it makes me want to cry. Vaccine hesitancy, where are the principles, where are the arguments? Where is the moral position. These lazy bastards just wanted to be bribed.
Jesus Christ! By the time the final chapter on this pandemic is written, this country will have over 600,000 mothers and fathers, grandparents, sisters and brothers, friends and coworkers who are all now pushing up the daisies thanks to this virus. But that wasn’t enough of a reason?
As I wrote yesterday, Teri and I, along with most if not all of you, did the job. We followed the science, we believed the doctors, we followed local regulations to mitigate and survive this pandemic. And when the time came, we crashed websites trying to sign up for our vaccinations to stop this dread plague. And these lazy, selfish fucks just wanted to be bribed to do the right thing?
It is already acknowledged that there is a solid core 30%, mostly white, lower income southerners who will never get vaccinated, simply because they refuse to bow to the Northern government. As dim witted as I may believe they are, I must grudgingly bow to their personal commitment. And dipshit GOP Kentucky Senator Rand Paul just announced that he will not get vaccinated, since he has survived Covid, and has natural resistance. So what? You also have natural stupidity, what are you gonna do about that?
But these lazy, soulless, benighted morons just wanted to wait around to get bribed, knowing that the government would cave. Shame on you! You’re an embarrassment to yourself, your family, and your friends. You had to be bought off to do what was right for the country. Enjoy the game assholes, but don’t parade around like you saved the planet.
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35
I’m fully vaccinated. Got the pfizer shots as soon as possible. It feels glorious.
I have a coworker who will never get the vaccine. He is one of the smartest people I know. Clever with electronics, software, philosophy, agriculture, animal husbandry. He can fix a forklift while reciting Macbeth — in Klingon. I am not kidding; Klingon. He served in the military as a field medic. He has saved the lives of other coworkers who experienced what should have been fatal injuries, and keeps a toolbox in his truck to help stranded motorists he encounters.
The dude is a modern day polymath.
But is absolutely convinced the mRNA vaccines are dangerous and simply will not accept anyone’s opinion on the matter but his own. Talking with him about it is futile. He doesn’t argue or cite resources… he just WON’T GET VACCINATED.
I do not understand some people, at all.
Good for him.. hes smarter than you!
See my reply to Mike. If you dare. (No, it’s not a profanity laced tirade)
You don’t understand a man that in your own estimation is a literal genius.
Yeah maybe that tells you something?
I’m sure HE understands YOU.
Genius doesn’t always go hand in hand with common sense. Also, I’m old enough to remember a couple of books by Dr. William Nolan that came out when I was in school (The Making Of A Surgeon, and A Surgeon’s World) which are both pretty good reads. Nolan did his surgical residency at Belleview in NYC and wound up living with his wife in Litchfield, MN being a General Surgeon. I specifically recall him (in the second book) writing about a phenomena he saw often in other doctors and particularly in surgeons – no problem recommending family and even their own children for medical procedures, even ones that carried significant risk. Yet being unwilling to personally, themselves undergo even common treatments or surgical procedures! A quirk to be sure, but it’s there. Something to think about perhaps?
What I am about to say could rightly be called heartless. I honestly could care less. But I feel absolutely nothing for that 30% you mentioned, Murf. As far as I am concerned, these are the same people who have been trying to passively aggressively kill me for the last year. Before that, I put up with their Christianist BS, watch them whine about Uncle Sugar even though most of them wouldn’t survive a day without the latter’s help, saw them turn a blind eye to the suffering of me and mine over various points of my life when we needed help the most and make a mockery out of everything they claimed to believe in.
So I say let them sicken, let their health be shredded, let them die. If their volunteering to be viral petri dishes produce new variants, well, there’s a reason I’m still wearing a mask. Anybody who hates life THIS badly should get EXACTLY what they asked for.
It’s called freedom. It’s called not being a lab rat to an experimental vaccine that has caused deaths and health issues in numerous people. Im healthy today and want to keep it that way continuing to use my common sense as my guidance. The virus came from a lab funded by the left. Dr. Frauci is paid $400,000 yearly by our government. He also supported and funded the Wuhan Lab on the coronavirus. It was illegal here but not in China. I don’t trust the deep state at all. Not one thing they have said is factual. They are Marxists. Their media lies and lies brainwashing people with the exact same narrative!! Hospitals were paid for every COVID case so a car accident was even listed as a death of COVID. No scientific data to backup communist lockdowns. No transparency from this administration. Trust and facts are what smart people need
I agree with your last sentence. As for the rest of what you wrote it’s hard to know where to begin, since you don’t cite sources, much less credible ones for your assertions. The NIH for which Dr. Fauci has worked for so many decades? If you did some real research you’d be staggered at how much of the treatments you, your loved ones and your friends has roots with the NIH. If it’s so freaking “leftist” then I suggest you go to that Q “Shaman” dude for medical care because modern medicine is completely infused with diagnostics, medicines and procedures (surgical and non-invasive interventions) that got their start via NIH funded studies or were developed in direct partnership with them. Hell, when I was married (this was decades ago) my then wife had a surgical procedure performed up there (we lived in northern VA) as part of the NIH evaluation of its efficacy for wider use! (Hint – it was approved in time for general use) So, unless you are willing to give up medical care including a LOT of stuff you haven’t given a second thought about you really ought to reconsider your take on the NIH. As for that Wuhan Lab NIH, CDC and others (not just key agencies from our own country) work with labs/agencies in other countries (including China) on cutting edge medical research including potential viruses like Covid. The prior administration actually CUT BACK our cooperation with that lab that has you all hot and bothered! Perhaps we might have had a head start on the problem and kept it contained if your “God Emperor”, His Majesty the Trump had let people who actually know shit about important stuff keep doing what they’ve done since long before he was just losing daddy’s money and making up for it by laundering Russian mob money (not that he’s the only one who’s done it to be fair) via the high end real estate market.
It’s kinda funny you talk about brainwashing. Folks like you seem to have willingly let yours be sucked out of your heads and replaced with all kinds of weird, toxic stuff.
But yes, you have freedom. Including to willfully be free-DUMB.
To each his own, I choose not to be vaccinated, I was exposed to the virus , I will not be injected with an unproven, untested poison that has serious side effects.
You need links for your claims. It is not unproven nor untested. Testing is simply not finished, but hey that was supposed to be the whole point of Operation Warp Speed, relaxing regulation to expedite release of a vaccine, which Trump supporters trumpet as a Trump accomplishment. And nor you will not take advantage something you guys claim is a Trump accomplishment? Sheesh.
So you were exposed. So were many of the rest of us whether we contacted Covid from the exposure or not. If you did contract Covid when you were exposed, you were lucky, not immune. Hopefully, if it should happen that because you refuse to be vaccinated, you get Covid, you will of course take responsibility for your choice. Nope, we all know you simply wan to freeride on everyone else taking personal responsibility by getting the vaccine. If your choice should fail you, you will expect our health care system to give you the same quality of care as if you were a responsible person.
Your kind, Azzano, have proven to be unworthy of any trust…and THAT’S a fact. “Freedom for me but not for thee” is your unofficial motto and the hell with if it costs anyone else. So hate on Uncle Sugar all you want. We BOTH know the second COVID pushes you too close towards Death’s door, you’ll be begging for someone to save you. I will NOT be moved to tears when that happens.
Amen
If you had common sense, you would not parrot right-wing propaganda. But here you are parroting the nonsense from Newsmax, OAN, FOX etc. But you are correct that smart people need facts. Too bad you don’t have any. Denis has taken the time to provide you with some facts. You should be grateful.
It would go a long long way for me and MANY others that I know, if, instead of blathering on and on and on about how safe this vaccine is, that the FDA gave approval for it’s administration as standard practice. The fact that it hasn’t suggests to many that the argument of the rabid pro mRNA vaxxers of “following the science”, may be as suitable for them as for those they disparage, and that they might do well to take a “wait and see” position until the actual science comes in, and the vaccine is given full FDA approval.
Full FDA approval of any vaccine or drug is typically a years long process, made even more complicated in the information age (the not always helpful social media environment we now live in with countless “instant experts”) where anecdotal stuff is taken as gospel “proof” of things both good and bad in many things including these Covid vaccines. There’s a reason why there are layers of authorization. Emergency Authorization carries with it the common sense thought from many people that maybe there might be unidentified issues or problems, and leads many (which I gather includes you) to want to hold off. That weighing of probabilities is something each person has to decide for themselves. However the process of obtaining full-use authorization for some of these vaccines has been in the works all along. Getting that level of approval takes time, in part because it literally takes time to see if anything unanticipated pops up. Sort of the “only time will tell” type of thing. But it takes an enormous amount of clinical evidence to get to even Emergency Use Authorization level and they do in fact take into consideration the issue of risk vs. benefit of short term benefits and the likelihood of even a small number of problems that inevitably show up during the testing process. The whole system is, when free of political interference geared towards a conservative (small “c”) approach when evaluating that question.
My sister (granted, our relationship has been rocky since back in our teens) is an RN and she expressed concern about RNA based vaccines from the time it became news that they were being so heavily worked on. I pointed out that it’s not like the concept was brand new and that while it had been relatively small scale work on such things and use of the technology hadn’t turned up any long-term problems. I didn’t actually (to my knowledge) change her mind but she softened her attitude considerably. We haven’t spoken since the holidays but I’ll bet she’s gotten her shots by now.
I don’t mean to insult you or belittle your concern. You took the time to write a thoughtful comment and didn’t engage in any name calling or hyperbole and common courtesy demands that I respond in kind. I would simply say that I’m old enough that I can recall when I was a child being taken to the gym at the Jr. High School in my town for massive national vaccination programs for both polio and smallpox. Did people have the same concerns back then? I’m sure many did, but they trusted the system and because so many got vaccinated so quickly those diseases were beaten back and damned near eradicated. Others were beaten back to minimal levels, but are making a comeback because of anti-vaxxer attitudes. The “let everyone else get vaccinated and I (which I could bold the I) will be one of those handful that takes NO risk and gets all the benefit of herd immunity. The problem with that is that too many people have bought into that, and the longer it takes to get an effective vaccine(s) to everyone who can take it the more chance an easily transmittable disease can mutate.
I for one wasn’t willing to wait untold months, if not years for “totally” proven safe Full Authorization. And if you look at the number of vaccines that were developed and showed early promise (and other medicines/treatments/vaccines in the past) in stage 1 or stage 2 trials but didn’t get to Emergency Use level it’s clear even Emergency Authorization isn’t granted without rigorous scrutiny. Let me close by putting it this way: There’s an old saying that the only two things in life that are certain are death and taxes. As we know, if someone or some corporation is rich enough even after earning hundreds of millions or billions some can even avoid taxes! But there’s still certainty that we all will die someday, hopefully long from now but each of us and everyone else will die. As such, expecting 100% certainty from a vaccine (whether we are talking about effectiveness or its safety) or any other medical matter (since the first of the year I’ve had cataract surgery and my heart shocked back into normal rhythm – I have A-Fib) which are common procedures but I knew there were risks all the same. I played the odds like most people do, and trusted professionals who really know about such stuff that my odds of being in that tiny percentage of “uh oh” was small. Given the nature of the hoops that had to be jumped though even for Emergency Authorization of the handful of Covid vaccines that have obtained it I think the odds are easily in the favor of me and anyone else getting it which is why I got my shots as soon as I had the chance. (Back in March) Medical professionals who know their shit can and do identify people and/or groups for which these vaccines or others for different diseases aren’t safe. If your doctor doesn’t find you to be one of those people then the odds are overwhelmingly in your favor so please reconsider your position. The life (or health) of not just yourself but others you might infect is at stake.
Elegant and right on, Denis,
The gains in life, the positive gains in relaxed restrictions and comfort of having at least a 97% chance of winning against the virus as opposed to a horrible fatal suffering of all effects of the instantly transmitted, locked-in disease.
My wife and I still wear our masks, going into high traffic areas like stores or the auto repair shop with front desk less than 4 foot spacing … it is the right way to do it. The local hospital where we go for exams and treatments, still require masks AND even take temps of those that have to be given masks as well.
Frankly, until all the anti-vaccine people get sick and die or have kidney failure and other gifts from the virus, to error on the side of caution makes sense … we DO have a comfortable feeling of relief and security with our full vaccine ….
Unfortunately, my wife’s sister and her husband are resisting the vaccine, a sad, thing indeed but they will be responsible for themselves but won’t be coming to visit our safe house in the woods …
A great informing post Denis, take care and stay healthy …
97% chance?
You mean the chance you have of surviving IF YOU GET THE SICKNESS, without doing anything at all?
Um, you do realize that also means a 3% chance of dying?
And you also realize that “97% chance” is an AVERAGE? If you’ve got certain pre-existing medical conditions (such as COPD or a compromised immune system), your chances of survival are MUCH lower.
Is mere survival your only metric? Survival does not necessarily equal full recovery as f nothing had ever happened. There are hundreds of thousands of people who have never fully recovered.
To all u anti vaxxers: answer the following questions & I will accept ur self appointed ‘expertise’; what is the only virus, deadly, virulent, & a scourge of the earth, to be eradicated on planet earth? How? Answer: smallpox. How? Vaccines. Just as I thought, a band of ignorant hypocrites. At least u took the shots required to go to public school so u can rationalize ur ignorance in english. Congrats.
And the amazing thing, Dennis, is that in thinking all that through, and in making the decisions you made, you were using your freedom just as much as any anti-vaxxer. Except you used it intelligently.