Vaccine Mandates
The Problem
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. People should get vaccinated. It’s important. As we have learned, the poke doesn’t last forever, but if everyone (or the vast majority of people) get inoculated against COVID, we can either eradicate the illness or get it under enough control that it’s no longer a problem.
But unfortunately, due to HORRIBLE messaging, open lying, and a completely untrustworthy press… there are many millions of Americans who refuse to get the poke. Threats haven’t helped. Making fun of them hasn’t helped. Firing people hasn’t helped… and actually made the national labor shortage much worse. Don Lemon hasn’t helped. That liar Anthony Fauci hasn’t helped.
This is a free country. The citizens who live here aren’t a group of errant high schoolers who can be cowed by an aggressive assistant principal. They are adults who are going to make their own choices regarding their health based on the information available to them. Those that aren’t vaccinated have made a choice… and it’s pretty obvious the reason they have made the choice they’ve made is because they don’t trust the people telling them to take the shot. It’s not a lack of information… trust me, they’ve heard you. It’s that they don’t trust you.
Who are the unvaccinated?
The answer is, it’s complicated. According to the study linked below, nationally approximately 78% of Americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-by-race-ethnicity/
That is great news! It means we are well on our way. Some better news is that in the “at risk” category of people over 65 years old, between 93% and 99% of adults over 65 have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Considering this was by far the largest category of people who actually died with COVID, that is incredible news. See the below link from the Mayo Clinic as source.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-tracker
So who are the unvaccinated? Well, going back to the first link it tends to fall into two categories. People who are not at high risk of serious COVID complications and people of lower socioeconomic categories… low income whites and people of color, specifically blacks and hispanics. Not exactly your MAGA crowd… at least not exclusively your MAGA crowd.
I invite you to dig into both of those studies. It varies by state and there really isn’t one category of people who refuse the poke. The common denominator, in my mind, is that the majority seem to be people with reason not to trust the government.
It has been pointed out many times by people smarter than me that a West Virginia trailer park resident and a South Side Chicago unmarried mother have a lot more in common with each other on this issue than they do with wealthier people of their own race. Both communities have been beset with drugs and violence. Both deal with bad education systems, both have violent crime, and neither see any help on the horizon. Why would they trust what the government says about the vaccine?
They are offended at the idea that people who have done nothing for them and look at them with derision, now have the audacity to demand that they comply on this. They are unmoved by mandates or Don Lemon making fun of them. This is their way of giving the finger to the establishment.
And it’s not all people in poverty either. Many are middle class. But they don’t like the current power structure. They don’t feel represented by our leaders or our culture and they will not comply.
We Need to Define the Goal
What exactly is the goal with all this COIVD policy? We need to define it and be extremely clear. The goal should NOT be to make everyone comply or even to get everyone vaccinated. The goal should be to eradicate the virus, or get it under control as much as possible.
It does stand to reason that one of the best ways to do that is for as many people as possible to have immunity from the virus. Immunity comes in two ways, from the vaccine and from having had the virus. Both, according to studies, seem to be effective in preventing the virus, and when breakthrough cases happen, they tend to be mild. There is disagreement about which is better, but the overall consensus seems to be that natural immunity could wane over time. Obviously we are also seeing this in the vaccines… but we get into dicy territory here, because a lot of health experts aren’t willing to even discuss natural immunity. This leads to further distrust in the population because… people can see the damn shot wears off too! And when asked about this obvious fact, you get kicked off Twitter and some double masked ivory tower pussy on TV calls you a conspiracy theorist who eats horse paste.
The Answer
Here’s the good news. The majority of the hold outs CAN be convinced. Unfortunately we are just going about it all wrong. Do you want to convince the hold outs? Try honesty. Try accountability.
It turns out that the virus probably DID leak from a lab in Wuhan. Try saying, “We were wrong about that. We are sorry we called you racist for not agreeing that gross Chinese people eating bats wasn’t the cause and that it was likely an unsafe lab conducting irresponsible research.”
Fire Anthony Fauci. He is NOT a hero. He has lied and grandstanded. He was personally involved in funding the irresponsible research that likely caused this pandemic and lied about it to Congress on multiple occasions. And BTW, even if you disagree with that… and you still think he’s a saint… he should still be gone because his arrogance is causing the hold outs to dig their heels in further. He is hurting our chances of convincing the unconvinced.
This isn’t about OWNING your opponent. It’s about eradicating the virus. If someone is standing in the way of that, thank them for their service and ask them to kindly get the hell out.
Social Media companies need to acknowledge they banned people for no good reason. CNN needs to admit they lied about Joe Rogan and horse dewormer for ratings. Don Lemon needs to stop insulting the people he’s trying to convince. Honestly, Don Lemon needs to stop a lot of things.
Do that and then we can talk about Tucker.
Don’t you get it? People aren’t going to do anything that known liars ask them to do… and on that point, I must tell you, I have a lot more respect for the vaccine hesitant than I do the “battered wives” who keep coming back to their abuser every time they get lied to. At least those folks still have a little backbone.
Will it happen? I don’t know… but it could. All they have to do is drop the ego, apologize, and start telling the unvarnished truth. All they need to do is hold people accountable. If they did… almost all the hold outs would come along.
Happy Saturday all!