Someone suggested “the DeSantis variant”, and I’m not remembering who.
After I got my second dose of the Pzifer vaccine on March 24, I felt…liberated. It wasn’t that I thought the pandemic was over, but that it was ending in the United States sooner rather than later. The country had a sufficient amount of vaccines, enough to send to countries that didn’t have access, through WHO’s COVAX program.
Then the new vaccine numbers plummeted, and infection rates went up, first in the South and Midwest then everywhere. What I saw on the television, of medical personnel turning cafeterias and parking lots into extra COVID-19 beds. But this was different than last year at this time. Many of these folks were frustrated. And a lot of them were ANGRY.
Most of them DIDN’T say, “You dummies! You’ve brought this on yourselves!” But it was, in several cases, the clear subtext. Patients, or their families asking, begging for the vaccine as people suffer through the effects of the condition.
Some people who didn’t get injections I cut a lot of slack for. Pregnant women who worried about the side effects. The immunocompromised who are going to need that third dose.
“Freedom”
But the argument that people who aren’t getting the vaccine only are harming themselves is simply not true, despite the panoply of articles being sent to me by someone I’ve known most of my life. (It also includes info about the stolen election, the persecution of the Pillow Guy, and minimization of the Holocaust, so I’ve deigned to filter them out.)
Those folks not getting vaccinated are Petri dishes making the population, i.e., ME more likely to become sick with a variant of the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, governors such as Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida have, in the name of “freedom”, banned school districts in their states from a vaccine and/or mask mandates, though some districts are ignoring them. What about the freedom to keep people safe and healthy?
Dr. Rob Davidson is looking to understand. “I don’t blame my patients for their refusal [to get vaccinated.] What breaks my heart, as someone who took an oath to prevent harm, is that my patients choose to abandon the science and evidence that can save their lives. I do blame Fox News and other right-wing media outlets for poisoning the minds of millions of Americans with the deceptive propaganda they spray into living rooms 24/7.”
Patience lost
True enough. Yet, despite my desperate attempt to try to “see the other side,” I’m just not able to do it anymore. Don’t have it in me. These people are, if I’m being totally honest, infuriating me. Thoughtless privilege. Cognitive distortions. And since I can’t just scream at them – it would do no good anyway – it leaves me in a state of melancholy. I have what Mark Evanier calls “The Springtime for Hitler” look at anti-vaxx/anti-mask efforts in our country.
DeSantis, in particular, irritates me, with his posturing to grab hold of the Trump voters when he presumably runs for President in 2024. He’s threatening to withhold salaries from district superintendents who mandate masks in schools. At least I can yell at him when I see his smirk on the TV. I’ve renamed the Delta variant the DeSantis variant; use in good health.
The vaccine could save us if we let it. But as we go backward in the fight against COVID-19, I can hold onto the fact that at least most of my friends and relatives have the good sense to protect themselves, and me. Especially me.
It is truly a shame that we as a culture have devolved to the point where some of us are not listening to public health officials – instead making it a political thing. I read somewhere that we have a pandemic of Covid-19 and its variants, but also a pandemic of misinformation and bullshit.
I have a record number of students having to isolate this week, the first week of classes. We are forbidden by ruling of the state governor (!!!) from enacting a mask mandate so I am left with begging my students to mask and get vaccinated if they aren’t already, and wearing an N95 mask myself (instead of the cute but less protective cotton masks) and avoiding much circulation in public.
I hate this all so much. Yes, I am vaccinated, so PROBABLY safe, but the fact that it’s probably but not definitely stays my hand from doing anything but work, church, and weekly grocery shopping. I told my counselor yesterday that the thing for me is (a) this feels like “it’s gonna be forever now” and (b) I had so much hope in June when trends were better, now they’re a lot worse.
Also I know just enough about viral evolution to worry about future variants. If our fellow Americans won’t take the vaccine at this point, we need to just ship EVERY dose to elsewhere in the world where they will take them, to try to cut the risk of some Andromeda Strain mutant
I don’t know. I’m slowly going through the stages of mourning for how life used to be; slowly coming to the acceptance that I may be all but a shut-in for the rest of my life.
As my brother often puts it: We’re a Failed Species.
I just saw the former president pretending to endorse the vaccine. He squinched up his face into a grimace, palms up and out, and said, “Just get the vaccine. It’s still your choice, but you should probably get it…”
A real president might have said, “You know, in the beginning of this pandemic, I didn’t really trust the science. I thought the scientists were being elitists, talking down to everyday American people. But I have evolved. I realize that, because this Delta variant is so much more destructive that the original strain (I am giving him an ‘out’ there), it’s probably time for everyone to get vaccinated.”
And then he would admit that he and his wife and kids had indeed gotten vaccinated back in March.
But that would take maturity, a willingness to claim that evolution. Like Barack Obama did when he himself evolved and listened to his wife and daughters about same-sex marriage. He changed his mind. And he admitted he was wrong.
God, I miss that man.