Anti-vaxxers jeopardizing everyone

Bill Knight column for 8-5, 6 or 7, 2021

 

  “Questions” and “confusion” can’t fully describe the response to the resurgence of the pandemic due to a strong variant and a stubborn segment of those hesitant to get vaccinations despite advice from doctors and even victims of COVID-19.

“Exasperation” perhaps (and maybe “mystified” why Republican leaders are seemingly sacrificing their own supporters just to disagree with President Biden and officials’ efforts to protect everyday Americans).

Reportedly, more than 60% of U.S. counties should now mask up. Illinois is reporting almost 1,300 new cases a day, the state Department of Public Health says.

Biden last week said federal employees must get vaccinated or wear masks and be tested frequently, urging private companies to do the same. AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka agreed, federal judges ruled that public universities can require vaccinations, and the Justice Department extended that authority to private firms. Employers are starting to act, from restaurants in Atlanta to bars in San Francisco to shops in Provincetown, Mass., plus Disney, Facebook, Google, Walmart and the Washington Post all extending their vaccination mandates.

Mandates are justified. A recent YouGov poll for The Economist showed that 13% of Americans resist the vaccination, refuse to wear masks, and aren’t worried about COVID: literally a triple threat.

In Illinois, Democratic Gov. Pritzker again invoked emergency powers through Aug. 21 to urge vaccinations, and he’s considering mandating state workers get vaccinated or tested regularly, like New York’s Democratic Gov. Cuomo did. On the other extreme, Texas’ ambitious Republican Gov. Abbott issued an order prohibiting vaccination or mask mandates – even as victims who’d formerly declined the shots publicly expressed regret, and a handful of GOP governors including Hutchison of Arkansas and Ivey of Alabama are defying the party and encouraging vaccinations.

Last week, Tennessee Republican Congressman David Byrd, who doubted the extent of the pandemic until he contracted the virus and spent 55 days on a ventilator, encouraged vaccinations to help “others to act against an enemy that knows no skin color, economic status or political affiliation.”

A group of some 50 national medical groups including the American Medical Association called for mandatory vaccinations for workers in health care and long-term care residences.

“This is the logical fulfillment of the ethical commitment of all health-care workers to put patients as well as residents of long-term care facilities first,” the group said in a public letter.

The presence of the Delta variant and the absence of vaccinated people mean we all compete against anti-vaxxers and the variant(s), with illness or death the dangers.

An Associated Press investigation showed that more than 98% of COVID hospitalizations and deaths are unvaccinated people.

“Vaccines have proven to be the single most effective way to prevent serious illness and death, and [Pritzker] encourages all eligible Illinoisans to get vaccinated,” said Pritzker spokeswoman Emily Bittner, “As private hospitals and employers move to mandate vaccination for their employees, the administration is also reviewing its options.”

About 30% of eligible Americans remain unvaccinated, and though factors include resistance by youth and hesitancy by people of color and the poor, the main reason is political. Kaiser Family Foundation said partisanship is “one of the main factors” in vaccination hesitancy as many accept nonsense about microchips, altered DNA or infertility, and polls show viewers of Fox, Newsmax and One America News are likely to be against vaccinations.

Vaccinations aren’t new. For decades, schoolkids have had to have the MMR and DTaP vaccinations; adults routinely get flu and pneumonia shots yearly; and the Supreme Court in 1905 said vaccination mandates were lawful during an outbreak of smallpox, the same plague that forced George Washington in 1777 to require troops to vaccinate.

Meanwhile, Pew Research this summer reported that “the only solidly Republican age demographic last year was 75 and over,” David Faris reported in The Week magazine. Not only is that age group more likely to pass away, seniors are more vulnerable to COVID.

Correlation isn’t cause, but counties that voted for Trump in 2020 have low vaccination rates. For example, in Illinois (which statewide has 63% vaccinated), 57% of Alexander County voters went for Trump, and just 15% of residents are vaccinated. Likewise, Trump got 65% of ballots in Henderson County, where only 21% are vaccinated, and Trump got 80% of the vote in Fayette County, where just 23% got the shots.

Republicans are hurting themselves!

For the nation, vaccination hesitancy has deteriorated from “personal choice” selfishness to outright disregard for community health, and everyone else shouldn’t be held hostage by anti-vaxxers.

Last question: People are dying needlessly, so are Tucker Carlson and the anti-vax Right-wingers legally responsible for the consequences of knowingly, recklessly spreading disinformation? Apart from libel, aren’t there laws about “depraved indifference” and “negligent homicide”?