I don’t have a high opinion of people lately. Especially with the plethora of examples of…uh, oh, let’s call it “questionable application of intellect” by humans we’ve seen in recent years.
From conspiracy theorists who still believe COVID-19 was a hoax to a mob of micro-dicks who took personal days from their desk jobs to attempt a coup against the Capitol to people who drive the most technologically advanced cars in history and still can’t back into a fucking parking space without their SUV tires resting over the line and ruining my day, it’s everywhere, folks.
And their latest folly? Refusing to wear masks in public or get vaccinated against a highly contagious virus that helped kill over a half a million Americans in a year. Their reasons are as multi-layered as a banana:
- “We don’t know what’s in it.” Fair enough. But you do know what’s in COVID-19. A virus. A deadly virus. A deadly virus that kills people. Kills them dead.
- “The government can’t control me.” Um, the government has been and will continue pocketing a good quarter of every one of your paychecks during every year of your wretched life. They are controlling you, son, but at least you have roads to drive on and a fire department to call if you forget to turn off the hotplate after boiling your Ramen noodles. Or your meth.
- “The government’s trying to alter our DNA.” If that’s true, maybe they’re trying to make yours a little less watered-down with Bud Light so you can actually use the part of your brain that controls logic. Unfortunately, that one’s especially not true. The government doesn’t give a shit about you or your DNA so just relax.
I’d like to ask everyone if they remember how horrible polio was. Of course we don’t because it was eradicated before we were born thanks to vaccines. Or how about measles and rubella? I don’t even know what the fuck rubella is. All I know is it’s some highly contagious disease that, again, was eradicated thanks to scientists and their vaccinations.
Now some parents are getting all crazed and protesty about their kids still having to wear masks during the upcoming school year. You know why they should? With so many adults choosing not to get vaccinated, COVID-19 and its variants aren’t just giving up and going away. My guess is that a lot of the people championing a mask-free school year have refused to get the vaccine themselves. Fine. Don’t get it if you don’t want it, but don’t put other people’s kids at risk. Do these people send their kids to school with peanut butter sandwiches and say “Fuck it. That allergic kid has an EpiPen?” Probably.
Here’s the problem with letting kids, especially kids under 12, go without masks indoors when school returns in the fall. Children under 12 are not able to get the vaccine yet. So if those kids live in homes with adults who refuse to get vaccinated, they can come into school and spread the virus to their unvaccinated classmates. This can cause another wave of the virus that would likely result in a return to remote learning—something nobody wants. Not to mention that it continues to keep the small percentage of Americans who legitimately cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons vulnerable to infection. So what then, fuck them, too?
This issue shouldn’t be so contentious. When did we, the same country that banded together a few decades ago to buy war bonds to eradicate that virus, Hitler, become so egocentric?
Is this all just the fallout from the 4 years we spent in Trumptopia being gas-lighted and fed a steady diet of anti-government lunacy from him and the right-wing news media?
Imagine people in the 1600s with this same attitude. Some Native Americans are watching family members writhe in agony as their entire bodies blister from a smallpox outbreak. But when the medicine man finally comes around and offers a cure, they say, “Nah, dude. Ima wait and see how it affects everyone else first.” The short response is it makes you not die. How do I know? Eleven days after I received the J&J shot, I was exposed to Covid-19 then tested positive. I’m fifty-one and have asthma, but thankfully, I had almost no symptoms. Call me easy, but that’s enough for me to put my trust in science.
These days where I don’t put my trust is in the average person. I’m especially over the people who now view science as a subversive organization meant to take away their freedoms. The same people, I might add, who gorge themselves on ideological word salads from a political party currently full of obstructionists, sex offenders, and future Gilead commanders.
To anyone who seriously interprets mandatory masks or vaccinations to stop a deadly pandemic as a form of oppression, please google the phrase “American history.”