The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected the minds of many Americans who've never even had the disease i.e. in terms of their reaction to the virus' mere existence which many of them refuse to even acknowledge. And in light of their hostility to compliance with simple life saving measures including wearing face masks and refusing vaccinations against the disease, I'm very glad that my wife and I are living abroad. As such we have been able to observe this phenomenon of lunacy from afar and in safety from the violence that many of these crazies have committed against mask wearers and vaccine advocates. Moreover,I'm also concerned about the outrageous attacks in the U.S. against Asian-Americans, who have been scapegoated as sources of the the coronavirus, especially inasmuch as my wife is a Filipina and so would be at risk if we were still living in the States.
Things were bad enough before the pandemic when the anti-vaxxers were mainly irresponsible parents who were jeopardizing the safety and lives of their children by
refusing to have them inoculated against childhood diseases. But now
this twisted mentality of resistance has mutated into opposition to
coronavirus vaccinations as well and has affected the thinking of many others,including
elected officials at various levels, mainly Republicans (imagine that). It's as though
it were an epidemic itself, and one for which there is no cure. Just how out of control the situation has become in America is well documented in the following two articles which happened appear online on the same day.
"Doctor sounds alarm on low vaccination rates: 'It’s not a debate. It’s science.'"
"We’ve plummeted from dumb to dumber — to proud and unapologetically ignorant | Opinion"
In the end, I suppose what it boils down to is that Americans who want to get vaccinated will do so. And those don't, won't. Will this leave the latter to eventually infect and kill off each other? If so, they will they have no one to blame but themselves.
3 comments:
Unfortunately, we tend to forget about the third group: Americans who want to get vaccinated but can't. Many are children who still don't have a viable vaccine option. Others have medical conditions that make them ineligible for vaccination. They will suffer because a former president and a popular cable news station decided to mislead the public about COVID-19 and vaccination.
Jack, thanks for your response. Clearly, there are those who are ineligible for vaccination due to circumstances beyond their control. But for people who refuse to get jabbed simply because they were misled by Fox or social media were also likely exposed to the correct information but chose to ignore it. In short, they opted to bet on the wrong horse. Shame on them.
At this point, it does seem like most of those still refusing have made it all about politics. Their refusal seems to be something of a loyalty oath to the Orange One. I have come across a few refusers where it seems to be more about an ignorance of science than anything explicitly political. They point to media reporting of "breakthrough" cases as evidence that "the vaccine doesn't work" almost like they think any vaccine prevents all cases. This makes me think we are seeing the harm decades of scientific illiteracy can cause.
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