Like Amanda Marcotte, I’m tired of the WATBs who have decided to perpetuate the pandemic as a political game.
…who I am mad at is the willfully unvaccinated, people who, out of irrationality and often raw Republican tribalism, got us into this mess in the first place. I am incandescent with rage that millions of Americans are putting it on the rest of us to protect them from COVID-19, just so they can avoid a simple, free shot that is available at every pharmacy.
Republicans, always ready to destroy lives for some perceived political gain, aren’t even hiding anymore that they think being pro-COVID is good politics. As CNN reports, there’s “a GOP-wide effort to use the fears and frustrations of Americans worried about another round of school closures and lockdowns as cudgels against their Democratic opponents.”
But, of course, the return of restrictions is the direct result of Republican efforts to dissuade Americans from getting vaccinated and keep those COVID-19 case rates high. It’s important to remember that this is still a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Case rates are rising rapidly among the unvaccinated, who tend to reject other prevention measures along with vaccines. There are also breakthrough infections, though they affect fewer than one-third of 1% of the vaccinated.
It’s not just the inconvenience of wearing a mask these awful people are rejecting — it’s the vaccine, which is incomprehensible to me. It only takes a few minutes, you walk in to a pharmacy, you fill out a little paperwork, and you walk out with greatly enhanced resistance to the virus. Why would you not do that? The right-wingers have to invent all kinds of nonsensical excuses about microchips and imaginary serious side-effects to justify their recalcitrants. Meanwhile, the rest of us get to suffer the larger inconvenciences, and the pandemic continues on.
Or worse. Here’s a professor at Texas A&M who had the experience of a student dying.
Our first student has died of covid… and I feel horrible. No masking rules, no vaccination rules. How is this ok?
— Amy Earhart (@amyeetx) September 11, 2021
It’s not worth it if even one student has to die to get an education. And Texas is one of the worst.
In Texas, Republican leadership and right-wing ideology has led to low vaccination rates and subsequently to hospitals overflowing with COVID-19 patients. Gov. Greg Abbott, being a Republican, refuses to do anything to mitigate the spread of the disease. So instead, he’s leaning on hospitals to deprive other people of necessary medical care, such as delaying surgeries, to keep hospital resources free to tend to the waves of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. However angry I am at losing my gym class (also important for physical health, I’ll point out), it likely pales in comparison to the rage of someone who has to put off surgery to fix a debilitating but not fatal condition, all because some Fox News junkie thought a quick jab in the arm takes away his “freedom”. Not being able to walk because your knee surgery keeps getting delayed is the far greater loss of freedom.
I’m doing my part, wearing a mask indoors everywhere I go. My university now requires a mask for everyone, and has also mandated vaccines, but everywhere I go in town, no one is wearing a mask…and we know that only 50% of the population of Stevens county is vaccinated, in part because this is a largely Republican part of the state. Would you believe that only 46% of the Trumpkins are vaccinated? They’re dragging the rest of us down!