When COVID-19 vaccines became available, we all suddenly had to make a decision about whether to get vaccinated. Mine was easy. My general physician, my gastroenterologist, my proctologist and my urologist all said, independent of one another, "Get whichever vaccine you can get and get it as soon as possible." Those are four very smart men to whom I entrust vital parts of my body.
Yes, if I'd looked at the Internet before deciding, I could have found some stranger — possibly even one who claims to be a doctor — advise against it. If you search the web enough, you can find someone who'll tell you anything you want to (or don't want to) hear. I have an acquaintance with whom I refuse to dine because no matter what I order — and if you ate with him, no matter what you order — he will look at it and say, "You're not going to put that in your body, are you?"
Last time we dined together, it was chicken noodle soup: "Do you know how they raise chickens? Do you know how they make noodles? And there's probably salt in there."
There will always be such people and if you listen to all of them, you will perish from malnutrition. I would be killed by my food allergies.
Whether to get vaccinated is now an old, albeit ongoing debate. Lately though, I cannot turn on TV news without seeing someone explain why they absolutely will not under any circumstances wear a mask in public. Maybe they did before for a time but COVID-19, they insist, is now a thing of the past. It is their right, they say, to choose to not mask-up…though some of them seem to get quite outraged when someone else exercises their right to wear one.
I almost don't mind the ones who can spout actual research and justify not wearing a mask in public but (a) I think they're wrong and (b) I don't see why it's such an inconvenience to err on the side of caution and put one on. The ones I really don't understand are the ones who say they won't wear one because it's an imposition on personal freedom and this is America where no one can force you to do anything you don't want to do. Yeah, like stopping for red lights or dumping your garbage in the street or bringing in some virus from another country.
I hear these people and I think of those signs like the one posted above — No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service — and I think the mask-decriers should be asked, "Do you object to them? Are they an attack on your personal freedom?" How about if a restaurant says it won't serve anyone not abiding by its dress code? There are folks out there who think a private business has the right to refuse service to gays or racial minorities but not to insist that everyone who shops there wear a mask.
I will admit that it's a little puzzling these days to decide where you need a mask and where you don't. I solve that puzzle by wearing one everywhere I go, the single exception being when I'm outside and not passing near others. I don't find it troubling…and I wonder how many who do simply need to find a more comfortable mask.
Meanwhile, Kevin Drum, whose statistics I tend to believe, calculates today — and yes, he shows his math — that "if you are unvaccinated, your odds of getting a case of COVID-19 serious enough to require hospitalization are 55 times higher than they are if you get the vaccination."
He sees this as proof of how effective the vaccines are and I'm sure it's mostly that. But I wonder how much of the difference has to do with human behavior. Even after I got my second shot, I really did not change my lifestyle or my mask-wearing in any significant way. I'm pretty comfy staying home, I have no desire to eat in restaurants and there are still no public events I yearn to attend. I still may not have come near anyone who could possibly transmit the disease to me.
But there are folks who, after their final shot, decided they were invulnerable and began going to parties and eating in public and going out a lot more and often not wearing masks. They're vaccinated but doesn't it seem logical that they're a bit more likely to get the disease than I am just because they're more likely to be exposed to it? I'd like to think my odds are even better than 1 in 55.