Vaccine Truths

 There has been a lot of panic news about the increase in COVID infections and hospitalizations since Thanksgiving, but I think the media are generally ignoring the real story. Every story reporting on this should include--in the first paragraph, if not the first sentence--that the vast majority of new infections and new hospitalizations have been among the unvaccinated. Unvaccinated patients make up about 90 percent of all new infections and about 99 percent of all hospitalizations.

Yes, most stories get that information in, but usually not until the third or fourth paragraph (and in a TV report, not until just before the end)--and, frankly, most readers never get that deep into a story.

As a medical expert bluntly said on MSNBC's Deadline: White House on Wednesday, these people are simply "stupid". And he repeated it. Yes, there is a very small percentage of adults for whom a vaccination might be life-threatening due to allergies or some underlying condition. But about 40 percent of Americans over the age of 18 are not vaccinated...and the number who have a true medical reason to skip vaccination is simply nowhere near that amount.

This is, for many of these people, a purely political statement. Recent data indicate that lack of vaccination is much more likely among Republicans than Democrats or independents; that it is far higher in counties that voted for Donald Trump in 2020. 

What does it get you to "own the libs" by risking your own health?

Boosted

 I got my Moderna covid booster yesterday. So far (almost 24 hours later) no ill effects other than the usual sore shoulder.

To Protect and Serve? Not So Much

 To protect and serve. It's the motto of many police departments in this country, emblazoned on their vehicles from coast to coast. But it seems protecting the public from COVID-19 is something many cops are unwilling to do.

Cities all over have mandated vaccinations for their employees, and most of those government workers have complied--often before the mandates were announced or went into effect. The largest contingent fighting vaccine mandates seems to be police officers--strange since they are perhaps the largest group, save for teachers, to regularly come in close contact with the public. You'd think they would want to protect themselves from the virus, if not everyone else.

And it's not just the rank-and-file who are taking this stance; they are being backed up by their unions. My first thought was that they were making it a contract issue--that such directives needed to be part of collective bargaining. But it seems that is not the case.

One of the most outspoken of the police union leaders is John Catanzara, the president of Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police, who is telling his members they do not have to comply with the city's mandate. "This vaccine has no studies for long-term side effects or consequences," he told the Chicago Sun Times. "None. To mandate anybody to get that vaccine, without that data as a baseline, amongst other issues, is a 'hell no' for us."

One has to wonder how the forensic scientists who work with police regularly in solving crimes react to that. "Do you have the same doubt about our findings as you do those of the CDC, NIH, and FDA," I imagine them asking these cops. If I were a police scientist, I would refuse to allow any unvaccinated cop anywhere near my lab.

Misunderstanding Science 2

 Speaking of misunderstanding science, this morning I heard one of the dumbest things I've ever heard, in an interview with one of the un-masked, unvaccinated attendees of the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, ND:

"If they can cure COVID so fast, why haven't they cured cancer?"

Wrong on so many levels, I don't know where to begin. First, the vaccines don't "cure" COVID, they prevent serious infection. Second, cancer is not just one thing...it is caused by a multitude of things, depending on the kind of cancer--some of them are viral, but mostly it's runaway mutation in the cells, caused by radiation, infection from toxins, natural aging, and some stuff doctors are still not sure about. I just had my prostate removed because of cancer--when I asked my doctor why I got prostate cancer, he answered, quite honestly, "We still don't know what causes it, other than the aging process in some men."

Comparing COVID research to cancer research is like asking "If we can put men on the moon, why can't we end disease?" It's a fundamental lack of understanding about the process.

WWSD?

 This may seem frivolous or facetious, but it's aimed at my comics fan friends:

What Would Superman Do?

Confronted by something like the corona virus (and assuming it was of an origin such that he was as susceptible to it as normal humans), what would Clark Kent/Kal-el do? He'd get the vaccine, of course (he'd have to have someway to do it without injection, but you get the idea). And, in his guise as a reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, he'd publish articles that urged everyone else to do it as well. He'd make public appearances at vaccine clinics; he'd do TV spots for them; he'd supply transportation for anyone who couldn't get there on their own.

So, folks--why aren't you on Superman's side in this?

Require the Vax

 I truly do not understand how anyone who works in the healthcare industry, from a distinguished doctor down to the porters and maintenance workers, would refuse to be vaccinated for COVID. I mean, these people have seen, first hand, what the disease can do. Are they blind?

Further, I do not understand why any healthcare facility does not require its employees to be vaccinated. I mean if Disney, Broadway theaters, and other entertainment venues are doing it, why isn't the healthcare sector?

Broadway and Vax

 Here's an important piece of news for anyone with an interest in theater:

Theatregoers eager to return to Broadway will need to show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 before the curtain rises. The Broadway League, the trade association representing producers, theatre owners, and more, announced that all 41 Broadway venues will require vaccines for audience members. Masks will also be required inside the theatre, per current CDC recommendations in the wake of the Delta variant.

The news follows the release of safety procedures made in agreement between the League and Actors’ Equity, the union representing stage performers and stage managers. Those protocols include, among others, that companies are “Fully Vaccinated.”

https://www.playbill.com/article/broadway-will-require-covid-vaccines-for-audiences 

 Now my next question for anyone running local professional or community theaters: If the Broadway League, whose members have a high stake risk in the profitability of their productions, can make this requirement, why can't you?

Is Vaccine Hesitancy Driven by Bigotry?

 I may take some flack for this, but it's been on my mind for a while.

I wonder if some part of the vaccine reluctance among the conservative population--particularly the rabid Trump supporters--is that a significant number of the experts (both governmental and private) are people of color. The Surgeon General is of South Asian heritage, as are quite a few of the medical experts frequently interviewed on the TV news. Although she is not a person of color, the head of the CDC is a woman and Jewish.

Is that enough to make some portion of the right-wing populace discount what they say? These are people who disparaged a previous president simply for his family heritage and who consider the current vice-president illegitimate, in part because of her background and gender (not to mention their attitude toward the Congressional representatives they call "the Squad").

I fear it may be.

Doom and Gloom?

 Yesterday afternoon, on MSNBC's Deadline White House, frequent guest Dr. Peter Hotez expressed the opinion that the CDC had dropped the guidelines for mask wearing by vaccinated people too soon, saying there were still too many places where the number of vaccinated was too low and the case count too high.

It worries me when people of his stature contradict or criticize the CDC. It worries me because it gives the COVID-deniers and anti-vaxxers ammunition for their claims that either the experts don't know anything or that the while thing is overblown. It also, I think, discourages those who might be on the fence from getting vaccinated.

Furthermore, it encourages those who are not vaccinated to go ahead and blatantly ignore the calls to continue to mask up until they do get the shot. And it makes it more difficult for businesses who want to open up to the vaccinated...which is the only way we're going to get out of this.

I have friends--fully vaccinated friends--who are still hunkering down in their homes, getting everything delivered, and wearing masks outside even when only walking to the edge of their own property (to pick up the mail or put out the trash). I worry about their long-term mental health in that kind of seclusion, especially if they take the opinions of experts like Dr. Hotez to heart and are still isolating themselves long after the danger is past.

Fighting Vaccine Hesitancy

 It seems the biggest concern as we move out of the pandemic is now "vaccine resistance" or "vaccine hesitancy"--the people who flat out refuse to be vaccinated or are hesitant for a variety of (other spurious) reasons. I have a proposition to help alleviate the problem.

Every employer who wants to be able to open fully--whether as an office, a retail establishment, a restaurant, an entertainment venue, whatever--should mandate that their employees be vaccinated: "no shots, no salary". Naturally, there would have to be exceptions for those with valid medical reasons (the immuno-compromised, for instance) and valid religious reasons (but "the vaccine was developed using fetal tissue" is not valid, IMO). Those with valid religious concerns are, to me, Christian Scientists and some old-order Amish.

Of course, this can't be governmentally mandated...but it can be strongly encouraged, perhaps through executive orders (at the federal, state and local level) that government agencies cannot do business with companies not following this rule--just as there are governmental policies related to hiring and prevailing wages. Actually, come to think of it, under local health codes, perhaps any company dealing in food service could be mandated to have only vaccinated staff.

And, obviously, government agencies at all levels can set up similar rules. "You want to be a teacher, cop, firefighter, etc.--get vaccinated."

Your thoughts?

COVID Freedom Day

 Jill and I got our second Moderna vaccine shots two weeks ago today so, as of this morning, we are both fully immunized (or at least as far as the current science came make us).

That means, if you are also vaccine-complete, should we meet in real life, we can all remove our masks, shake hands, hug, and act just as we would have 14 months ago. There are people reading this, I'm sure, who I can't wait to greet again as we once would have.

I-Knock-ulation

 Well, it's 24 hours since Jill and I got our second shots of the Moderna vaccine. I'm fine, save for a sore shoulder, but Jill has been knocked for a loop.

She was all right until about 8:30 last night, when she began to get the chills. She felt that way all through the night, tossing and turning. When she woke this morning, it was better but she's still chilled and very tired. She has gone back to bed.

I think she's running a low-grade fever; she's taken Tylenol and had fluids.

Vax to the Max

 Jill and I both got our second Moderna vaccine shots this morning. In two weeks, May 10, we will be fully immunized.

Doctor Doom

 "I'm going to reflect on the reoccurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much reason for hope, but right now I'm scared".

--Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control.

 While I understand that Dr. Walensky wants to avoid unwarranted optimism, I'm not sure phrases such as "impending doom" serve any useful purpose in the current situation. No one, not even Dr. Anthony Fauci was using terms that dire even at the height of the pandemic, before we had even the hope of vaccinating anyone, last summer. Beyond being emotionally depressing, I fear such pessimism only strengthens the more virulent anti-mask, anti-vaccine, politically motivated segment of the population.

"Why should I bother with any of this?" they will ask. "The President says we will all be vaccinated by the summer, but his top medical expert says we are 'doomed,' anyway. Why should I inconvenience myself if it's not going to do any good in the long run?"

Not that these people really need an excuse for their behavior, but why give them one? A little cautious optimism is the preferred mood to display, I think. "We still have problems, and normalcy is still weeks away, but the nation and the world are in a better place now than they were just three months ago. Stay the course, don't panic, we're on the right track." That is the appropriate message.

Some Things I Don't Understand

 I don't understand....

why anyone would refuse to be vaccinated (not just for COVID, for anything), absent a real medical complication--immuno-disease, allergic reactions.

why people cannot return their shopping carts to the storefront or the cart corral in the parking lot.

why people wait until they are pulling out of a parking spot to start a call on their cell phones (and why it's always the people in the biggest honking vehicles who do that).

and, while we're discussing cell phones, why people will walk around in a public space with their phone on speaker, having what ought to be a private conversation at the top of their lungs (really, I do not need to know that your "ex" is in prison again).

why motorcycle riders have to repeatedly rev their engines when stopped at a traffic light (especially annoying because I live right off an intersection with a light).

 

A Shot in the Arm

 I received my first dose of the Moderna vaccine this morning (the second is set for about a month from now). I have to give high marks to the folks running the Delaware County vaccination operation at the Aston Community Center. They were well organized, kept things moving (although, due to the number of people, it took longer than we had figured), and were very helpful. Jill was using her cane and every single person we spoke to asked if she wanted a wheelchair. (She declined; as long as there were places she could sit periodically, she was fine.)

Right now, some three hours since the shot, I feel fine. I don't even have the usual soreness in my arm from getting an injection.

Vaccine Hypocrisy

 There's a columnist for my local paper, Christine Flowers, who seems to have but one hobby horse--abortion. Somehow, no matter what other subject she's writing about, abortion will be mentioned. This morning, she was writing about the COVID vaccines, and sure enough, there was her old wooden mount.

So, I decided a letter to the editor was in order, and here it is:

Christine Flowers' hypocrisy and fuzzy thinking were clearly on view in her column this morning. In one paragraph she says " I want abortion criminalized. I want it banned. I want it to be recognized as the single greatest act of inhumanity in recent times." And, then, just a few paragraphs later, she says " While we can never impose Catholic morality on secular law...." And yet that is precisely what she proposed doing in her earlier stated desire--to make the Catholic position on abortion the law of the land! Which is it, Ms. Flowers?

Later, she goes to great lengths to explore the morality of using cloned fetal tissue initially derived from abortions in developing the COVID vaccines...ultimately deciding that the time distance between the initial abortions in two vaccines makes them more acceptable than the third one, in which the fetal tissue was more recently acquired. This seems to me to be an odd distinction. If "abortion is murder," as Ms. Flowers so often declares, then the date of that event is immaterial--there is no statute of limitations on murder in state or federal law. Which is it, Ms. Flowers?

Finally, she has decided to get the vaccination--indeed, she already has--determining that the benefits of vaccine outweigh the problematic nature of its origins. It seems if research using fetal tissue benefits Ms. Flowers, all is well and good...but, as she has stated in the past, and as her Catholic morality holds, similar research into cures and treatments for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, MS, ALS, and a host of other musculo-neural ailments is anathema and must cease. Which is it, Ms. Flowers?

Mistakes on the Left and Right

 There are moments when I don't know what I despair of the most--the extreme right or the extreme left. Each side, IMO, did things that made them look stupid yesterday.

On the right, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (spurred by a pronouncement from the Archbishop of New Orleans) "urged Catholics to avoid taking the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine and to choose alternatives from Pfizer or Moderna instead because Johnson & Johnson used cells derived decades ago from an abortion to create the vaccine." It called the J&J vaccine "morally compromised". (https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/02/archdiocese-new-orleans-johnson-vaccine/) Yes, indeed, your eminences, the death of an unborn child decades ago is more important spiritually than the health and possible death of your congregants in the here and now.

On the left, after urging from a study in 2019, Dr. Seuss Enterprises has decided to cease publication of six of the children's author's works, on the basis that "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong." The six titles in question are And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot's Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat's Quizzer.  (https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/02/us/dr-seuss-books-cease-publication-trnd/index.html) On looking at the things that were considered in these books, I don't disagree that they are inappropriate by modern standards, but I do disagree with the steps taken. Why not simply publish new editions with the kind of "disclaimers" that companies like Disney and Warner Bros. have placed on some of their older material--that these works represent cultural standards of their time and should be viewed in that context?

In each case, again IMO, the authorities in question simply make themselves look foolish and hidebound.

Placing Blame

 Clearly the plan to get the COVID vaccines out to the public is, so far--in the words of my kids--an epic fail. The issue now is how to fix it, and to do that, we need to know where the problem really is.

My first impulse is to put the blame squarely on the Trump Administration. I suspect, just as it was for the entire four years, they talked a good game but couldn't really play. They were really good at marketing--"Operation Warp Speed," anyone?--but really terrible at actually implementing their cleverly named plans....or at actually having a plan to go with the name. Too often--and this is one of those times, I think--the plan was "Here, we're going to give you all this stuff...now, you figure out how to distribute it and pay for the distribution." It's a way to avoid responsibility.

Second, I have to think that Pfizer and Moderna share some blame as well. Clearly they were not able to ramp up production as quickly as they promised. Now, that may not be entirely their fault; it may be that important ingredients in the manufacturing process are supplied by third parties and those ingredients are the bottleneck--whether because the suppliers are not able to meet demand or because they are coming from overseas and the pandemic itself is causing disruptions to the supply chain.

Third, the state and local governments have to take some responsibility as well. The experience with the PPE supply chain in the spring should have warned them that the federal government, at least under the Trump administration, could not be relied upon to meet its commitments...and that they would need to be prepared to deal with that incompetence. In some cases, it seems the state and local authorities just threw up their hands and said, "We don't have a plan--it's a free-for-all, first-come, first-served, line up and take your chances...." (Florida seems to be the prime example of that.)

It is, of course, too soon to put any blame on the Biden administration; they haven't even been in charge for a week yet. That hasn't stopped some on the right-wing and GOP side of things from pointing fingers: "You said you'd be better at this, why hasn't it improved yet?"

Will it improve? I certainly hope so.

Beginning of the End

 This morning, the news was doing live reports of the first trucks leaving Pfizer's Michigan plant loaded with COVID vaccine. Jill wondered if this were really something that required this kind of coverage, or if it were a circumstance of Pfizer looking for publicity and the media playing along.

I said I think it is a news-worthy event, comparable to coverage of troops boarding ships and planes bound for combat. Since then, another comparison has come to mind: In the days before the launch of Apollo 11, the news media followed the three astronauts constantly. And on the morning of the launch, there were reports on their every move--what they had for breakfast, their farewells to their families, the trip to the launch pad, etc.

 This deserves that kind of coverage...if only to show the public, on a stage-by-stage, day-by-day basis, that the vaccine is real, it is being distributed, it is not being hoarded for the "elite" (and yes, I have seen that accusation being made).

I applaud the media for this.