“Whatcha doin' this weekend?”
“Oh, I'm going dancing at _____________," I’d reply.
And he’d say something like: “People still go to that place? I guess there’s no accounting for taste, huh? I can’t believe that dump is even still open.”
He would do this with everything. It didn’t matter what my answer was. Everything I liked, he dismissed — by way of making me feel that whatever I did or planned was beneath him. I don’t think his intention was to insult. I just think he felt he was this special breed of human being, singular in his specialness.
I’m reminded of him every time I hear people go on about how they’re not going to get the coronavirus vaccine.
Their “caution” feels almost neurotic, based on little more than the thrill of contrarianism. The “I’m so unique and different” of it all. They seem to want, more than anything else, to show that they’re smarter than the average bear. Like the pompous hipster who says, “You wouldn’t even know the bands I listen to.”
Little do these people know how unspecial they are.
I recently had the opportunity to hear a 95-year-old man speak on the subject of covid-19. When asked if he’d gotten the vaccine, he responded that he received it as soon as it was available. He went on to say that, in his long life, he has seen this behavior over and over again with regard to vaccines. He has lived through the people who were smarter than the measles vaccine and the mumps vaccine, smallpox, polio; There has always been a percentage of the population that refused them.
I am following the lead of the man who lived to be 95 years old. Not some dude from Daytona Beach with an Internet connection who believes that his immune system alone will storm the castle should covid’s time come. Daytona Beach dude does not want to be told what to do. None of us do.
There are those who refuse the vaccine simply because they do not like the current administration. This, I believe, to be little more than pouting, a child holding his breath in the grocery store as a protest for not getting a cookie before checkout.
I do not understand the unvaccinated. Is their fear that medical science is trying to poison half of the United States? Half the world? I guess it all comes down to trust. And yes, in the end, you can do with your own body whatever you please. But I cannot ignore how few cases of measles, smallpox, mumps and polio we deal with these days. I based my choice on that.
I have seen the news coverage of those who have lost loved ones to this disease. I have seen the coverage of those who have died and, with their final words, wished that they had not refused to believe in its existence. And I also know that preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that 99.5 percent of the people who have died from covid-19 in recent months were unvaccinated.
And still I have spoken to people, some of whom are friends, who refuse it. Their reasoning made me only want to get vaccinated more than ever.
I choose to believe the doctors and scientists because death is a truth that cannot be denied, even by those who believe themselves invincible and immune.
Recently, at a big-box store, I ran into the dude who used to belittle everything. He spotted me before I could dive behind the vacuum cleaner display. We talked about the state of the world for a bit, as one does nowadays. He wore a mask. He told me he is fully vaccinated.
He did not miss the opportunity to tell me that my favorite restaurant is bourgeois. But I am happy that he’s still around to explain to me the error of my ways.
Read more:
"Opinion" - Google News
July 19, 2021 at 08:37PM
https://ift.tt/36NP9lM
Opinion | Why many of the unvaccinated insist on going without - The Washington Post
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
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