The Lament Of The Vaccinated

// “I don’t want to lose my humanity,” said one furious, and vaccinated, person recently.

I thought that rant deserved a wider audience — paraphrased, of course.

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“Most people get vaccinated to protect themselves from just about everything.  Polio has been eradicated because basically everyone got a polio vaccine.  Childhood diseases — mumps, measles, chicken pox — are largely things of the past. Medicine advanced, we created vaccines, and people took the vaccines.  Almost no one objected.

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“Yet now, for political reasons, people refuse to get vaccinated against COVID.  That’s just crazy, but I’m afraid I’m the person being driven insane. I’m starting to loathe the unvaccinated.

“You get vaccinated against COVID only partially for your own benefit. It’s true that the vaccine will probably protect you from hospitalization or death, but that’s not the only reason you get vaccinated. You get vaccinated to protect others — family, friends, strangers — who inhale the air that you exhale. You get vaccinated to reduce the number of people who get COVID, and thus to minimize the opportunities the virus has to mutate and make life worse for us. You get vaccinated because keeping you out of the hospital helps not only you, but society as a whole. When hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID patients, then routine hospital care slows down. People who have strokes or heart attacks — and must be treated promptly — are given slower care because the emergency rooms and intensive care units are stuffed to the gills with unvaccinated COVID patients.  We’re all suffering, and some people are dying, because you refuse to be a responsible member of society.

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“When I hear that some politician or social media influencer who railed against vaccines then contracted COVID and died, I don’t want to feel good about that.  I’m a human being. I don’t want to lose my humanity.

“I don’t want to think that society was helped by that person’s death or that it’s about time we started thinning the herd.

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“But I can’t help myself.  These people are doing it to themselves.

“Suppose 95 percent of the population had gotten vaccinated by summer 2021, and the United States had protected its borders. Would COVID already be endemic? I don’t know. But, at a minimum, the hospitals wouldn’t be stretched beyond their limits. It’s the unvaccinated who keep us from returning to normal.

“I’m mad — in both senses of the word.  I’m angry, and I’m being driven insane.

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“I understand the debates about COVID. It’s not obvious that we should ever have shut down the economy to prevent the spread of the disease. It’s not obvious whether keeping schools open does more good than harm. There are real questions about COVID, and we should think about them.

“But not getting vaccinated? That’s a no-brainer. I know I’m not supposed to insult the unvaccinated, because that’s no way to persuade them.

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“But, admit it: They’re idiots.

“And, admit it: It’s getting harder and harder to be concerned about unvaccinated people who get seriously ill or die.

“That’s what disturbs me.

“I’m a decent person. I don’t want people to unnecessarily become ill or die. The situation with the unvaccinated is stealing my decency.

“The unvaccinated are causing me to care less about humanity.

“If a lot of people feel the same way that I do, then COVID is two plagues in one:  It’s a virus, and it also causes us to lose some of our concern for mankind.”

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].

Topics

COVID-19, In-House Counsel, Mark Herrmann, Vaccines