I get that there are legitimate reasons (medical, age and religious) for some people to not get vaccinated. What I don’t get are the people who are not getting vaccinated to make a political statement or out of protest of the government telling them what to do. To those I say, “How many more need to die before you realize the unvaccinated are causing the deaths of others, not only from Covid-19, but because the hospital systems are so overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients the hospitals and providers cannot take care of those who need care for other reasons.” Not getting vaccinated is not the same as not wearing your seatbelt, or not buying car insurance, or doing drugs or any other individual freedom that people believe the government has no right to take away. If a person doesn’t wear a seatbelt or doesn’t buy car insurance, in the end only the individual not complying is the one who gets hurt. Not getting vaccinated and then catching and spreading Covid-19 not only affects the individual who choose not to get vaccinated, but it directly and indirectly affects many other people, some of whom may get sick and die. Those who are choosing to not get vaccinated because they think the government has no right to take away their individual freedom of choice are selfish, self-centered, and irresponsible.
I want to share with portions of an article that appeared in the Detroit News today. This type of plea by prominent people in the healthcare field is happening all around our country.
Those who refuse to take COVID-19 vaccines are creating a deadly domino effect, said Dr. Marschall Runge, CEO of Michigan Medicine and dean of the University of Michigan Medical School. They are getting sick, spreading the virus to loved ones and the community, filling hospital beds and using up scarce medical resources, Runge said during a Wednesday news conference. “The bottom line is COVID-19 is not only life-threatening for those who have COVID-19. The surge of COVID-19 is putting others at risk by keeping us from delivering lifesaving care,” he said, for everything from heart attacks to cancer to strokes. Runge said the death rate from cardiovascular disease went up 3% in 2020 after years of steady declines because people delayed treatment. “People are dying at home all across the state and across the nation and at Michigan Medicine because our hospitals are full. And we need the public’s help to fight COVID-19 for all of us.”
I know what you’re thinking, 3% isn’t much. You are wrong. A three percent increase is an increase of 20,000 deaths from one year to the next. To put this in perspective, the average increase in deaths per year for cardiovascular disease from 2015 to 2019 was 2,300. In 2020 we didn’t have an option of being vaccinated, but we do now. For the sake of your family, your friends, your fellow citizens and for the sake of all the overwhelmed healthcare workers please get vaccinated. Please rethink your position and do it for good of the whole.
What are you doing today to stop violence? What are you doing today to expand mental health services for those in need? What are you doing today to make sure your guns are not are accessible to minors in your household?
Stay Safe. Social Distance. Wear your mask when indoors in public places. Schedule your vaccine and booster.
Orchid of the Day: To the healthcare workers who are speaking out.
Onion of the Day: See above.
Quote of the Day: “Unvaccinated people are basically the cannon fodder of the virus. The virus needs people to infect in order to replicate and the more people it has that are vulnerable or susceptible to infection, the more likely it will mutate.” Michael Saag, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham