The coming wave of remorseful anti-vaxxers
Some people are learning about COVID-19 the hard way.
I saw many anti-smoking public service announcements when I was a child. Most of them were forgettable, and a few so cringey they probably gave Imperial Tobacco Canada a whole new generation of smokers out of pure spite.
But there is one that did have a strong effect on me, and which I’ve never forgotten: Yul Brynner, in an ad recorded shortly before his death from cancer, beseeching viewers not to make the same mistake he made.
And I didn’t.
I thought about that message when I came across this story from Arkansas, about a mother who resisted getting vaccinated against COVID-19, only to find her daughter fighting for her life in the hospital:
Angela Morris' daughter, Caia Morris Cooper, is fighting for her life at Arkansas Children's Hospital.
She said the hardest part about watching her child suffer is that the entire thing was preventable.
"It's very hard to see her in this situation. It's very hard not knowing if she's really going to come home anymore or not," Morris said. "It's heartbreaking. I wish I would've made better choices for her."
She has spent the last 12 days inside Arkansas Children's Hospital watching her 13-year-old breathe with the help of a ventilator.
Morris said it started with only flu-like symptoms.
"I really thought that since she stayed home a lot and when I went out, I always wore my mask. I really thought that she was going to be protected," she said.
Morris said that she decided against vaccinations for both herself and Caia due to misinformation .
"I just had a false sense of security that it was just like the flu and it wasn't that serious. Obviously it is that serious and it was that serious. Now, I can see," she said.
Unsurprisingly, the response on Twitter was pretty vicious, with people saying they hope and pray for her daughter’s recovery but savaging her for her stupid, short-sighted, misinformed decision.
Well, yeah, pretty much. I won’t say I have no sympathy for her - as a parent, I’m always going to have a place in my heart for someone at risk of losing a child - but it is her own bloody fault her daughter is in this mess.
That said, we need people in her situation to swallow their pride and publicly speak out about how they fucked up and that other people shouldn’t make their mistake. Unfortunately, there’s a large cohort of Americans who’ve made up their minds they aren’t going to listen to politicians (outside of the Trump cult, of course) or doctors or celebrities. But other people from the same background? That just might change some minds.
And there will be more. Many more. Keep an eye open for other news stories in the coming weeks, from people who refused to be vaccinated, only to end up on ventilators. Or, even worse, for their children to end up on ventilators. They will deserve scorn - they should have known by now to get vaccinated and end this pandemic - but speaking out when it’s too late is better than saying nothing at all.
In the meantime, the percentage of Canadians fully vaccinated against COVID-19 has now surpassed that of the United States - I’m legitimately surprised Trudeau didn’t call a new election right then and there - but even we may be hitting our own vaccination wall:
Canada has gone from a vaccine laggard to a world leader in COVID-19 immunizations in just a few months' time — thanks to an ambitious vaccination campaign that has so far blunted the spread of the much more virulent delta variant.
More than 79 per cent of those eligible for a shot have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
While that's a high number, it suggests there are still more than six million people over the age of 12 who have chosen to forgo a shot altogether, or wait for a later date.
The number of unvaccinated Canadians is roughly equivalent to everyone living in the Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Quebec City metropolitan areas combined.
[…]
After a blitz in April and May, the number of new first doses being administered has stalled at well under 100,000 daily since June 16. That means it would take months more to immunize the remaining holdouts at the current pace.
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, said recently the vaccination campaign has produced impressive results. But it's not enough, she said, to simply hit the government's early target of 75 per cent of the eligible population with a single shot when the much more contagious delta variant — which appears to be twice as virulent as other strains — is circulating widely.
Comparing ourselves to the USA with a mix of smugness and envy is our national sport (at least until the Stanley Cup returns home for good), so we Canadians will be very proud of reaching this milestone. But the goal is not to beat the Americans, but to beat a pandemic. Over the last two years, fate has laughed at people, organizations and countries who thought they were over this thing.
With human rights activists like this, who needs David Duke and Louis Farrakhan?
Roth is taking a lot of heat from people who inexplicably thought his blatant excusing of and blame-shifting for antisemitism was blatant excusing of and blame-shifting for antisemitism. Among his critics: the author of the Ha’aretz article he uses to make his point:
But I think people should go easy on him. Roth and his organization, Human Rights Watch, have a long history of pointing out that attacks against Muslims were understandable because of righteous anger and grief about 9/11, and that the Chinese government fuels anti-Asian racism by its actions in Xinjiang.
Oh, right. They never run interference for bigotry and hatred like that, except when Jews are involved. Funny how that always happens.
These tweets actually remind me of another infamous Twitter post by someone who tried to justify and excuse appalling violent behaviour because the perpetrators’ feelings were hurt. It appears to have been deleted or some reason, but I think I found it:
Hey, he said the beer belly putschists should leave and be peaceful. Interesting how many people pretend that this tweet justified the Capitol insurrection (it doesn’t and Trump doesn’t under any circumstances) rather than address the correlation between recent blatant theft of the Presidential election and the rise of brave American Patriots trying to take back their country.
If you’re ever sad about the state of the world, just remember that you were lucky enough to be alive while Giannis Antetokounmpo was playing basketball.