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Please know that the derogatory title to this post only refers to those who refuse to do the right thing and help their fellow human beings by getting a shot and wearing a mask when necessary. By no means do I mean to offend anyone. But if I do? I couldn’t care less.
What’s it going to take, folks? How many more deaths? How much suffering must the American people endure? It appears that for a particular segment of society, there is no inflection point. Their minds are already made up, so the carrots our governmental leaders have extended to them are no longer worth continuing. It’s time to use the most oversized sticks we can find to whack them over their heads.
Enough.
I want to submit to you some statistics from the Del Norte County Public Health website that will give you a glimpse of what’s going on in a small slice of rural America, of which I am a current resident. While I live in Oregon, my better half works at the only hospital in Del Norte, which sits just south of us across the border in California.
As of August 5, 2021, 40.9% of county residents are fully vaccinated – 53.3% are not. An additional 5.8% are partially vaccinated. As of August 6, there were 159 active cases, 35 new cases, 16 hospitalizations, and ten deaths.
Please keep in mind that Del Norte is a small county, and the hospital only has 40 regular beds and 10 ICU beds. The numbers above are horrific, especially for a hospital and county that have limited resources. So how did the county respond to this rapid spread of COVID? They allowed the county fair, which attracts several hundred people per day – maybe even thousands – to go on as scheduled.
And not only is the fair still going on, but there are no masks or proof of vaccination requirements either. Yes, much of the fair is outside, but indeed this will contribute to more community spread. The people around here are oblivious, at least most of them. Those who did the responsible thing and got vaccinated as soon as they were offered back in January, like my wife, now must contend with those who decided it wasn’t worth their time or effort.
Unfortunately, some of those unvaccinated employees recently got COVID and spread it to vaccinated employees. That’s right, breakthrough infections. And while those breakthrough infection employees are not severely sick, they still are experiencing flu-like symptoms and must be off work for at least ten days. Again, a small hospital dealing with a COVID outbreak needs to be an all-hands-on-deck situation. Missing quarantined employees makes things so much worse.
It didn’t have to be this way. The hospital never required everyone to be vaccinated. Did they strongly suggest they do? Of course. But in this day and age, with stupidity and ignorance at an all-time high, you cannot reason with these people and hope they do the right thing. Because so many of them most certainly will not.
Finally, though, the hospital changed course. The stick, or hammer, if you will, was finally lowered upon the disappointed heads of the irresponsible. As of September 30, all employees must be fully vaccinated or submit to regular testing – at their expense. They were not pleased. You’d think they were asking these people to put on a military uniform and head off to war.
Too bad. If these employees don’t like it? Well, I think you know about the door hitting one’s ass on the way out, right?
We’ve seen, in recent days, these kinds of requirements slowly but surely working their way throughout the country. Corporations, local businesses, and governments are all lowering the boom on the unvaccinated. It’s only fitting that these people start bearing responsibility for the rapid spread of the deadly and dangerous Delta Variant. The rest of us vaccinated folks have done our part. It’s time for them to do theirs.
It’s not going to be easy. Nationally, Republican Governors, especially those who seem to have presidential ambitions, continue not to give a shit about their fellow citizens by banning mask mandates or proof of vaccination.
Florida’s Ron DeSantis continues to do his best disgraced former president imitation by being the biggest jerk and cruel human being in the room. He told cruise ships they couldn’t require proof of vaccination. He also recently threatened local school boards he’d withhold their funding if they put mask mandates in place for kids going back to school.
Meanwhile, his state is raging with the Delta Variant daily with record-high infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. His response? It’s Biden’s fault for not getting the border under control. Yes, much like his hero in Mar-a-Lago, he’s blaming illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America for spreading the disease in his state. Last I checked, I know of no bridge from Mexico across the Gulf of Mexico to Florida, but maybe the Governor knows something I don’t. Are they swimming? By boat, perhaps?
That DeSantis is considered a front-runner for the 2024 nomination – if the Mar-a-Lago guy doesn’t run, of course – tells us all we need to know about what kind of party he belongs to. The bigger the jerk and more inhumane you can be will get you brownie points from the MAGA crowd. Oh, and he’s fundraising based on his response, or lack thereof, to the current disaster in Florida. The grift from these people never ceases to amaze.
And of course, there’s always the right-wing echo chamber that continues to spew misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies. As Dr. Fauci so eloquently put it recently, if Fox News were around during the Polio epidemic, we’d still be dealing with it.
There’s much blame to go around for our current mess. But most of it rests with the failed blogger and twice impeached former 45th president of the United States. He infected us all through his callous disregard and incompetent response to the pandemic. He pimped unproven remedies, politicized mask-wearing, peddled lies and misinformation, and didn’t even have the decency to let us know that he and his wife were both vaccinated until weeks after the fact.
His reign of terror still permeates out here in rural America. The signs are still around, as are the flags proclaiming him the 2024 nominee already. Those who want to be his standard-bearer, if he does not run – DeSantis, plus Governors’ Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Greg Abbott of Texas – continue to fall all over themselves to see which one can be more cruel and incompetent.
However, I sense that the vaccinated in America have had it with those who continue to avoid the shots selfishly. To be clear, and I want to be fair here, millions in America are merely hesitant about getting the vaccine. Polling suggests that they are at least open to changing their minds. Perhaps the coming FDA full approval will spur a big chunk of these folks towards getting the shot(s).
So my ire today is not directed at the hesitant among us. Disappointed, yes, especially considering we’ve had over 165 million vaccinated, with basically no serious side-effects prevalent.
No, the object of my anger and frustration is directed at the deniers, liars, idiots, politicians, and grandstanders who continue to allow this plague to linger in our society. Their selfishness is breathtaking in scope. And, I might add that there are some on the left who fall into this category as well. That means you Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Your father would be ashamed.
Many politicians know better, as do those who call themselves ‘journalists’ over at Fox and the like. No other civilized society has to deal with this type of media bullshit. It truly is a uniquely American experience.
But we know, after months of this misery and surrender to the unvaccinated among us, how to move forward. The proverbial hammer must come down on these folks and come down hard.
If you want to participate in society, whether it’s going to a restaurant, a concert, or getting on a plane, whatever it might be, you’re going to have to show that you’re fully vaccinated.
From President Biden, all the way down to the local community council, it’s time for them to act as quickly as possible before an even deadlier variant of COVID starts to emerge. Hell, it may already be lurking for all I know.
Because I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it with the Covidiots and Maskholes. Nice, doesn’t work with these people. It’s the same way you deal with bullies. Once you finally confront them, they stop bothering you.
Let’s end COVID once and for all. Pissing off some MAGA people in the process will be well worth the effort.
On The Fence Voters 
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