UNVACCINATED PEOPLE have only themselves to blame as they gasp their final breaths in intensive care, begging for a vaccine they know will never arrive in time, as the nurse softly says "sorry, its too late". The guilt, the fear, the pain on their faces is excruciating to behold, I am told. There are not anti-vaxxers in ICU. By then, they have all converted to an attitude they could have and should have had all along. Models have been built on computers showing what would have happened without the vaccines. the upshot? Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of deaths and severe cases, comprehensive economic collapse, an enduring economic depression. Conversely, if everyone had been vaccinated by, say, July 4, the pandemic would now be over, the economy restored. This, notwithstanding the fact that had the United States been led by a competent rather than a corrupt administration throughout 2020, the initial epidemic would have been greatly mitigated. now we are confronted with yet another unnecessary plague, all because of a certain segment of the American population unwilling to take the necessary action to prevent it. Nearly half the American people remain unvaccinated, even though more than six hundred thousand Americans have already died, with many more soon to follow. So greatly do Americans value their "freedom", their freedom to ignore science, common sense, and expert advice, their freedom to believe nonsense, their freedom to be utterlly unconcerned about the welfare of their families, friends, communities and country, that they have chosen mass death over health and life. An idiotic state Senator recently stated that getting a vaccination was a matter of personal choice,, personal responsibility. he could not have been more wrong. Vaccinating is not a matter of personal responsibility, but rather, a matter of public responsibility, responsibility to all other human beings. Aside from our ongoing American epidemics of cancer, diabetes, opioid addiction and death, and Covid 19 redux, among others, we the American people are afflicted with an epidemic of mental illness, perhaps precipitated by anxiety and stress, manifesting frequently in extreme narcissism and delusion. the healthcare profession and its various attendant organizations are beginning to call attention to this, and to devise strategies to combat it. When nearly half the American population a and may in fact be a government plot it insinuate people with brainwashing and mind control computer microchips, what other reasonable conclusion is there, but that we as a nation have a very serious mental health crisis. the issue isn't whether any of these ostensibly outlandish claims are true; it is the reasons and causes for their widespread acceptance, lacking any evidence to support them. Culturally, there are troubling signs. So self absorbed and insular are most Americans that they spend more on make up and stylish clothing than personal health care, more on escape entertainment than education, and, as a friend of mine from china pointed out long ago, correctly, as he observed American culture from an "outsider" perspective, we care more about our dogs and cats than we do each other. On that account, I plead "guilty", proudly, thus my use of the pronoun "we". Here in freedom's land, everything must be personal, private, and free of government interference, almost paronoically. Today's Americans have fewer friends and fewer social and community connections than their parents and grandparents, studies indicate, despite the advent of social media, much greater urban population density, and inexpensive means of communication. It is no longer normal or common for neighbors to be friends, or to even know each other. In our use of language and matters of style, we imitate each other like sheep, but retreat to our self styled self confined cultural bubbles. So perhaps our most damaging epidemic is an epidemic of alienation, of atomization, of loneliness. For every epidemic there are cures. Let's work on them one a time, starting with Covid 19. Let's get everyone vaccinated, including the unwilling.
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