Vaccinate Or Die

 I have said it before, but as I said it last week to the pharmacist who was giving me the annual flu shot and the first of my three Hepatitis B vaccine, "if you say vaccine, I'll roll up my sleeve."

That's not a blind stupidity.  That's from living for 46 years in close proximity to a man who acquired Polio at the age of 3, and yet survived.  He lost two brothers to other things - one was to what they now think was SIDS, while the other passed from Leukemia, now a treatable and often curable cancer.  It's also because I have had enough family members involved in health care who do the work and research, and know, good and well, how desperately these vaccines are often needed.  

So if you see someone walking with a limp these days, it's most likely due to an injury, and not because they suffered a now-preventable illness that destroyed their muscle tone.  

And probably the best analogy I've seen lately is this:  We're all on a boat together.  Down below the water line, there is a fellow who believes he is not on a boat, he's on a floating island, and there's buried treasure below.  The man refuses to leave his cabin, but he is absolutely insistent on digging a hole to that buried treasure.  We're all in the same boat.  Sure, one small hole won't sink a ship - instantly.  But we're all in the same boat.  If the individual hulls the boat, we're all going to sink.  And at this point, we have two options.  The first is to remove the individual's tools from him so he can do no further damage, or quite simply remove him from the boat.

So if you are not vaccinated by choice, you had damned well better be lookign to remove yourself from the boat.  Find a small, uninhabited island, move there, and stay there.  Do not bring your filthy germy carcass around, because here's the thing.  I am somewhat college-educated as a manager, I've got extensive experience in technology and other fields, and a little bit of exposure to health care.  Therefore, I am no expert of any sort in the field.  And I've done my own research.  Throughout the history of vaccines for humans and other animals, the following is fairly obvious.  Each and every vaccine produced on any scale at all is done by an organization that is, typically, run on a business footing, that is, the organization has formed and is run to in some way bring in more income than they expend in costs.  That is, the business organization exists to make money.

And while much of this must be protected by law, lawyers, and the like, there are few businesses that manage to continue existence over the long term and deliberately choose to deceive those who receive and use their products.  Yes, history is filled with examples of companies that have made wrong decisions.  There are also abundant examples of deliberate fraud and lies, the most recent history of an organization called Theranos - run by a woman named Elizabeth Holmes who will never again bear any sort of credibility, and the organization's name is entirely too close to a cartoon villain for comfort - but these are the exception, rather than the rule.  And if you are absolutely certain that this COVID vaccine is intended to do you harm, then please, by all means, end your health insurance.   You do not need it.  You are not willing to listen to the people who are trying to keep you alive, why should we waste scarce resources now on you, when you have indicated you do not believe them?

I do understand there are people who cannot receive this, and other, vaccines.  They have real, physical reasons.  Things like complex health issues, allergic reactions, and potentially deadly inter-reactions.  The reason we all need to be vaccinated is simple.  The larger the pool of unvaccinated people is, the more bodies this virus can infect.  And each and every new body it encounters is a new opportunity for  the virus to modify itself, become slightly different and more deadly for some.  And so the delta and mu variants are likely to not be the final versions.  

Beyond that, I am of the opinion that we need to spend a fair amount of time building some sort of wall around China, not Mexico.  And the wall around China will likely need to be somewhat virtual - every single product which leaves their lands should be isolated, and then treated to insure that any sort of virus, germ, or infectious agent is no longer effective.  If that means we need to build a giant island in the Pacific powered by solar panels which irradiate, clean, and otherwise hold products for 90 days or however long is determined they need to be held before they are no longer infectious, so be it.  Does that mean that we open every single air-tight package, every single sealed item, and expose it to air where there is no human who can be infected by whatever just crawled out of the toxic sludge China permits to occur around their populated areas, yes.  I'm an environmentalist, in part because we've yet to identify a fallback when we finally determine we've rendered Earth 1.0 uninhabitable, and in part because there is so much on this planet which we do not yet understand.  Such as the way new viruses come into being, and how we might create natural and scientific methods to prevent this from happening without also creating some method to reduce the amount of harm done, as well.  

So on that note, I'll go back to my grouchy spot.  Oh, wait.  I'm already here.  Looks like it's time to begin to prepare for the annual "well, still here, still grouching" day.  I no longer have the opportunity to look forward to one of my mother's wonderfully creative and beautiful birthday cakes, presents from my mother and father, and ... other things.  I do have other things I can look forward to, but this past year and a half has been littered with the loss of friends and family, and the growing realization that I am far closer to the end than I am to the beginning of this wonderful story that is my life.  Which is, I suppose, one of many reasons I'd like to see people who are amendable to change to take the opportunity to prolong their lives.  I mean, it's unlikely that I will be here in another forty years.  My father survived 30 years beyond his 57th year, but I continue to wonder, as my father smoked for many years, had a terrible heart attack when I was only 16, and yet he survived to see my own children.  They were fortunate, even though they now have none of my parents, or my wife's, to see their children.  I would love to be around long enough to see my grand children married.  But right now, I am focused on getting through to tomorrow.  That's the first step.  And as we all know, the journey of many miles begins with a single step.  And a series of steps joined together makes a journey.  All we can do is take it one step at a time.