'Pandemic of the Unvaccinated?'

Most doctors say masks primarily prevent the wearer from expelling the virus, giving protection to others. — “Your Rights vs. My Rights”

Klamath Falls— This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated, with people who are not getting vaccinated, and by not getting vaccinate are contributing to the crisis. Nationally, as well as in states, and local communities.

There is nothing more tragic than this: the sight of guilt-ridden young children who believe they've killed an unvaccinated parent by bringing the virus home. Of course it isn't the kids' fault they got sick and may have gotten their unvaccinated father or mother deathly ill. While Dad or Mom could've easily gotten vaccinated, the children could not have. "But they still just feel terrible, because they feel like they killed their parent.

COVID vaccine resistance goes on and on and on, even amid the delta variant and amongst the caring hospital workers who can help, if not the dying patients then their survivors. Astonishingly, many of those who've seen a loved one die still refuse to get vaccinated. Most complain they don't know what's in the shot, or they just don't trust it or the government. Or they say they've gone this long without getting it, so they should be fine — unlike their loved one who succumbed to it.

Vaccine hesitancy — an unending stream of patients from some of the most intractably vaccine-hesitant counties in America — shows up even in the most desperately ill. One man on the cusp of needing intubation told a nursing colleague she was an idiot for being vaccinated. "He asked her if she'd had her vaccine, and he was just like, 'You're stupid,'" the nurse says. "Just laid into her about how everybody's falling for what the government says and COVID's not real and you shouldn't get the vaccine. While he's laying in an ICU bed."

Another man — not the only one, mind you — berated the hospital's emergency room staff for urging him to be admitted. He walked out, albeit tethered to oxygen, insisting angrily that COVID isn't real. And then found out that he was at (another hospital) within 12 hours on a ventilator. He was, the whole time, just saying, like, 'COVID's not real. You guys are stupid.' They're just yelling and they leave and then they come back or they go to (another hospital) because they're worse than when they left. And as they're being intubated they still don't believe it.

This is the tragedy tucked inside COVID's calamity. As if our heroes in health care need more on their shoulders, they must deal with hostility toward them and toward the hard-won medicine that could've saved even the quarrelsome — and perhaps saved their young children a lifetime of groundless guilt for having brought the virus home that killed daddy.

Medical professionals work long, incessant hours to save even the belligerent unbelievers, all the while compartmentalizing the monstrous tragedies they endure, just to stay sane and functional. There seems no end to the cruelty, because there seems no end to the unmoved and unvaccinated. Ultimately, the worst part has to be seeing kids who will grow up believing they've killed an unvaccinated parent, when in fact stubbornness, ignorance or cynicism did the deed. And now you have governors, school districts and parents vs. parents with the 'Pandemic of the Unvaccinated?'

Jim Garland 102.7 fm TNT Worldwide https://happs.tv/@JamesGarland