Of Freedom, Country and Vaccination

[michaeltex]

The dumb part of your statement, is this notion that anyone's vaccination status matters one bit. All people spread the virus the same; there is zero difference between the two groups of people, so taking a test or flashing a card that says you did is useless scientifically arrogant.

This is very disingenuous.


True, infected people spread the virus similarly regardless of vaccination status. The missing piece is that vaccinated people are MUCH less likely to get infected in the first place, much less at a virus load high enough to cause transmission. 

So taking a test or showing a vaccination status card is not arrogance, but proof of participation in protecting our American society.

Americans have a history of fragmentation around big issues, but sometimes a crisis brings everyone together for a while. The Spanish flu 100 years ago saw similar noise about masking and isolation, vaccine theory had not developed much yet. The late 1930s US public was very fractured about what was going on in Europe and the Pacific, with even some prominent supporters for Hitler (Lindberg, for example) until 12/7/41. The post-election reactions after 2000 were all over the place and left didn't want much to do with the right, until 9/11/2001.

Somehow a death toll of almost 700,000 Americans isn't enough of a big issue because it has been spread over about 20 months so it has become a sad event, but somehow short of a consolidating crisis.