Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

The communication surrounding how to get a vaccine in my area was not great. They didn’t make clear that you didn’t need an invitation from the state/county in order to make your own appointment at a pharmacy and that it was just if you wanted your shot at a state/county mass vax clinic. My friend’s brother, not a sharp knife, was waiting and waiting for his email invite from the state/county (he signed up and was in the general public/no underlying conditions group). Meanwhile, appointments were available at the CVS down the street from his house. It took a bunch of convincing from his brother that he was allowed to just make his own appointment at the CVS. By the time he got the state/county invite, he’d already had his first dose.

 

Fine. I will agree to disagree with you as well (and I have been the all-time sj.com shitter on political polls as well. Public opinion surveys are garbage, IMO). I "haven't gotten around to" cleaning my gutters.

If we are going to use anecdotes, I literally have not met a single adult person who is undecided or haven't gotten around to it. They either have gotten vaxxed, or are not going to.

Over the next few months, if the vax numbers rise and rise, I will consider myself wrong on this matter.

 

They will rise, just more slowly than before, because marketing a product takes more time than selling it to people eager to buy. Also, public opinion surveys are not garbage. They are flawed but still valuable means of sampling public sentiment. One survey can be way off. Ten or more saying the same thing, probably not. Incidentally, surveys on vaccination have also shown a slow but consistent decline in the "making up their mind" bloc.

 

I would not have been vaccinated anytime soon were my spouse not on the government's rather dull public website early one morning about a month ago.

 

I got into it with one friend on FB. I told him the decision to not get vaccinated was his, but I didn't think he should be telling other people not to get it. It's their choice to make, not his. He came back saying the vaccines are still experimental and the U.S. should not be experimenting on citizens. He will continue to warn Americans against these vaccinations. He is a die-hard Trumper, but he is otherwise a good guy, an Air Force veteran who I've known more than 50 years.

 

The struggle between viewing someone as "a good dude" and "someone who will pass around unfounded 'information', undermining the handling of a public health crisis" has been a tough one for me over the last year.

 

• U.S. should not be experimenting on citizens
• He will continue to warn Americans against these vaccinations
• He is a die-hard Trumper

He's a good dude!

 

My hospital started offering vaccines to friends and family a couple weeks back. I had no takers. A local supermarket had a sign out front yesterday for free COVID vaccines.

 

Aye. Someone who will cheer an attack on the nerve center of the government is an easy place to draw the line.

 

I have had to cut some people out.

 

This is why I “roll my eyes” at the social media “do-gooders” who post that they won’t let “politics” determine who their friends are. At some point, one’s worldview makes us incompatible.

 

I have a "friend" who is literally a propagandist for one of the GOP-media talking heads. He blogs, he goes on shows and podcasts, spreading the usual bullshit. I stuck with him for a long time and would from time to time engage him on Facebook, and I was pretty sure the next time we saw each other face to face, it was going to be OK.

But then in February, I had another Facebook friend - one who fully bought into the horseshit fed to him by first friend's employer - die of Covid. This guy was the walking definition of "pre-existing conditions and should protect himself," who spent a year listening to the "Covid is fake, "we have to be free to live our lives!," "99 percent of people survive", and "you can't make me wear a mask!" narrative.

He finally caught the 'Rona and was predictably dead three weeks later.

So yeah - I unfriended First Friend, and I'm not sure I'll have any thing to say to him the next time we're face to face. Because I'm not sure one can be a "good dude" and be a professional propagandist who has literally spread mis-information which has lead to more deaths. I feel like those two things are not compatible.