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Many of you may feel I'm being a little unfair with parts of today's column. Others, I'm confident, will agree with every word. And then, some of you might be - in plain English - pissed-off by the entire editorial. If you are...so be it. Why? Because some of you are interfering with my life. Anyone in the United States who is not willing to be fully vaccinated with one of the Food and Drug Administration's approved COVID-19 vaccines is making it impossible for the rest of us to return to pre-pandemic normal living. By not getting vaccinated, you're causing this deadly disease to not only remain a viciously violent force against us, but you're somewhat responsible - if not largely responsible - for COVID-19 mutating in to multiple variants, which could be more perilous than the original, and that could eventually bring illness or death to hundreds-of-thousands or perhaps millions more Americans.
Accuse me of being selfish, but I don't care. If you're refusing to be vaccinated, YOU'RE being selfish, and you're stealing from me valuable and precious time that I could be spending with some of my loved ones and friends - including my 90-year-old mother and my four-and-a-half-week-old grandnephew; both of whom live across the nation from me, and the latter I have yet to meet in person. In fact, most of my family live in areas of our country where I would - at this point in my life - have to travel by air. And although being on a passenger-packed airplane, or in a crowded airport, doesn't fear me, it does scare others who then don't want to be near me unless I'm quarantined for several days and then COVID-tested more than once and with consecutive negative results. I have no problem doing that and I respect the reasons for being cautious and careful; especially with a newborn baby.
The truth is - even though I'm triple-vaccinated, having been innoculated with the first and second dose of the Pfizer vaccine plus the so-called "booster shot" (a fact I will mention multiple times throughout this column) - there is a chance, slight that it might be, that I could contract the coronavirus and test positive for COVID, but without becoming sick myself. Or, if I did get exposed and came down with symptoms, I more than likely would not -
according to most physicians and healthcare experts - end up ill enough to require admittance to a hospital. But of course my personal doctors, the physicians at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Dr. Anthony Fauci himself cannot guarantee me that my body won't be invaded, and that I won't feel as if I was attacked by the shark from Jaws. Obviously, COVID can't bite off a limb or swallow me whole, but people who have suffered from the coronavirus have described this disorienting disease as being like "an alien takeover." Another COVID survivor told The New York Times - as the newspaper reported in an article on May 7, 2020 - that having the coronavirus felt "like someone (was) inside my head (who) was
Personally, I'm not overly worried today about getting sick with the coronavirus. Being triple-vaccinated, the odds are that it won't happen. But I'm not stupid. After all, I'm a two-time cancer survivor with other immune system issues. But I can't live in a bubble forever. Oh I was plenty
frightened for about thirteen months; that is before I got my first and second vaccinations. For more than a year - unless my own health dictated a visit to a doctor or to a hospital for a test or a procedure - I didn't leave my apartment except to be outdoors while wearing a mask and remaining socially distant from everyone. I entered no supermarkets, no stores of any kind, nobody else's homes, and as the photograph to the left proves, I didn't even get a haircut. Actually, since my last haircut before the
pandemic was on January 25, 2020, it was exactly fifteen months to the day when - on April 25, 2021 - my hair stylist gave me a makeover.
Now that I'm triple-vaccinated, my anxiety about COVID has reduced. That being said, I'm certainly not a fool. I understand that although the risk is minuscule, breakthrough cases do occur and a fully vaccinated person could infect others. Until babies and young children are recipients of the vaccine, there is the possibility - again, small that it might be - that an infant, toddler, or pre-pubescent youth could get seriously ill from someone who has, in fact, been vaccinated. Pfizer wants the FDA to authorize Emergency Use of their COVID-19 vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11. That's more than 28 million Americans. The FDA is scheduled to meet on October 26, 2021 to consider Pfizer's request. Meanwhile, expert advisers to the CDC are expected to have their conference on November 2 and 3 to make their recommendations. The federal government has typically given the CDC the last word on coronavirus policies; including vaccines. The childen's dose is one-third of the adult dose, and clinics all across America should start stocking up on lollipops because vaccines to the youngsters are likely to begin early next month. Should Pfizer be given the go-ahead for vaccinations to 5 to 11-year olds, that would still leave infants and children under 5 without the approval for shots. I'm hoping that goal will be accomplished by the end of 2021.
Yes, Mr. President, it IS totally unacceptable. Republicans are avalanching a mountain of misinformation. There are some governors, U.S. senators, members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and other politicians - generally thought to be Republicans, not Democrats - who I think are willing to put their constituents at risk in their despicable desire to destroy America while a Democratic President sits behind The Oval Office desk. And, baffling as it is, they're all acting like a flock of stupid
sheep as they continue to follow the twice impeached Florida narcissist Donald Trump, who is going to lead them to the slaughterhouse. Trump's combative cohorts are echoing his lies, as they cascade those falsehoods like diarrhea in a commode of deceit. Meantime, the corrupt conservative commentators at Fox News are fueling the fire by spewing their vindictive venom into the already brainwashed minds of the Trump base. Sadly and tragically, it wouldn't bother Republicans who fit the category if they...kill the country...if it helps their party win control of both chambers of Congress in 2022, and if it's the ammunition they need so that their 2024 nominee for president is handed the keys to The White House on January 20, 2025. Some Republicans - not all, but some - will do anything they can - whether immoral or unethical, hateful or sinful, dishonest or illegal - in order to claim victory in an election. Revenge and retribution are all that Trump Republicans in Congress and the Trump base of voters care about. Until Donald Trump, Republicans - at least for the most part - didn't feel that way. But that changed with Trump. It is believed by some that Satan seduces humans in to sin. Trump does the same with congressional Republicans and others elsewhere. And they have sold their souls to "the devil."
The mantra for most Republicans seems to be the following. If Democrats think it's good, then it has to be bad. President Biden wants everyone vaccinated. Therefore, in the eyes of those particular Republicans, COVID vaccinations are either to be given voluntarily, or avoided altogether. President Biden, on September 9, 2021, ordered private-sector companies with more than 100 employees to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations or test for the virus weekly. Mr. Biden's action affects about 80 million people. The President also laid down the law, so to speak, for approximately 17 million healthcare workers who receive their paychecks from facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid funding. They are required to be fully vaccinated, as are several million more people who are employed by the federal government or who are contractors that do business with "Uncle Sam." Such individuals cannot bargain for testing in lieu of vaccinations.
In a perfect world - or at least in a perfect United States of America - vaccinations would never have become political. But Trump, plus certain other influential Republicans, and the lunatics at Fox News, have somehow been able to convince 67 million eligible Americans to reject their innoculations. They haven't gotten any shots at all. (That statistic is from The Associated Press on October 7, 2021). On the positive side of the vaccination issue, as of October 12, 2021, NBC News reported that 56.5 percent of the entire U.S. population (that's 188.4 million people) are considered fully vaccinated with at least two shots of the Pfizer vaccine, two shots of the Moderna vaccine, or one shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Booster shots are not included in the aforementioned statistics.
Ending the pandemic would not only save lives, it would put the American workforce back on the job and be the financial boost our country needs. Such accomplishments would almost ensure Democrats to retain control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives next year and re-elect President Biden three years from now.
Politics aside - which I've already stated, it has no business being part of the COVID-19 pandemic or the vaccinations necessary to stop it - my focus returns to how this pandemic has personally affected me; along with each of you who are vaccinated. Babies are being born and grandparents, uncles, aunts and others have not been able to share in the on-site happiness when a new mommy and daddy in your family bring their son or daughter home from the hospital. Birthday parties, holiday celebrations and other festivities with family and friends have had important and special people missing; and it's mostly because of COVID-19.
For more than two centuries, vaccines have changed people's lives for the better. Check out the following list. 1796 - SMALLPOX, 1885 - RABIES, 1890 - TETANUS, 1896 - TYPHOID FEVER, 1906 - TUBERCULOSIS, 1923 - DIPHTHERIA, 1926 - WHOOPING COUGH, 1932 - YELLOW FEVER, 1937 - INFLUENZA, 1952 - POLIO, 1963 - MEASLES, 1967 - MUMPS, 1969 - RUBELLA, 1974 - CHICKENPOX and 2020 - COVID-19. You'd probably be dead if you didn't have (or, in certain cases, such as rabies, you weren't able to get) the listed vaccines. I know my next statement will sound like "a Yogi Berra-ism," but don't wait until you're dead to get double-vaccinated (or even triple-vaccinated) to prevent COVID-19/the coronavirus. Dr. Fauci, in a podcast interview with theSkimm on September 12, 2021, warned that we must get practically every American fully vaccinated in order to stop the transmission of the disease. "If we get the overwhelming proportion of the population vaccinated we will get to herd immunity. If we do it in the next six months, it will happen in the next six months. If we do it in the next two months, it'll happen in the next two months." Dr. Fauci feels that if health and government authorities can't convince people to get vaccinated then business owners and school officials need to make it mandatory for workers, students and teachers. That same day, September 12, Dr. Fauci - who is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Chief Medical Adviser to President Biden - told a convention of journalists that getting the pandemic under control could take "many, many more (vaccine) mandates." Dr. Fauci says "we have the tools to end this, and yet we're not doing it." But here's an additional problem. If more governors respond to mandates the way the Republican governors of
based in Fort Worth, Texas - insists "the federal vaccine mandate supercedes any conflicting state laws." Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, on October 12, 2021, proposed a law to shield all workers in "The Sunshine State" from being fired from their jobs for not getting COVID-19 vaccinations. Can DeSantis make such a decision on his own through an executive action, or would such a ruling require passing of an actual law by the state legislature? DeSantis says he is exploring his options.
So I conclude this column the same way I began it. I first address my comments to anyone who has not been fully vaccinated. If that's you, and you've not gotten your shots, why the hell haven't you? If you're eligible, those of you who aren't vaccinated, and those of you who convey and promote fake reports, you're what I call..."COVID Culprits." It was March 11, 2020 when the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus/COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic. Two days later, on March 13, 2020, Donald Trump declared the pandemic a national emergency. Since then, more than 700,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19. I don't think you want to be part of the next horrific milestone in America; 800,000 dead, 900,000 dead, 1 million Americans dead because of COVID-19. By you not being protected against COVID-19, you're worsening a pandemic that could likely come to a end; at least in the United States. Instead, I, and millions of other Americans, are aching through - with misery and anguish - this brutally treacherous and relentlessly threatening healthcare crisis.
Throughout my professional career as a journalist, I have advocated for the rights of others and for the freedoms and liberties we enjoy as Americans. However, just as you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater, unless there are flames - or at least smoke - spreading phony information about the COVID-19 vaccines is tantamount to being criminal. With freedom of speech, some legal experts and constitutional scholars (perhaps all) would argue that expressing fantasies and fabrications about a disease - even a deadly one that has killed nearly 5 million people worldwide - is an American's right to have an opinion and, therefore, such conduct is not actually unlawful, so cannot be grounds for arrest. But your unconscionable behavior makes you no better than a felon. Oh I know that's a harsh statement, but your lack of human decency alone is enough evidence for this judge - along with (I believe) a jury of millions - to render a verdict of guilty as charged. The same applies to anyone who won't get vaccinated. If any of the aforementioned "COVID Culprits" desire a suspended sentence, all it will take is for you to get vaccinated and, if it applies to you, to stop your deception. In other words...shut up! Be smart. Save your life and the lives of your family and friends. It's the American thing to do. It's the human thing to do.
And that's The Controversy for today.
I'm Gary B. Duglin.
"We'll talk again."
The Controversy is a publication of GBD Productions. Founder and Editor-In-Chief of The Controversy is Gary B. Duglin.
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