October, 2021 archive
Inquiring Minds Want To Know 0
The writer of a letter to the editor of The Roanoke Times has some questions.
Vaccine Nation 0
Afterthought:
I had a chance discussion yesterday with one of my neighbors while we were picking up our mail.
Both of us remember images on the telly vision of children in iron lungs because of polio. Both of us had childhood diseases–chicken pox, measles (I didn’t have mumps when I was a kid, but my parents did while I was a kid and it was scary for this kid–they were both sick in bed together being miserable)–for which there are now vaccines. Both of us remember the sense of relief when the Salk and Sabin vaccines became available. Both of us remember when vaccine records (AKA “vaccine passports”) were routine things. (I don’t know if my neighbor has kids, but I certainly remember keeping my kids’ “vaccine passports” up-to-date so they could attend school.)
My friend mentioned to my neighbor that I had had a reaction to my COVID booster (I’ll take the reaction over COVID seven days a week and twice on Sundays). He told me that a long-time friend of his had refused to get vaccinated (“He woudln’t get the shot”) and had recently passed away from COVID and that said friend’s wife, who had also refused to get vaccinated, had fallen ill, but had recovered.
I know nothing about my neighbor’s political leanings, and I did not ask.
But we agreed that a sizable portion of our polity has eschewed the concept of the common good.
Droning On 0
Concord, California, plans to become Big Brother launch an aerial surveillance city state.
Computer Illiteracy . . . 0
. . . is a thing in the Missouri Governor’s mansion.
Public Healthiness 0
At NJ.com, Clifford Kulwin reports on his visit to a polity where the pandemic did not become politicized. A snippet:
Shortly after my arrival, a friend emailed,“ do you feel safe there?” I answered honestly. “Safer than I do at home.”
Vaccine Nation 0
WHYY (my old NPR station when I lived in the Philly area) takes a look at how taking sensible health precautions has morphed into a theater of stupid. Here’s an excerpt; follow the link for the rest (emphasis added).
But Republicans have grown increasingly hostile to the notion of mandatory vaccines — despite vaccine mandates existing in the background in parts of the United States since the 19th century — and have parlayed the fight against COVID-19 into a political battle, with vaccine mandates as the latest frontier in the great American defense of freedom and liberty. . . . .
“Somehow it has morphed into not getting the vaccine as a way to defend their freedom and resist this ‘tyranny,’ ” said Ken Resnicow, a professor in the school of public health at the University of Michigan. “There’s not many countries that have this dynamic.”
