Free At Last . . . Well, Sort Of

There was a guy who lived in a town that was flooding, in danger of a complete breach of the dam higher in the valley.  As the flood water was lapping up against the foundation of his house, firefighters came through offering to help him evacuate.  He declined, saying God would save him.  The rising waters forced him to the second floor of his house; a rescue team came by and offered to help him evacuate, which he declined again saying that God would save him.  Finally, he was forced onto his roof.  A helicopter hovered above, and the crew pleaded with him to evacuate, offering to lift him up.  He declined, saying that God would save him.  Finally, the house was washed away by the flood and the man died.  When he got to Heaven, he asked God why He didn’t save him.  God said, “I tried three times – I sent a firetruck, a boat, and a helicopter.”

I’ll try to keep all the in-law relationships straight, but don’t worry if you don’t follow – that isn’t the point.  Kevin’s sister’s brother-in-law and his wife and the brother-in-law’s sister believe(d) the conspiracies about Covid, denied its existence, and refused vaccines at all costs.  The costs have been staggering:  the sister’s brother-in-law became sick with Covid and died.  His wife has been suffering near-death in the hospital for weeks and is not expected to survive.  To this day, the brother-in-law’s sister is posting conspiracy theories about the fake news of the pandemic and screeds vilifying the vaccine.  What doesn’t she get?

Last evening was beautiful – temperature in the 70s with a light breeze.  We gathered with some friends to enjoy the spring weather.  Jack asked four or five of us if we’d had the shingles vaccine; all of us had.  After a few descriptions of the debilitating pain friends and relatives had suffered from shingles, we encouraged him to get the shots.

Another person sitting on the periphery said that she had tried to get her shingles vaccine, but the doctor wouldn’t give it to her without also getting vaccinated against Covid.  She was quite upset – she wants to get the doctor fired.  She explained to the doctor that she didn’t want the Covid vaccine, that she was more afraid of getting shingles.  I wanted to ask why she suddenly feared shingles, which has been affecting people for longer than I know, and which only results in death in an extremely rare instance of developing a blood infection, yet she declined to be vaccinated for Covid, which can lead to severe illness and has caused more than 600,000 deaths.  But I didn’t.

A few days after that conversation, I read the following in an analysis by The Washington Post:

Covid-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations have been declining in the United States. On May 26, the U.S. case rate, or seven-day average of new confirmed cases per 100,000 residents, was lower than at any point in the past 11 months.

The country’s declining covid-19 case rates present an unrealistically optimistic perspective for half of the nation — the half that is still not vaccinated.

Coronavirus vaccines are virtually perfect in preventing deaths, so the decline in deaths nationally hides the steady covid death rate among unvaccinated people.

“I hope this does not become a tale of two societies,” he said. “The people who are vaccinated and are protected can resume their lives, taking off their masks.

“The people who are not vaccinated are the ones who are not wearing a mask or washing their hands. Those are the very people who often times will socialize and be around similar like-minded people. You’re going to have the pandemic continue in those clusters.”

My wife and I ran into Ben, a young man who sold us some furniture prior to Covid.  He told us that his father died a couple of months earlier (from cancer, not Covid).  When he went to Florida for the funeral, his mother told him that she was going to wear a mask.  He thought that was great but warned her that she and he would be the only people wearing masks because the others were so conservative and susceptible to the conspiracies and false information.  She responded, “I may be conservative, but I’m not a fool.”

Ben’s sister, who has five children, doesn’t believe in the vaccines.  She posts on her Facebook page conspiracy theories about how the vaccines contain tracking microchips so “they” will know everywhere you go and what you do.  He parried that “they” already knew that because she’s posting all of it on Facebook.  She asserted that God would take care of her, to which he replied that God gave her abilities to use, including analysis of information to determine what is true.

I hope that when Ben’s sister gets to Heaven and asks God why He didn’t save her that He doesn’t tell her He tried three times:  Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson.

Note:  The t-shirt is from Signals.com, which offers a cornucopia of shirts with different themes, in addition to other merchandise.