Since COVID-19 entered the United States in January, 2020, Republicans have turned it into a “culture war” issue.
President Donald Trump made wearing a mask a referendum on himself. If you were a “manly man”—and supported him-–you didn’t wear one. Even if it cost you your life.
He—and his followers—fiercely opposed “stay-at-home” orders by governors intent on suppressing rising COVID outbreaks in their states.
And when three vaccines appeared in early 2021, Republicans—again led by Trump—refused to say whether they were vaccinated. Some—like Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene—publicly celebrated low vaccination rates among their own constituents.
Others—like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis—threatened to withhold funds from public schools that required students to wear masks. (Only children 12 and older can be vaccinated.)
Ron DeSantis
So it was, ironically, a Republican who fired the first salvo at irresponsible public behavior.
“Folks are supposed to have common sense. But it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down. We’ve got to get folks to take the shot. It’s the greatest weapon we have to fight COVID,” Alabama Governor Kay Ivey told reporters in Birmingham on July 22.
Alabama is one of the least vaccinated states in the country, with roughly 34% of residents fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC had announced in May that fully vaccinated people no longer had to wear masks
But now the even more contagious Delta variant was spreading. Experts warned that vaccinated and unvaccinated people should wear masks indoors where COVID-19 cases were high but vaccination rates were low.
Meanwhile, some of the most prominent corporations in America weren’t waiting for them to do so.
- In May, Delta Airlines began requiring requiring newly-hired employees to show proof of vaccination.
- On August 6, United Airlines announced that it would require its 67,000 U.S. employees to get vaccinated by October 25—or risk termination.
- Hours later, Frontier Airlines announced that its employees must be vaccinated by October 1—or be frequently tested for COVID-19.
- On August 4, Facebook announced that all of its employees would have to prove that they had been vaccinated to return to the office.
- That same day, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a similar email to his staffers.
- Disney is requiring all its salaried and non-union hourly employees in America to be vaccinated.
- Uber announced that its U.S.-based office staff needs to be vaccinated to return to the office. It isn’t requiring the same for drivers.
- Walgreens is requiring vaccinations for all of its corporate employees in the United States.
- Netflix will require COVID-19 vaccinations for the casts of all its American productions, including those who come in contact with them.
- Saks Fifth Avenue is requiring that all employees be vaccinated.
- Walmart CEO Doug McMillon announced in a July 30 memo that all of its American-based corporate employees must be vaccinated by October 4.
- Tyson Foods will require that its 120,000 U.S. employees be fully vaccinated. According to the company, about 56,000 already are.
- Ascension Health will require Covid-19 vaccinations for all of its employees.
- On August 4, Twitter closed its offices in New York and San Francisco and paused further office reopenings. It was already requiring employees to show proof of vaccination.
- Lyft is requiring all employees working in its offices to be vaccinated.
- The Washington Post will require all current employees and new hires to show proof of full COVID-19 vaccinations.
- Morgan Stanley is barring all unvaccinated staff and clients from entering its New York headquarters office
More companies will undoubtedly follow suit.
There are two reasons for this:
First, across the country, hospitals are struggling to cope with the Delta variant—the most contagious strain of Coronavirus yet.
Second, it’s clear that simply offering incentives for behaving responsibly isn’t working.
This week, New York City became the first major city to require proof of vaccination to enter restaurants and gyms.
“I do think it may be time for this to happen,” said Katherine Wu, science writer for The Atlantic, on the August 6 edition of Washington Week.
Katherine Wu
“I’ve seen more and more experts come out in support of mandates and requirements like these. You know, it’s sort of a combination of carrot and stick. If you want to keep having these privileges going out into society and being able to lead a normal life, it is probably a really good idea to [get] vaccinated to ensure not only your health but the people that you’re interacting with.”
* * * * *
A policy only of incentives is a policy of bribery. And a policy only of deterrents is a policy of coercion.
Some people can’t be bought and some can’t be coerced. But history shows that a policy employing both carrots and sticks usually proves highly effective in motivating behavior.
As the school season begins in September, children will be increasingly exposed to the dangers of contracting COVID. Many of them will undoubtedly die.
And as their casualties mount, there will be increased demands for punitive measures against those who put their arrogance above the public good.
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VERMIN IN PARADISE: PART ONE (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 15, 2023 at 12:19 am“My son Don was beaten by two men with a steel pipe last night on Laguna Street and Lombard Street,” read a Nextdoor post by Joan Carmignani, the mother of the former San Francisco Fire Commissioner, Don Carmignani.
She thanked the neighbors who stopped the fight and called 911: “If they were not there my son would be dead! He is in the hospital with a skull fracture, broken jaw and many cuts.”
Camignani was attacked around 7:20 p.m. on April 5 in the upscale San Francisco Marina District.
Five days later, on April 10, one of the largest supermarkets in Downtown San Francisco—the Whole Foods Market at Eighth and Market streets—announced it would shut down at the close of business that day.
The store, operated by Amazon, had been operating slightly more than a year.
White these two incidents might seem to be unrelated, they actually shared a common link: Both were victims of San Francisco’s notorious toleration of DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums.
The Politically Correct name for these people is “homeless.” The accurate name for them is summed up in a German word: “Untermenschen”—“subhumans.”
“Right now, one of my dear friends is in the hospital because last night in the Marina he was attacked by a homeless person with a metal pipe,” San Francisco Supervisor Catherine Stefani, whose District 2 covers the Marina, said in a city meeting.
Stefani explained that Don Carmignani’s mother had called the police because homeless people were doing drugs outside her door and wouldn’t leave. When no police responded, her son came to talk to the men outside her door and was assaulted.
“It was two guys smoking meth or crack in front of his mother’s house, like blocking the entrance, and she’s in her late 70s,” said Ali Jamalian, a friend of Carmignani’s.
Catherine Stefani
Ironically, drugs have played a major role in Carmignani’s life: “He’s a very well-known local cannabis entrepreneur. He’s always been a pro-cannabis landlord and a fighter for the cause,” Jamalian said.
Stefani blamed the lack of police for the assault: “We’re 55 officers short in the Northern Station. That’s a real thing. This isn’t fear-mongering. I’ve been here 21 years, and this didn’t use to happen. I believe this is a direct result of the fact that we do not have enough officers on our street.”
Given the Politically Correct climate of San Francisco, it was almost guaranteed to happen—as was the closing of the Whole Foods store at Market and Eighth.
At its opening, on March 10, 2022, the store operated from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. By October, it opened at 9 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m.
“It’s to better serve our customers, and it’s more or less because of the area and security issues,” said the store’s manager. “There’s just high theft and people being hostile.”
In November, the store enforced new rules for customers after syringes and pipes were found in the restroom. The bathroom was now open only to customers who showed security guards a receipt. Customers were then given a QR code for entry.
It was no coincidence that the bathrooms were often used by drug-abusers—the store was close to the Tenderloin Center, a safe drug-use site.
Crack cocaine
Argv0, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikipedia Commons
Another reason for the change in bathroom policy: Thieves would fill up suitcases with merchandise before going into the restroom.
And who is ultimately responsible for such outrages as the assault on a former San Francisco Fire Commissioner and the closing of a major downtown supermarket?
San Francisco’s topmost officials—the Mayor, Board of Supervisors, District Attorney and chief of the San Francisco Police Department. Together, they have formed an “Untermenschen”-friendly alliance.
The start of the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted a massive loss in foot traffic in downtown San Francisco as employees fled high rises to work remotely from home. Many small businesses—especially restaurants—shuttered.
Compounding this disaster has been an increasing influx of DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums. Sidewalks are littered with tents, used hypodermic syringes and needles, empty beer cans and wine bottles, human feces and pools of urine.
The local and national press have predicted a “doom loop” facing San Francisco, as the city’s tourism rate sharply declines and City Hall officials currently project a nearly $800 million deficit in San Francisco’s budget.
But this has not prevented these same officials from calling for increased efforts to comfort those very parasites who threaten not only their own lives but those of law-abiding San Franciscans and the city’s tourism industry.
On November 3, 2021, National Public Radio’s website carried the following headline: “San Francisco’s new rapid response teams race to save lives as ODs dramatically rise.”
From the story:
“Faced with a stunning rise in drug overdose deaths the last few years, the vast majority tied to fentanyl, San Francisco has launched mobile teams made up of paramedics and nurses.
“The new Street Overdose Response Teams (SORT), a collaboration between the city’s health and fire departments, aim to deliver a broad range of support and care directly following an overdose.”
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