Posts Tagged ‘VACCINES’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 2, 2022 at 12:30 am
On July 23, 2021, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene found something to celebrate in Alabama.
Alabama had the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rate of any state in the nation.
Days later, Alabama’s health leader said officials had tossed out more than 65,000 coronavirus vaccines that expired. They had expired due to low demand.
And that low demand had resulted from Right-wingers’ politicization of the virus.
But that wasn’t enough to satisfy Greene.

Marjorie Taylor Greene
“Well, what they don’t know is that in the South we all love our Second Amendment rights. And we’re not real big on strangers showing up at our front door, are we? They might not like the welcome they get.”
In short: People should shoot volunteers promoting coronavirus vaccines through door-to-door outreach.
Her audience—at the Alabama Federation of Republican Women fundraiser—applauded and laughed at the idea of such murders.
Naturally, through her spokesman, Nick Dyer, Greene denied that she suggested people shoot those promoting vaccines.
“Your colleagues in the fake news are making things up and attributing things to her that she did not say,” he wrote in an email.
This despite the fact that Greene’s words had been captured in a video—and countless people had seen it after it was shared on the Internet.
When asked if Greene herself was vaccinated, Dyer refused to answer.
“It really gets at the heart of the public’s trust in our government and the messaging around solid public health measures based on the science,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.
“Our local health officials who are working on the ground are not political. They are completely apolitical,” she told CNN.
She added that Greene’s comments were “disheartening and distressing.”
“Outrageous and violence-encouraging” would have been a more accurate description.
Greene’s comments demonstrate the twin pillars of Right-wing orthodoxy toward COVID-19:
- Ignorance and
- Violence.
Donald Trump, as President, vividly personified both.
The apex of his embrace of violence came on January 6, 2021, when he refused to permit an orderly transition from one administration to another.
Instead, he incited a mob of his fanatical followers to attack members of Congress who were about to count the Electoral College votes cast for the 2020 Presidential election.

Donald Trump addresses his Stormtrumpers
Trump had lost that election: 81,255,933 votes had gone to former Vice President Joseph Biden, as opposed to 74,196,153 votes for himself.
Yet even before embracing that final grotesque moment of infamy, Trump had been responsible for the deaths of 400,000 Americans.
The COVID-19 catastrophe slammed into the United States in January, 2020. It was the inevitable result of a natural disaster colliding with an evil and incompetent administration.
Trump’s “cures” for COVID-19 included
- Denial;
- Lies;
- Republican subservience;
- Chaos;
- Extortion;
- Propaganda as news;
- Quackery as medicine;
- Demands to “re-open the country”;
- Ignoring the danger; and—finally—
- Resignation (“Learn to live with it”)
Early on, Trump made the virus a referendum on himself. If you supported him, you didn’t wear a mask when you ventured out in public. This despite the fact that, throughout 2020, there was no vaccine available and hospitals were rapidly overwhelmed by debilitated and dying casualties of the virus.
“I think, once Donald Trump and other Republicans made it a manhood issue, or a freedom issue, or whatever kind of issue they made it, it’s hard to walk back that culture war signal,” said conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks on the PBS Newshour on July 23, 2021.
Washington Post Columnist Jonathan Capehart echoed him: “I think, if we had had a president of the United States who took this seriously when this first came on the scene, if we had a Republican party that took this seriously enough to warn everyone, their constituents saying, wash your hands, then put on a mask, then go get the vaccine, we wouldn’t be where we are right now.”

Jonathan Capehart
But neither Trump nor the Republican party urged Americans to “wash your hands, put on a mask, then go get the vaccine.”
By March, 2021, three vaccines—by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson—became available. A total of 90.4 million doses of these vaccines had been given. And 30.7 million Americans had been fully vaccinated against the virus.
But after a triumphant beginning, the pace of vaccinations slowed, then halted. By late July, 2021, only 49.6% of Americans had been fully vaccinated.

COVID-19 vaccination map – July 21, 2021
George Karabassis, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Many of those who had gotten one shot of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines refused to get the necessary second one. These must be given almost a month apart.
(The Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires only one shot.)
And leading the way to this catastrophe of self-destruction were the states of the South and Midwest: Mississippi (47.1%,), Alabama (50.5%), Arkansas (53.2%), and Tennessee (52.9%) with the lowest rates of residents who have gotten at least one shot.
By late July, 2021, three states—Florida, Texas and Missouri—with lower vaccination rates accounted for 40% of all cases nationwide.
And colliding head-on with the refusals of millions to get vaccinated was the newer—and deadlier—Delta variant of COVID-19.
By July 27, 2022, there were 90.8 million COVID-19 cases in the United States—and 1.03 million deaths.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 30, 2021 at 12:10 am
As millions of Right-wingers refused to get vaccinated, the newer—and deadlier—Delta variant of COVID-19 moved in for the kill.
The result: A massive overcrowding of hospitals—where those who refused to get vaccinated are now taking up beds needed for legitimate victims of strokes, heart attacks, accidents and crime.

COVID-19 vaccination map – July 21, 2021
George Karabassis, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Even after three COVID-19 vaccines have been developed, millions of Right-wingers refuse to get vaccinated. Although they refuse women the right to abortion, they insist “It’s my body!” when it came to mandatory vaccinations.
As a result, in states won by Trump in the 2020 Presidential election, hospitals surge with unvaccinated COVID-19 patients—and graveyards fill with them.
Every hospital bed taken by an unvaccinated Stormtrumper is a bed denied to a legitimate medical patient—such as a victim of stroke, heart attack, accident or crime.
Yet President Joseph Biden has refused to blame those men and women who are directly responsible for this outrage.

Joseph Biden
Doing so would not only be accurate—it would enable Biden to place blame on his sworn political enemies and thus enhance his own popularity: “We would have achieved freedom from COVID-19—but these people have sabotaged their country’s safety out of sheer selfishness and arrogance!”
Trump viciously attacked the nation’s free press as “the enemy of the American people.” But Biden and his fellow Democrats refuse to blame those most responsible for the nation’s continuing COVID-19 epidemic.
As a result, millions of Americans believe it’s Biden’s fault for not delivering a miracle after he stated, on March 12:
“If we do this together [get vaccinated] by July 4, there is a good chance you, your family and friends can get together in your backyard or in your neighborhood and have a cookout or a barbecue and celebrate Independence Day.
“After a long, hard year, that will make this Independence Day truly special—where we not only mark our independence as a nation but we begin to mark our independence from this virus.”
Anti-vaxxers or their loved ones have filed at least two dozen lawsuits across the country to force hospitals to give them Ivermectin, a drug for de-worming cows and horses. But it remains an unproven cure for the virus.
Many unvaccinated patients beg—or demand—to be vaccinated. But to their surprise, they’re told it’s now too late.

And as of November 9, comes Omicrom—better-named as Trump 3.0.
This marks the third wave of Coronavirus to strike the United States since Donald Trump became President. Early reports indicate that even twice-vaccinated people might not be safe from it.
This is directly attributable to those millions of anti-vaxxers and Trump-supporting Right-wingers who have refused to wear masks and get vaccinated—even when vaccines are free and readily available.
And Trump 3.0 is arriving just in time for the coming of winter—and the advent of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. The holidays when Americans crisscross the nation in huge numbers to visit friends and relatives—and stay indoors at close quarters with them.
According to AAA Travel, for Thanksgiving alone, 48.3 million were expected to drive,4.2 million were expected to fly, and one million were expected to use other means of transit, such as busses, trains or cruises.
That will undoubtedly lead to spreading the new across the country—and in intimate settings where
And with the holidays comes the crowd-magnet known as “Black Friday”—when giant shopping malls offer vastly reduced sales to lure tens of thousands of shoppers indoors—where the virus spreads most quickly.
**********
It’s long past time to punish the egotistical selfishness of those who refuse to protect themselves and others.
And the most effective way to do this is to turn them away from hospitals when they show up.
They should be forcibly told: “You say it’s your right to refuse to get vaccinated? Fine. Well, it’s our right to reserve beds for patients who deserve to be treated. And you don’t.”
So long as hospitals cater to these self-indulgent Right-wingers—most of them Trump supporters—they will feel empowered to consume vital medical resources needed for legitimate victims of strokes, heart attacks, accidents and crime.
These people need to be forcibly taught that there are consequences for irresponsibly selfish and arrogant behavior. So long as they are catered to, they will never learn this vital lesson.
And there is an even more important reason for taking what many will see as a radical step.
Those unvaccinated men and women who survive to 2024 will eagerly cast their votes for Donald Trump. Trump makes no secret of his desire to be “President-for-Life”—and incited a treasonous attack on the United States Capitol to overturn the free and fair election of 2020.
If he re-enters the White House in 2024, he will never voluntarily leave—and will establish a dictatorship backed up by military, police and judicial power to remain “President-for-Life.”
So the more of these unvaccinated Right-wingers who aren’t around to cast their votes in 2024, the safer democracy will be.
President Biden may not feel free to say this. But it remains brutally true nevertheless.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 29, 2021 at 12:20 am
First, there was COVID-19, which slammed into the United States in early January, 2000.
Then, in June, 2021, as COVID-19 seemed on the wane, the Delta variant struck.
Now, as of November 9, the world is facing Omicron—a new variant of COVID-19.
Discovered in South Africa, Omicron would be better-described as Trump 3.0.
As President of the United States, Donald Trump bequeathed to his country two deadly legacies:
- A treasonous lust to overthrow democratic government; and
- The deadliest virus seen in America since the 1919 Spanish flu epidemic.
Throughout his Presidency, Trump “joked” about how wonderful it would be for the United States to have a “President-for-Life”—such as Xi Jinping in China.
Trump proved that he was not joking on January 6, when he incited his followers to stop the counting of Electoral College votes in the United States Capitol Building.

Donald Trump
This amounted to an attempted coup. Had the violent mob achieved its aims, the vote count would have ended before Joseph Biden could be officially pronounced the next President of the United States. And Trump would have remained President.
For it is the Electoral College vote—not the popular one—that determines the outcome of Presidential elections.
Biden had received 81,268,924 votes to 74,2164 for Trump. But it was Biden’s winning of 306 votes to Trump’s 232 in the Electoral College that made him President.
A year later, Trump continues to spew lies that millions of Right-wing Americans eagerly believe: “Trump won the election; Biden is an illegitimate President.”
Even worse: Trump’s followers in Republican-controlled states are working to rig the upcoming 2024 Presidential election to guarantee a Republican win—even if voters decide otherwise.
So much for Trump’s legacy of treason and criminality.
Now for his legacy as Coronavirus-in-Chief.
From the outset of the pandemic, Trump lied about the dangers Americans were facing.
On February 7, 2020, he told Washington Post editor and reporter Bob Woodward: “It goes through the air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed….It’s also more deadly than your strenuous flues.”

COVID-19
But from January to early March, 2020, Trump and his allies within the Republican party and Fox News Network repeatedly assured Americans they had nothing to fear.
And early on, Trump made the virus a referendum on himself. If you supported him, you didn’t wear a mask when you ventured out in public. This despite the fact that, throughout 2020, there was no vaccine available and hospitals were rapidly overwhelmed by debilitated and dying casualties of the virus.
Even worse: Trump declared open warfare on those Democratic governors—such as Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer—who imposed quarantine “stay-at-home’ orders to halt the spread of the virus. And he repeatedly ridiculed the warnings of medical experts—such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top expert on infectious disease.
For Trump, assuring his own re-election in 2020 took precedence over everything. He knew that as long as Americans stayed home the economy would be depressed. And citizens in depressed economies don’t re-elect Presidents they blame for their suffering.
So for Trump, getting millions of parents back to work meant getting millions of children back to school—no matter the risk. Toward that end, Trump even threatened to cut off federal aid to schools that did not forcibly return children to classes.
Washington Post Columnist Jonathan Capehart echoed him: “I think, if we had had a president of the United States who took this seriously when this first came on the scene, if we had a Republican party that took this seriously enough to warn everyone, their constituents saying, wash your hands, then put on a mask, then go get the vaccine, we wouldn’t be where we are right now.”

Jonathan Capehart
But neither Trump nor the Republican party urged Americans to “wash your hands, put on a mask, then go get the vaccine.”
By March, 2021, three vaccines—by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson—became available. A total of 90.4 million doses of these vaccines had been given. And 30.7 million Americans had been fully vaccinated against the virus.
But after a triumphant beginning, the pace of vaccinations slowed, then halted. By late July, 2021, only 49.6% of Americans had been fully vaccinated.
Many of those who had gotten one shot of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines refused to get the necessary second one. These must be given almost a month apart.
(The Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires only one shot.)
What had happened?
“The people I know personally who are not getting the vaccine, for them, it was like, ‘They rushed this thing,'” theorized New York Times columnist David Brooks. “‘Who knows what’s going to happen to all these people who get the shots in 10 years or 20 years?’ So, why should I take the risk?'”
And leading the way to this catastrophe of self-destruction were the states of the South and Midwest: Mississippi (47.1%,), Alabama (50.5%), Arkansas (53.2%), and Tennessee (52.9%) with the lowest rates of residents who have gotten at least one shot.
By late July, three states—Florida, Texas and Missouri—with lower vaccination rates accounted for 40% of all cases nationwide.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on October 19, 2021 at 12:10 am
It’s time to punish the egotistical selfishness of those who refuse to get vaccinated or even mask up against COVID-19. And some major corporations have finally begun doing so. Among these:
- 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-9 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.

On the October 15 edition of the PBS Newshour, political commentators David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart reached similar conclusions about the COVID pandemic.
CAPEHART: This is not supposed to be political. This is supposed to be about public health. And the sooner we get a handle on the coronavirus pandemic, the sooner all these things we have been talking about—unemployment, inflationary pressures, the need to have a reconciliation bill and an infrastructure building to get people back to work—won’t be necessary.
BROOKS: Some things are matters of communal health and safety. And a stop sign is a matter of communal health and safety. And this vaccination is a matter of communal health and safety. So, to say it’s a matter of individual liberty is just not true. And it’s—they’re just making it so political….
And if you mandate it, it turns out they get the shot. And so The Times reported today United Airlines has 67,000 employees. They mandated. Only 232 said no. So, if you mandate it, it turns out it works. People get the shot, and that increases public health.

And some cities and states have finally begun to do stand up to unvaccinated Stormtrumpers and anti-vaxxers. Among these:
- Starting August 16, New Orleans requires people to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test to enter some indoor places, including bars, restaurants, gyms and stadiums.
- As of August 17, New York City is requiring people to provide proof of vaccination before entering indoor venues.
- San Francisco is requiring some indoor businesses—including restaurants, bars, gyms, clubs and entertainment venues—to obtain proof of vaccination from their patrons and employees before they can enter.
- The Colorado Board of Health voted August 30 to mandate vaccinations for healthcare workers.
- As of August 26, Illinois requires vaccinations for healthcare workers, including nursing home employees.
- In an August 9 emergency proclamation, Washington Governor Jay Inslee required most state employees and all healthcare workers be fully vaccinated by October 18.

* * * * *
But by far the best way to serve notice on the unvaccinated would be to turn them away from hospitals when they show up.
They should be forcibly told: “You say it’s your right to refuse to get vaccinated. Fine. We say it’s our right to reserve beds for patients who deserve to be treated. And you don’t.”
So long as hospitals continue to cater to their self-indulgent Right-wingers—most of them Trump supporters—they will feel empowered to consume vital medical resources needed for victims of strokes, heart attacks, accidents and crime.
Anti-vaxxers or their loved ones have filed at least two dozen lawsuits across the country to force hospitals to give them ivermectin, a drug for de-worming cows and horses. But it remains an unproven cure for the virus.
These people need to be forcibly taught there are consequences for irresponsible behavior. So long as they are catered to, they will never learn this vital lesson.
And there is an even more important reason for taking what many will see as a radical step.
Those unvaccinated men and women who survive to 2024 will eagerly cast their votes for Donald Trump. Trump makes no secret of his desire to be “President-for-Life”—and incited a treasonous attack on the United States Capitol to overturn the free and fair election of 2020.
Even now, he continues to lie that the election was “stolen” from him—and is laying the groundwork for subverting the results of the 2024 Presidential election.
So the more of these unvaccinated Right-wingers who aren’t around to cast their votes in 2024, the safer democracy will be.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 18, 2021 at 12:05 am
All those who have written upon civil institutions demonstrate…that whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.
Thus warned Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman, in his classic work, The Discourses.
It is a lesson that American cities, states and the United States Department of Justice have refused to learn in protecting Americans from millions of egotistical Right-wingers in the age of COVID-19.
This is how United States authorities dealt with “Typhoid Mary” Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938).

Mary Mallon
An Irish-born cook, she was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever and is believed to have infected 53 people, three of whom died. Because she persisted in working as a cook, she exposed others to the disease.
As a result, she was twice forcibly quarantined by authorities, and died after a total of nearly 30 years in isolation at Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island, in New York City.
It’s past time to apply the same standard to Right-wingers who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19—or even mask up against it.
The COVID-19 catastrophe slammed into the United States in January, 2020. It was the inevitable result of a natural disaster colliding with an evil and incompetent administration.
Early on, President Donald Trump made the virus a referendum on himself. If you supported him, you didn’t wear a mask when you ventured out in public. This despite the fact that, throughout 2020, there was no vaccine available and hospitals were rapidly overwhelmed by debilitated and dying casualties of the virus.
“I think, once Donald Trump and other Republicans made it a manhood issue, or a freedom issue, or whatever kind of issue they made it, it’s hard to walk back that culture war signal,” said conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks on the PBS Newshour on July 23, 2021.
Washington Post Columnist Jonathan Capehart echoed him: “I think, if we had had a president of the United States who took this seriously when this first came on the scene, if we had a Republican party that took this seriously enough to warn everyone, their constituents saying, wash your hands, then put on a mask, then go get the vaccine, we wouldn’t be where we are right now.”

Jonathan Capehart
But neither Trump nor the Republican party urged Americans to “wash your hands, put on a mask, then go get the vaccine.”
By March, 2021, three vaccines—by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson—became available. A total of 90.4 million doses of these vaccines had been given. And 30.7 million Americans had been fully vaccinated against the virus.
But after a triumphant beginning, the pace of vaccinations slowed, then halted. By late July, 2021, only 49.6% of Americans had been fully vaccinated.

COVID-19 vaccination map – July 21, 2021
George Karabassis, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Many of those who had gotten one shot of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines refused to get the necessary second one. These must be given almost a month apart.
(The Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires only one shot.)
What had happened?
“The people I know personally who are not getting the vaccine, for them, it was like, ‘They rushed this thing,'” theorized David Brooks. “‘Who knows what’s going to happen to all these people who get the shots in 10 years or 20 years?’ So, why should I take the risk?'”

David Brooks
And leading the way to this catastrophe of self-destruction were the states of the South and Midwest: Mississippi (47.1%,), Alabama (50.5%), Arkansas (53.2%), and Tennessee (52.9%) with the lowest rates of residents who have gotten at least one shot.
By late July, three states—Florida, Texas and Missouri—with lower vaccination rates accounted for 40% of all cases nationwide.
For this, their governors—Ron DeSantis (Florida), Gregg Abbott (Texas) and Mike Parson (Missouri) must take pride-of-place.
And colliding head-on with the refusals of millions to get vaccinated is the newer—and deadlier—Delta variant of COVID-19.
The result has been a massive overcrowding of hospitals—where those who refused to get vaccinated are now taking up beds needed for legitimate victims of strokes, heart attacks, accidents and crime.
Many of these same patients beg—or demand—to be vaccinated. But to their surprise, they’re told it’s now too late.
It’s time to punish the egotistical selfishness of those who refuse to protect themselves and others. And some major corporations have finally begun telling their employees: “Get vaccinated—or find another place to work.”
Among these:
- In May, Delta Airlines began 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.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 10, 2021 at 12:11 am
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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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 9, 2021 at 12:10 am
When a deadly, air-borne plague is sweeping a nation, it’s medically smart to don a face mask until a vaccine is developed.
And, when it is, it’s just as medically smart to take that vaccine.
Yet, since March, 2020, millions of science-denying, government-hating Fascistic Republicans have refused to mask up in public against COVID-19. And now that not one but three vaccines have been developed, millions more have refused to get them.
Most of them are followers of former President Donald Trump. But many others have long believed that the Federal Government had a diabolical plan to enslave them.

Donald Trump
They distrust the scientists who developed the anti-COVID vaccines. They distrust the established news media, which has chronicled the destructive fury of COVID for more than a year.
Yet they put their faith in Trump, a man who
- Derided COVID as a hoax;
- Told 30,573 lies during his four years as President;
- Attacked reputable medical authorities such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s foremost expert on infectious disease;
- Promoted drinking bleach as a preventative or cure for COVID;
- Ordered his millions of fanatical followers to disobey the “shelter-in-place” orders of governors who were trying to stem the rising tide of COVID in their states; and
- Staged scores of super-spreader political rallies to promote his re-election in 2020, where tens of thousands of unmasked men and women stood shoulder-to-shoulder.
When Joseph Biden took office as President on January 20, 2021, he made eliminating COVID-19 his top priority. He publicized the launching of three new anti-COVID vaccines—by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. He encouraged Americans to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
And he set a deadline by which 70% of Americans would be at least partially vaccinated—by July 4: Independence Day.
At first, there was a mad rush as millions of Americans flocked to vaccination sites. But, by June, there was a marked increase in the numbers of those refusing to get vaccinated.

COVID-19
On June 7, the online edition of U.S. News & World Report published a story under the headline: “Declining Vaccination Rates Threaten Biden’s July 4 Goal.”
“Plunging vaccination rates are imperiling President Joe Biden’s goal of getting COVID shots into the arms of at least 70% of American adults by July 4, while public health experts worry that Southern states, where immunization numbers are the lowest, could see a spike in cases over the summer.”
That is exactly what has happened.
The story continued: “The steep decline began in mid-April, coinciding with the temporary suspension of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine while health officials investigated rare blood-clotting reactions. That drop has continued, with only 2.4 million adults getting their first shot last week. Officials must get a first dose to 4.2 million adults per week to meet Biden’s July 4 goal, the [Washington] Post reported.”
By August 2, 168.4 million Americans had been fully vaccinated, or 49.6% of the country’s population.
The population of the United States stands at 328.2 million.

Cities and states have offered a series of incentives to get vaccinated—as if doing so just to save your own life and the lives of those you love isn’t enough of an incentive.
Among those incentives:
- Free beer.
- Free marijuana joints.
- Free childcare coverage while getting shots or assistance while recovering from side effects.
- Extended hours for pharmacies in June.
- Thousands of pharmacies remaining open overnight on Fridays.
- Million-dollar jackpots.
- Full-ride scholarships.
- A $2 million commitment from DoorDash to provide gift cards to community health centers for those who get vaccinated.
- CVS Pharmacies launched a sweepstakes with prizes including free cruises and Super Bowl tickets.
- Major League Baseball hosting on-site vaccine clinics and ticket giveaways at games.
- Kroger gave $1 million to a vaccinated person each week in June and free groceries to dozens of people for the year.
Countless Americans were appalled at the selfishly irresponsible behavior of their fellow citizens.
One of these was President Biden: “All over the world people are desperate to get a shot that every American can get at their neighborhood drugstore.”
Another was Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University and former Baltimore health commissioner.
“It’s the height of American exceptionalism that we are having to beg people to get a life-saving vaccine, when healthcare workers and vulnerable people around the world are dying because they can’t get access to it,” said Wen.
Yet the time may be fast approaching when the juicy carrot is replaced by the big stick.
From the coming of the virus to the United States in January, 2020, Republicans have encouraged Americans to defy health warnings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
They have opposed wearing masks and stay-at-home orders. They have staged indoor political rallies of hundreds—or thousands—of unmasked men and women
So it’s ironic that it was 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,” 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 CDC.
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VIRUS AND VIOLENCE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 2, 2022 at 12:30 amOn July 23, 2021, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene found something to celebrate in Alabama.
Alabama had the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rate of any state in the nation.
Days later, Alabama’s health leader said officials had tossed out more than 65,000 coronavirus vaccines that expired. They had expired due to low demand.
And that low demand had resulted from Right-wingers’ politicization of the virus.
But that wasn’t enough to satisfy Greene.
Marjorie Taylor Greene
“Well, what they don’t know is that in the South we all love our Second Amendment rights. And we’re not real big on strangers showing up at our front door, are we? They might not like the welcome they get.”
In short: People should shoot volunteers promoting coronavirus vaccines through door-to-door outreach.
Her audience—at the Alabama Federation of Republican Women fundraiser—applauded and laughed at the idea of such murders.
Naturally, through her spokesman, Nick Dyer, Greene denied that she suggested people shoot those promoting vaccines.
“Your colleagues in the fake news are making things up and attributing things to her that she did not say,” he wrote in an email.
This despite the fact that Greene’s words had been captured in a video—and countless people had seen it after it was shared on the Internet.
When asked if Greene herself was vaccinated, Dyer refused to answer.
“It really gets at the heart of the public’s trust in our government and the messaging around solid public health measures based on the science,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.
“Our local health officials who are working on the ground are not political. They are completely apolitical,” she told CNN.
She added that Greene’s comments were “disheartening and distressing.”
“Outrageous and violence-encouraging” would have been a more accurate description.
Greene’s comments demonstrate the twin pillars of Right-wing orthodoxy toward COVID-19:
Donald Trump, as President, vividly personified both.
The apex of his embrace of violence came on January 6, 2021, when he refused to permit an orderly transition from one administration to another.
Instead, he incited a mob of his fanatical followers to attack members of Congress who were about to count the Electoral College votes cast for the 2020 Presidential election.
Donald Trump addresses his Stormtrumpers
Trump had lost that election: 81,255,933 votes had gone to former Vice President Joseph Biden, as opposed to 74,196,153 votes for himself.
Yet even before embracing that final grotesque moment of infamy, Trump had been responsible for the deaths of 400,000 Americans.
The COVID-19 catastrophe slammed into the United States in January, 2020. It was the inevitable result of a natural disaster colliding with an evil and incompetent administration.
Trump’s “cures” for COVID-19 included
Early on, Trump made the virus a referendum on himself. If you supported him, you didn’t wear a mask when you ventured out in public. This despite the fact that, throughout 2020, there was no vaccine available and hospitals were rapidly overwhelmed by debilitated and dying casualties of the virus.
“I think, once Donald Trump and other Republicans made it a manhood issue, or a freedom issue, or whatever kind of issue they made it, it’s hard to walk back that culture war signal,” said conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks on the PBS Newshour on July 23, 2021.
Washington Post Columnist Jonathan Capehart echoed him: “I think, if we had had a president of the United States who took this seriously when this first came on the scene, if we had a Republican party that took this seriously enough to warn everyone, their constituents saying, wash your hands, then put on a mask, then go get the vaccine, we wouldn’t be where we are right now.”
Jonathan Capehart
But neither Trump nor the Republican party urged Americans to “wash your hands, put on a mask, then go get the vaccine.”
By March, 2021, three vaccines—by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson—became available. A total of 90.4 million doses of these vaccines had been given. And 30.7 million Americans had been fully vaccinated against the virus.
But after a triumphant beginning, the pace of vaccinations slowed, then halted. By late July, 2021, only 49.6% of Americans had been fully vaccinated.
COVID-19 vaccination map – July 21, 2021
George Karabassis, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Many of those who had gotten one shot of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines refused to get the necessary second one. These must be given almost a month apart.
(The Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires only one shot.)
And leading the way to this catastrophe of self-destruction were the states of the South and Midwest: Mississippi (47.1%,), Alabama (50.5%), Arkansas (53.2%), and Tennessee (52.9%) with the lowest rates of residents who have gotten at least one shot.
By late July, 2021, three states—Florida, Texas and Missouri—with lower vaccination rates accounted for 40% of all cases nationwide.
And colliding head-on with the refusals of millions to get vaccinated was the newer—and deadlier—Delta variant of COVID-19.
By July 27, 2022, there were 90.8 million COVID-19 cases in the United States—and 1.03 million deaths.
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