What can happen
when we go back to normal when things really aren't normal
No wonder Covid is hanging around so long, my 73-year-old neighbor texted me the other night, just as I was getting home from school. He was watching NC State play football on ESPN, the fans sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, maskless, in a packed-to-capacity stadium. Though the Delta variant is overflowing our hospitals and even closing some North Carolina elementary schools, we appear to be operating as if it is no longer an emergency.
I’d heard about the game’s “masks optional for vaccinated people” policy earlier that day, when a colleague texted me a news story about it. I was already worried about my parents, Bea’s Mamie and Grampa, who had visited us (wearing masks, avoiding indoor spaces and crowds) the weekend before. Just that morning my mom called to say that my dad had a fever and wasn’t feeling well. What if I’d somehow given him Covid?
I teach in small classrooms with windows that don’t open; my students wear masks, but our school doesn’t have a vaccine mandate, despite the full FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine. Despite President Biden’s remarks, nearly two weeks ago: “If you're a business leader, a nonprofit leader, a state or local leader, who has been waiting for full FDA approval to require vaccinations, I call on you now to do that — require it. It only makes sense to require a vaccine to stop the spread of Covid-19."
My dad, who is of course vaccinated, does not have Covid-19. But he got sicker as the evening went on, and on Friday morning was in so much pain he called an ambulance. He was taken to the local hospital’s emergency room, but they couldn’t admit him. Too full—fine with my parents, who prefer the Medical College of Virginia’s hospital, where my dad’s doctors practice and can keep an eye on him. MCV was also full—of mostly unvaccinated Covid patients. So he was taken, also by ambulance, to another hospital in Mechanicsville. This one also had few available beds, and it took close to nineteen hours for my dad to get a room.
My dad is getting better, and will hopefully be home today. But his experience—getting less-than-optimal care because unvaccinated people are overfilling our hospitals—is becoming more and more common, with sometimes tragic results. A man from Mooresville shared his anger on TikTok after his wife, suffering from Stage IV breast cancer, was sent home from a Charlotte hospital to make room for more Covid-19 patients. She later died.
3,800 people are currently hospitalized with Covid-19 in North Carolina; the vast majority are unvaccinated. Philosopher Peter Singer has argued for compulsory vaccination, which he likens to seat belt laws, with one crucial difference: seat belt laws “coerce us to do something for our own good,” while a national vaccine mandate would actively prevent us from doing harm to others: infecting others (including children), overflowing hospitals, closing necessary institutions like schools and day cares.
I can only imagine the freakout that would happen if we had a national vaccine mandate. But maybe imagining other people’s freakouts is part of the problem: why my school requires a tetanus vaccine (nationwide, there are about thirty annual cases of tetanus) but not an effective, FDA approved, lifesaving Covid-19 vaccine. Why we risk superspreader events at sports stadiums. Why people who should know better think asking other people their vaccination status is a violation of HIPAA (it isn’t).
I appreciate my neighbor, who by the way had to overcome significant vaccine trepidation and the rampant misinformation spread on YouTube and social media. But the important thing is, he overcame his fears and did the right thing. He got fully vaccinated, and is encouraging other people to do the same. I admire him a lot more than people (especially powerful, highly educated people) who know they are being unsafe, but choose not to think about the consequences.
This virus is here for a very long time because of dumb people not caring about people who do care, he texted. Be very careful and be safe.
I am so glad your dad is getting better! I don't understand why the same people who refuse to wear masks, refuse to get vaccinated. To me it is a question of morality. I got the vaccine because I did not want to get sick and possibly die which would alter the lives of my loved ones forever, and cause them terrible pain, but also to protect small children and those who are immuno-compromised. I would wear a mask every day for the rest of my life if I knew it could save the life of just one person, any person. We should get vaccinated and wear masks because we should treat everyone the way we want to be treated. It's the right thing to do.
At this point I am in favor of the unvaccinated to not be admitted to hospitals.