Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Vaccine Shaming Will Backfire

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by

James A. Bacon
in

by Kerry Dougherty

Lemme get the straight. The president wants everyone in the country to get vaccinated against Covid-19 — an admirable goal that would likely reduce the virus to a national head cold.

So how is he persuading those who are reluctant to take the vaccine to get a shot?

By insulting them.

Just this week Joe Biden said “If you’re not vaccinated, you are not nearly as smart as I thought you were!”

Way to go. I’m sure that calling the unvaxxed stupid ought to convince them to roll up their sleeves.

And the CDC’s sudden about-face on masks — recommending that even the vaccinated should wear masks indoors in some places — will backfire as well.

I mean, telling people to get vaccinated but that they still have to wear face diapers is hardly an incentive to take an emergency use vaccine.

Worse is the CDC’s stern advisory that every single K-12 student, their teachers, staff and visitors should be masked in school regardless of vaccination status. That sudden turnaround has probably put the brakes on teenaged vaccinations.

After all, lots of teens believed that the vaccine was their ticket to breathe freely this fall. I personally know several who got vaccinated so they could have a normal school year, sans masks.

Now they believe they were duped. Do you suppose their friends will rush out for the vaccine?

Not a chance.

Worse still are nasty suggestions that those who chose not to be vaccinated should be denied medical care if they contract the virus.

Here’s a sample:

Monsters. All of them. (And don’t you love that Meg Ann has “be kind, wear a mask” in her handle? Nothing kind about this person.)

These social media haters are so angry that some of their countrymen haven’t fallen into line and taken the vaccine that they would take pleasure in watching them die.

What is wrong with people?

Would they also suggest that smokers not be treated for lung cancer?

Should heavy drinkers be denied treatment for liver ailments?

How about obese people who have heart attacks? Should they be allowed to die because they stopped at McDonald’s on their way to the cardiac care unit?

This isn’t how medical care works.

In fact, this isn’t how any of this should work.

This column is republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed & Unedited.

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26 responses to “Vaccine Shaming Will Backfire”

  1. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    I agree with Kerry that you’re not going to persuade people to get the vaccine by insulting them or hating on them. That will only backfire.

    But she raises an interesting philosophical question. She says we provide healthcare to smokers, and alcoholics, and obese people… why would we deny unvaccinated people?

    The decision to not get vaccinated is a choice in a way that alcoholism and cigarette smoking are not (both are addictions). The unvaxxed know that they will receive medical treatment if they get the virus. Would they be more likely to get vaccinated if they knew they had to pay their own healthcare bills? Does our system of socializing the costs of poor healthcare decisions, in effect, subsidize poor and reckless decisions?

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      More than “philosophical”.

      It’s one thing to be a smoker and know it’s not good , try to quit , etc and quite another to mouth off at others , smoke where others don’t like it, etc…

      Kerry illustrates some folks saying “nasty” things on social media? wow. How many of us have seen “nasty” things on social media from anti-vaxxers , conservatives, naysayers, and folks like Kerry?

      No, we don’t “shame” people who have developed health problems over their lives – some through no fault of their own – and how would any critics know who they are anyhow?

      But when we have a year of idiots mouthing off about the media, lying-scientists, and worse… it does wear on you.

      And now that, we have the Delta variant – it’s actually worse from some of them – who continue to poo poo it as “fear porn” , etc…

    2. WayneS Avatar
      WayneS

      The decision to not get vaccinated is a choice in a way that alcoholism and cigarette smoking are not (both are addictions).

      If you advocate the unvaccinated being denied health care coverage, you are treading along the edge of a very slippery slope. What about people who engage in dangerous sporting activities such as skydiving, motorcycling, spelunking, snow skiing, scuba diving, etc. etc. Do you advocate denying these people health care coverage if they are injured engaging in such activities?

      After all, the decision to engage in a dangerous hobby “is a choice in a way that alcoholism and cigarette smoking are not”…

  2. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    What’s this? The Queen of insults has got her nose out of joint over….insults?

    wow!

  3. tmtfairfax Avatar
    tmtfairfax

    First, I think everyone should get vaccinated unless a doctor advises to the otherwise. To do otherwise, is stupid.

    But, don’t we have a constitutional right to make fundamental health care decisions without government interference? Roe v. Wade and its progeny. If our Constitution protects a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy, why doesn’t it protect her right not to get the COVID-19 vaccine? And, if this protects a woman, it certainly protects a man.

    Could an employer fire a woman for getting or refusing an abortion? Of course not. But then explain why the employer can fire an employee for not getting a COVID short. I can see taking the approach that the federal government is taking for employees and contractors — shot or weekly proof of no infection. That protects other workers but doesn’t infringe the right to make health care decisions for oneself.

    Damn Civil Liberties. They apply even when application upsets some other people.

    1. kls Avatar
      kls

      What happened to ‘herd immunity’? Maybe they want to be the ‘delta’ to the ‘herd’!

    2. kls Avatar
      kls

      What happened to ‘herd immunity’? Maybe they want to be the ‘delta’ to the ‘herd’!

  4. WayneS Avatar
    WayneS

    Joe Biden said “If you’re not vaccinated, you are not nearly as smart as I thought you were!” He apparently also told the following bare-faced lie: “We have a pandemic because of the unvaccinated.”

    Can you imagine how many hundreds of hours of cable tv media time, hundreds of thousands of Twitter and Faceplant comments and how many thousands of commentators’ column-inches would have been expended lambasting and attacking our previous president if he had said things like that? And yet, Biden gets a pass. The bold, unapologetic, flagrant hypocrisy is simply astounding.

    1. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      The media is the enemy of the people (EOTP). The most annoying thing about Trump is how often he was actually right….

      Don’t care. I got mine. My “fear” of COVID ranks up there now with my fear of a nasty cold that means I have to avoid giving it to other people. (I might have had post-vax COVID in June, or just a cold) So far they have shown me zero evidence that a vaccinated person with an asymptomatic case can spread it to somebody else. And frankly, spreading to those who’ve made a very bad choice not to get the shots will not keep me up at night.

      Last night NBC News (EOTP) interviewed four female medical professionals (not doctors, but nurses, techs, etc.) and gave them a bunch of air time to outline why they haven’t and won’t get the shots. The same messaging Biden wants to block on social media, but there it is on NBC Nightly….they WANT this to continue, they NEED this for their shrinking ratings. God forbid we move on….

      1. Eric the half a troll Avatar
        Eric the half a troll

        Organ donor recipients, for example, have not simply “made a very bad choice”…

        1. WayneS Avatar
          WayneS

          Organ donor recipients have a responsibility to take precautions to protect themselves. Is this “fair”? No, it is not. In fact, it sucks.

          On the other hand should our entire society have to drastically alter its behavioral norms, its economy and its education system to accommodate the very small minority of people who have medical reasons for not being able to be vaccinated? Also no.

          I have sympathy for people who must remain isolated from the rest of society in order to protect themselves from this horrible virus, but we cannot continue to base our society-wide decisions on worst case scenarios.

          1. Eric the half a troll Avatar
            Eric the half a troll

            For normal illnesses you are correct. This is not just a cold or flu, however. And it is not that these individuals have not been vaccinated, it is that the vaccine is not nearly as effective for them and they are at far greater risk. Btw, about 4% of the population is immunocompromised for a variety of reasons. That is a lot of people in the end.

            I suppose you were opposed to the ADA for basically the same reasons, eh…?

          2. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            I was fine with the ADA until some of its rules became insane.

          3. emjak Avatar
            emjak

            A major cause for the ADA going off the rails was the role of “activist” bureaucrats and “activist” litigants in pressing for absolute accommodation despite the plain English qualification in the statute for reasonable accommodation.

            Another contributing factor was the judicial blunder of giving judicial deference to agency interpretations of federal statutes regardless of how strained those interpretations were, or regardless of how poorly written and vague a federal statute.

            Result: some agency “interpretations” that rewrite federal statutes, others that create “law” in areas not explicitly addressed by Congress.

            A constitutional mess.

        2. Stephen Haner Avatar
          Stephen Haner

          Organ donor recipients and those on chemo, those with known immune issues, have more to worry about (bigger, badder things) than this, and know what to do. The weak spot in my argument, I admit, is the little kids, but I’ve already conceded the point on masks in schools until they too can get shots.

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            masks only in schools, nowhere else?

          2. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            I’d accept that as a compromise on mask mandates. I don’t like it, but I’d accept it if it would get the masks-for-everyone crowd to shut up.

            And of course, no one is trying to stop you from wearing a mask wherever and whenever you want to wear one.

      2. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        re: ” So far they have shown me zero evidence that a vaccinated person with an asymptomatic case can spread it to somebody else”.

        How can YOU be so SURE that you KNOW this and you may not really know the facts?

        I’m just astounded how you guys are so sure you know. I’m hearing that there are more reports that this IS happening. If you don’t know – do you assume it’s not possible until/unless they SHOW YOU?

        Right now, there are reports out there that people who have been vaccinated DO carry viral loads AND apparently there is some evidence that they CAN spread it.

        Can you consider the implications if this is true?

        Would you just rule it out all together because you do not “trust” ?

        1. WayneS Avatar
          WayneS

          How can he be sure he has not been shown evidence of something? What a silly question. How can anyone but him be sure whether he has been shown such evidence?

      3. vicnicholls Avatar
        vicnicholls

        Stephen Haner take a look at Israel. https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/2021/7/20/22584134/whats-going-on-in-israels-outbreak-among-vaccinated-people

      4. Eric the half a troll Avatar
        Eric the half a troll

        “So far they have shown me zero evidence that a vaccinated person with an asymptomatic case can spread it to somebody else”

        Will this suffice…??

        https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/30/cdc-study-shows-74percent-of-people-infected-in-massachusetts-covid-outbreak-were-fully-vaccinated.html

  5. James C. Sherlock Avatar
    James C. Sherlock

    You clearly struck a nerve with the usual suspects, Kerry. Hold the course.

  6. Eric the half a troll Avatar
    Eric the half a troll

    “I’m sure that calling the unvaxxed stupid ought to convince them to roll up their sleeves.”

    If the shoe fit, Kerry…

  7. Deborah Hommer Avatar
    Deborah Hommer

    Interestingly enough, MIT Study, “MIT researchers found that Covid-19 skeptics on Twitter and Facebook — far from being “data illiterate” — often use sophisticated data visualization techniques to argue against public health precautions like mask mandates.”

    okay, data literate and sophisticated – agreed.

    Further, on Twitter when looking at data visualizations: “And those visualizations weren’t sloppy. “They are virtually indistinguishable from those shared by mainstream sources,” says Satyanarayan. “They are often just as polished as graphs you would expect to encounter in data journalism or public health dashboards.”

    “It’s a very striking finding,” says Lee. “It shows that characterizing antimask groups as data-illiterate or not engaging with the data, is empirically false.”

    I am not arguing with this as I know vaccine-awareness-risks people all over the U.S., and I agree with the assessment!

    https://news.mit.edu/2021/when-more-covid-data-doesnt-equal-more-understanding-0304

  8. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead

    So conservatives want to keep the choice of vaccination up to the citizen and liberals want everyone vaccinated like it or not. In the case of abortion the role of choice is in anti-thesis. Conservatives who are pro life wish to limit choice, whereas liberals who are pro choice wish the power of to remain with the mother. What a strange world this can be!

    1. Packer Fan Avatar
      Packer Fan

      I see it a little differently. I see fake outrage and concern from liberals about COVID deaths, but no concern or outrage about babies being intentionally killed. There are plenty of ways to avoid becoming pregnant. Apparently the vaccine can’t necessarily keep you from getting COVID.

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