A Post Labor Day Rant

No flowers today.  Instead, it's time for a rant.  I backed off from it but got encouragement from some of my regular readers (thank you!).

So, if you don't want to read it, here's a picture for you (impatiens in morning light). Then feel free to skip onto something else.  But if you are staying with me, thank you.

Friday, in front of the hospital where my son was born, a local station gave live coverage, on the 5pm news, of health workers demonstrating for their right not to take the vaccine.  It was the last straw.

Yes, you have the right not to take the vaccine. Yes, you have the right not to wear a mask.  What you don't have is the right to make someone else sick because you don't want to be responsible.  What you don't have is the right to fill up hospitals so that others without COVID can't get care.  I don't want to hear about the falsehoods circulating about what these vaccines do to you.  I won't even repeat them here.

Today, I think of someone I know through blogging, who has a family member who may have a cancerous tumor.  She worries that her hospitals, almost to full capacity with COVID patients,  may not be able to treat her family member.

I don't understand how selfish a country we have become, with our personal rights trampling all over the rights of our neighbors, our friends, and even our families. 

One of my cousins continues to work retail (and is still doing so in 2021) in an essential retail setting.  Last year, a customer spit on him.  Why, he doesn't even know.   Another one of my cousins is a teacher in New York City.  One of my husband's cousins is a teacher in Florida. A third cousin moved recently from Massachusetts to New York City.  She's in education, too.  Just imagine what they have gone through and are still going through this new school year.  It's not over yet.  Maybe it could have been, in a more perfect world.

Another one of my cousins is an emergency room in a Midwest hospital. What has he experienced? He has a father in his 90's.  Does he want to get sick?   His niece is in her second year of nursing school.

For me, and many of my readers, this has become personal.

Just imagine what the parent of every school aged child in this country is going through, for this matter.

And, the children.  Let's not forget them.  Just in my county, the statistics are concerning. They can't be vaccinated even where their parents want them to be.  You want to see their smiling faces.  G-d forbid they get this illness, they won't be smiling.

Now, too many families have gone through the experience of having sick members, maybe sick enough to require hospitalization.

When my autistic brother in law contracted COVID-19 in April 2020, our family entered a world where our only contact with him was through his health care workers.  He was hospitalized for three weeks and was in a skilled nursing facility set up by the agency that provides his housing and services for another two weeks. 

But that wasn't the end of his story.  It took him a while to regain full lung function.  I'm not sure what he went through was long COVID, but long COVID is real and it puts its sufferers through hell.  COVID isn't a head cold or a mild flu, folks, even if most people don't die from it.

The health care workers and support staff we spoke to during his hospitalization almost always were able to take the time to talk to us, provide updates, and reassurance, and just kept on keeping on.  They worked hard and yet they took the time to support US.  I will never forget that.

They are getting tired. No, I'm wrong.  They are past tired.  Past tired of treating people, many of whom chose not to get one of the three (in our country) available vaccines.    In the county I live in, some 90% of those hospitalized are not vaccinated.

They are past tired of being abused by the public and some their patients. COVID-19 isn't just a health epidemic in our country.  It is an epidemic of everything becoming politics, of misinformation coming from various sources, of fear, of distrust, of hating your neighbor because he or she votes for the "wrong" person.

And yet, there are health workers who won't take the vaccine, even while treating a population where many of their COVID patients haven't taken the vaccine. They are walking off the job.  Same with those working in nursing homes.  Everywhere our facilities (here in our part of New York State) are shortstaffed and the latest tsunami here isn't at Texas/Florida/Missouri/Louisiana levels yet.

Has everyone forgotten our developmentally disabled population, some who can't advocate for themselves?  Our immunocompromised?  Cancer patients? Those unfortunate enough to have heart attacks where the hospitals are full of those who have exercised their personal freedom?  We all pay that price for some personal freedoms.

It would be a wonderful thing if everyone in our country could show respect for each other by our actions.  Respect those who put their lives on the line for our health, for our food, for our transportation, for our packages in the mail, for the education of our children, each and every day.  Respect the elderly, those with health issues?

I asked this in 2020.  I'm asking you to do it again, except this year that respect includes vaccination.  Wear a mask. (No one will see your smiling face if an oxygen mask covers it.)  Educate yourself with facts, not rumors read online.  Practice consideration  Get the jab if you are medically able. 

And, if you leave a comment on this post, please be respectful.  Any comments not meeting this criteria will be immediately composted.

If we all don't clean up our act as American citizens, what kind of society will we have when this is no longer a pandemic?