I've ranted in the past about how incredibly selfish the anti-vaxx and anti-mask crowd is. I have an i-friend on another message board who's wife has been on the ICU (not COVID) for the past couple of weeks....he just posted the below rant and he beautifully captures my thoughts.
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That the hospital, to protect its patients and staff, may limit my family to 2 designated visitors a day (and only those 2 people - no one else) because new Covid cases and hospitalizations are rising among unvaccinated people here makes me feel - well I'll let you all take an educated guess about that.
Those people making excuses for not wearing masks, much less getting vaccinated, need to learn that their freedom doesn't come without concomitant responsibilities, i.e., what we used to call the civic duties we owe to our fellow citizens. To put it another way, the obligations we all owe to our society that contribute to the general good as part of the privilege given us to enjoy so many rights and liberties granted to us by law.
To be blunt, whenever any claimed right to do as you damn well please recklessly, and without justification, increases the risk of harm and death to others, then that "right" musty give way to the obligation we all owe one another. You're never free to act as you wish in total disregard of the consequences of your actions impose on others. For example, you're free to bear arms, but not free to shoot your gun randomly into people's homes just because you feel entitled to do whatever makes you happy.
Same thing applies to this terrible pandemic. Considering what we know, wearing a mask is the "bare minimum" we should all be doing, even those who got vaccinated, to save lives. It costs us very little, but that "tyrannical" request (as some refer to it) provides life-saving benefits to those who are at risk of severe illness and/or death. Here I refer not only to people at high risk of contracting a severe case of Covid, but also to those, like my wife, fighting a severe illness while valuable healthcare resources (highly trained personnel included) have been diverted to treat individuals hospitalized with severe Covid
infections, infections that often came about because other people who came into contact with them choose to assert their right to spread the virus to anyone and everyone.
We must also account for the many seriously ill people in America denied the care they require; persons who need cancer surgeries, heart surgeries, or treatment for other life-threatening conditions. They often have had no choice but to delay their surgeries and medical treatments indefinitely, increasing their risk of greater harm or even death. All because so many irresponsible individuals chose to not do the smallest act necessary to limit infecting people in their communities. Their careless and thoughtless acts led to the massive allocation of much of our nation’s limited medical resources to address severely ill Covid patients rather than so many other persons in need.
In short, get vaccinated, but if you have a legitimate reason why you cannot do so (instead of fabricated or delusional excuses for avoiding getting the jab), then mask up and stop complaining about this utterly baseless and frankly mythical
tyranny so many decry as they blame responsible government employees and elected officials. who work every day to address the worst public health crisis in several generations, of what they protest are horrific crimes, i.e., doing the right and moral thing. In truth, it is those who assert such attitudes and extreme beliefs who do not understand what real tyranny looks like. Indeed, they are the ones imposing the tyranny of their selfish, absurdly ideological and ignorant choices to the detriment not only of themselves, but all the rest of us as well.
End of story. Period. Full stop.
