Fully Vaccinated Doesn't Mean What It Used To Mean

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I am disgusted by the deliberate ignorance on the part of right-wing media and those in Congress.  The science has been repeatedly articulated by actual experts.  Here are some basics:


1.    Covid-19 (named for the year in which it first appeared) is a new virus.  As such no one knew what it might do.   Other lethal viral epidemics -- smallpox, polio,  measles -- were around for centuries before we had sufficient knowledge to stop them.  Smallpox has been completely eradicated, but both polio and measles are set for a major comeback, and neither is as lethal as Covid-19.

2.  Not every virus can be controlled by vaccination.  HIV is a virus.  There is no vaccination because vaccines work with the immune system, which is precisely what HIV attacks.  Immunity has to be established over time.  As yet, we don't know how immune we actually are from Covid-19.  Colds and influenza are viruses for which we can get only a temporary immunity because they mutate so quickly.

3.   The urgency to get everyone vaccinated is to deprive the Covid virus from finding hosts in which to replicate and mutate.  It is possible that if enough people remain unvaccinated we could find ourselves dying of a Covid mutation for which we have no immunity and no vaccine.

4.  Covid has killed more Americans in one year than all four years of World War Two.  It would take Polio 38 years to match Covid's first year death toll.  It took three years for the 1918-1920 Influenza Pandemic to kill 675,000 Americans.  Covid has closed in on that number in half the time.  The Civil War killed 750,000.  Anyone want to top that number?

5.  The Covid vaccine does not mean we can't get Covid.  It means we won't die of Covid.  It means we probably won't need to be hospitalized.  It does NOT mean we can't get Covid, can't spread Covid, can't infect a loved one with a lethal variant.

Politicians, pastors, right-wing commentators are NOT experts.  They have ulterior motives and none of them gives a flying fuck about your health, your life or your loved ones.

WEAR A MASK.  

STAY AWAY FROM OTHERS WHEN IN CLOSE QUARTERS. 

FOLLOW CDC GUIDELINES.

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