11/20/21: You can’t say Republican lawmakers and right-wing opinion makers don’t have their priorities straight in a pandemic era. Recently, Sen. Ted Cruz took on Big Bird after the Sesame Street character said he had been vaccinated to protect him and his loved ones from the virus.
Average number of new daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S., in the seven-day period ending November 18: 94,260.
So, focus on Big Bird?
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Ted Cruz and GOP ignore the
“pandemic of the unvaccinated” and go hunting for Big Bird.
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Cruz called it “government
propaganda…for your five year old” and the usual right-wing suspects erupted.
He was supported by Lisa Boothe, a Fox News contributor, who compared it to
“brainwashing children” and insisted they were not at risk from COVID. On Newsmax, Steven
Cortes warned viewers, “This kind of propaganda is actually evil. Your children
are not statistically at risk, and should not be pressured into a brand new
treatment. Do Not Comply!”
In Kansas, a group of anti-vaxxers wearing yellow stars showed up for a Special Committee on Government Overreach meeting. They wanted to show that if you were forced to wear a mask in a store or get a life-saving shot, that was the same as being herded into a gas chamber at Auschwitz because you were Jewish.
So close!
All this came on the heels of
Newsmax host Emerald Robinson warning that if you took the Moderna shot the government would be able to track you everywhere because the
vaccine would make you bioluminescent. She
even worked the religious angle to good purpose, if your purpose was peddling
nonsense. Robinson tweeted: “Dear
Christians: The vaccines contain a bioluminescent marker called LUCIFERASE so
that you can be tracked. Read the last book of the New Testament to see how
this ends.”
In other words, you’d end up looking like this – unless Alex Jones was right, and then within a year of taking any of the shots you’d be dead.
 |
Do you want to glow in the dark, like a jelly fish? |
Or magnetized.
There has been a lot of
right-wing nonsense in this regard, starting from the top, with Donald J.
“Drink Bleach” Trump.
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IN ANY CASE, this aging blogger just had his COVID booster shot; and he is not glowing in the dark. Nor, no matter how hard he tries, can he pick up paperclips with his magnetized fingers. Still, if Alex Jones is right, I’ve only got three months to live since I had my first vaccine last February, and then I’m bound for hell in a handbasket because I’m a liberal, I guess.
In the time I have remaining,
I will continue to check out the facts. See, for example, my post on all the medical groups recommending masks and shots. And since Trump
fans can be proudly fact-averse if they don’t like the facts you present, I
like to check red state stats to see if medical experts in GOP-controlled
states are “lying” about vaccines.
Looking at the following numbers, see if you spot any trends. Trump fans, you may have to squint. The Texas Department of State Health Services reports that you are twenty times more likely to die from COVID-19 if you are unvaccinated and catch the virus than if you’ve had the shots.
The Alabama Department of Public Health notes that 94.1% of all deaths between August 1 and August 18 in that state were unvaccinated humans. In Florida, six unvaccinated members of one extended family died.
Otherwise, Gov. Ron DeSantis
seems to be hiding the totals, while fighting every mask mandate in court.
Let’s do more red-state facts. The Tennessee Department of Health warned this past summer that 97% of hospitalizations and 98% of deaths were unvaccinated individuals. In Mississippi, between January 1 and July 22, only 37 fully-vaccinated persons died, vs. 2,363 persons unvaccinated, or 98.4%. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare puts the percentage of deaths, vaccinated as against unvaccinated, at 12% vs. 88%. Montana reported that 78% of COVID deaths in the last reporting period were unvaccinated persons. Their average age at death was 71. Those who were vaccinated and died were, on average, 83 years old.
The South Carolina situation is in line with other red states: 77.5% of recent deaths have come among the not fully-vaccinated.
Health authorities in Oklahoma put the percentage of hospitalized at 91% unvaccinated and 98% of the dead.
Nebraska reports that 122 fully-vaccinated individuals died between Jan. 1-Oct. 23, as opposed to 1,101 not fully vaccinated, or 90%.
Since vaccines became available
in December, West Virginia numbers show 225 deaths of fully-vaccinated persons vs.
2,877 (92.7%) who had not had shots.
In Iowa, according to the Iowa
Public Health Department, 79% of all patients hospitalized with coronavirus in August
were unvaccinated, and 86% of those in intensive care. Or,
to put it plainly. There’s a trend and that trend is clear. “We have many tools
we need to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe, and the single most
important tool we have is the vaccine, which is highly effective at preventing
serious illness, hospitalization and death,” says Kathy Garcia, the acting director of the IPHD.
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AS OF NOVEMBER 18, subject to slight adjustment, CDC reports that we are averaging more than 1,000 daily deaths from COVID-19, a fearful toll. Now, it’s falling almost entirely on the ranks of the ill-informed, the anti-vaxxers, and science-averse relatives and friends.
(I don’t agree with one
syllable of what many of these poor people say regarding vaccines and masks,
but it’s still sad to see so many of them die.)
The U.S. death toll as of that date now stands at: 768,619.
So? Any reason to vaccinate children, as Big Bird says we should? True, they aren’t at high risk of dying if they get infected themselves. If infected, however, they are at substantial risk of spreading the virus to grandma.
Maybe at Thanksgiving, too.
And if grandma isn’t
vaccinated? Too bad, granny. I hope, if you lived in Texas, you didn’t vote for
Ted Cruz.
