Dear Vaccinated Friends,
I am happy for you. Seriously. I’m glad you are protected, though for how long we don’t know. I’m also glad because everyone who gets vaccinated may make up for the deniers who have been gathering all along. So go ahead and celebrate, post on Facebook, whatever you need to do. But please. Think about the rest of us before you go on. Before you go on to say, “I’m vaccinated, so I am going to travel here.” “I’m vaccinated, so I’m going to hug anyone who is vaccinated!” (I guess the rest of us are out of luck) “I’m vaccinated, so I am going to visit vaccinated friends.” Or smugly say, “Get any vaccine you can” even though you got the 95% effective one.
Please think. Think about how this makes the rest of us feel. I live in a state where the rollout has been glacial, where we are still on the 70 year olds, though a few 65 year olds have been fortunate. We don’t have the supply in this small county. We still have to be afraid and stay home. Whenever we go to the grocery store, there are the people sauntering around without masks. There are the needed health clinic visits where the receptionist doesn’t wear anything, and the rest of the staff just has on face shields. There’s the gas station…and I could go on. We can’t travel, or if we do, we worry about the guy sitting next to us, the hotel, the car rental place. Yes, I know travel is optional. The rest isn’t. We don’t have Instacart. Tourists pour in here, and we stay home while they recreate. No, I don’t “live in fear”, but I don’t want the complications others have had. I’m pretty sure I’d live, but some people are forever affected.
I know this sounds angry, and I don’t mean it to come off this way, or maybe I do. People have gotten more selfish during Covid. It didn’t start off that way, remember? We all thought we were in it together. People posted funny videos of their house adventures. People commiserated, or picked up groceries for others. Now, it feels like we are all out for ourselves.
All I am asking is, think about others before you return to normal life and celebrate this publicly. Many of us can’t, not yet.