Family stories make us laugh, make us cry, they can teach or often serve as cautionary tales.
In 1902, only 119 years ago, 3 of my great uncles died. One of malnutrition, and 2 of diphtheria, only 6 days apart; they were 3 and 8 years old. If vaccines had been available, they would have survived to adulthood. I reject the claims that vaccines are harmful or ineffective, we certainly don’t see kids dropping dead of diphtheria or any of the other quaintly named “childhood diseases” like measles, mumps, rubella, etc. I don’t believe vaccines are 100% effective, because NOTHING is, but vaccines are a routine way of protecting ourselves and others from diseases that kill. It’s not just about “me”, it’s about “we.” Too many Americans embracing the former over the latter is a potentially deadly turn for all of us.
Americans have been greatly insulated from the processes of birth, illness, and death with the rise of our healthcare system. We all go to that hospital and expect that we will come out okay, that is where our modern-day miracles happen. Even if we don’t understand all that goes on there, but we have a longstanding respect for those who heal.
As an RN, former public health nurse, and Army nurse, I am watching my faith in my fellow Americans face its biggest test. To me, being American has always been a part of being something bigger than myself, living in a place where we understood that to live together, we sometimes have to sacrifice to make it better, for all of us. I look at World War II & the unified effort to win, it took work then, and freedom and democracy still take work. Today it seems everyone wants easy answers that come instantly, sat right in our laps.
We are several generations removed from seeing the effects of real disease and death that was well-known in pre-vaccination times. We don’t have loved ones who lie in the front parlor in their coffins anymore, instead we go to a nice clean funeral home. We forget that children died in large numbers, any old graveyard tells that tale. In the age of mass vaccination, many of us have no real understanding of the difference they have made in terms of child mortality.
The photo above is of the “Morrison Cradles” in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis,MO. The baby girl, Olivia died of measles and whooping cough at 14 mosold. Her brother (born after her) diedat 6 years of age from Scarlet Fever. (pix & story from: https://tinyurl.com/yx2xd4r2)
“In 1900, 30 percent of all deaths in the United States occurred in children less than 5 years of age compared to just 1.4 percent in 1999. Infant mortality dropped from approximately 100 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1915 to 29.2 deaths per 1,000 births in 1950 and 7.1 per 1,000 in 1999.
This decrease in mortality reflects advances in public health, living standards, medical science and technology, and how doctors practice. Many infants who once would have died from prematurity, childbirth complications, and birth defects now survive. Children who previously would have perished from many childhood infections today live healthy and long lives thanks to sanitation improvements, vaccines, and antibiotics. In the United States, the average life expectancy at birth rose from less than 50 years in 1900 to more than 76 years in 1999… due to reductions in infant and child mortality.” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK220806/),
Sadly, healthcare in the United States is failing, life expectancy has levelled off in recent years, and in 2020, it fell by 1.5 years due to the COVID-19 death toll, with African Americans, and Hispanics losing even more years at 2.9 and 3.7 years, respectively. (https://tinyurl.com/rcrk3jr7) Given the Delta variant’s virulence, increased ability for one person to infect others, (https://tinyurl.com/9v6753b4), the high number of unvaccinated people in the United States, and deaths in younger, healthier people, life expectancy is likely to fall again in 2021.
During the COVID surges in 2020, many people were shocked when news leaked out that hospitals were formulating plans for crisis care standards, just in case. Luckily it turned out to be just preparation. Unfortunately, this year, Idaho hospitals are enacting crisis care standards, aka battlefield triage (https://tinyurl.com/47vyc7bx), driven by the Delta surge in a state that has largely fought against mask mandates & other mitigation efforts, even having a protest in March 2021 on the steps of the state capitol in Boise where people gleefully burned masks (https://tinyurl.com/y4b5fcaa) and has currently (as of 7 September 2021) a full vaccination rate of almost 40%, and about 45% for first doses, on July 1st, the rate were 36% fully vaccinated and almost 40% first doses. (https://tinyurl.com/ruhw66ys).
The actual “IDME” system is now in place as the first level of triage, which means cases with IMMEDIATE lifesaving needs will be seen first, followed by those who can wait and will be DELAYED. The “Walking Wounded” with minor illnesses and injuries will wait longer because their needs are MINIMAL. The category nobody likes to think about, the EXPECTANT, are those who are not expected to survive and will receive comfort care unless “new resources permit treatment.” This hard reality will strike a lot of privileged people in the gut. I personally hope that this crisis system is used fairly and not as a tool of discrimination, but I somehow doubt that will the case.
Now we come to the reality of selfish, spoiled Americans, who think they are entitled and deserving, who also suffer from a lot of overconfidence about what they think they know vs. what they really *DO* know. Too many of us live in a world of cognitive dissonance, which makes us double down on what we think we know, because being wrong is more uncomfortable than admitting error. The vaccine deniers rushing to local hospitals feeling entitled to a hospital bed when *they* need it is a tragic irony: the same sciences that brought them that hospital bed also brought them the vaccine *they* refused to take. It doesn’t matter how many resources *they* use, as long as *they* have the exact hospital care *they* deserve, when they *they* need it. There is also an expectation that nurses, doctors, and other healthcare workers will always be there and continue to give of themselves, and that there is an endless supply of these folks… but when these people just quit, or get sick themselves, who will take care of the selfish sick?
The irony isn’t lost on me that these horrific surges and death tolls are more highly concentrated in “red” states that had the laxest masking and mitigation measures and lowest vaccination rates, but I expect to see a lot of anger when people are faced with the reality of crisis care, when they or their loved ones not being seen. People pitch hissy fits over wearing masks or being asked to take vaccines, or the microwave not going fast enough these days. It’s all about them and what they are “entitled” to… and it’s about to crash on the rocks of “IDME” Battlefield triage.
Many influences are at work in the U.S., often at odds with one another. The mythological Rugged Individualism often opposes Uniting when the country is in danger. Neither is particularly bad, per se, and they generally have waxed and waned, one in favor of the other, as needed, thru our history. Sadly, the inherent conflict between these two has been exploited and worsened by our acrimonious tribal politics & the malign influence of foreign actors who know us better than we know ourselves. The conflict has escalated, to the detriment of the country, during the ongoing the COVID pandemic. Only the powerful and the aforementioned foreign actors have gained from this exploitation. Our modern robber barons like Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, the Kochs, the Waltons, etc. have made boatloads of money during the pandemic. They also happily keep the seeds of division planted and the crop carefully tended, dividing the little people with petty squabbles amongst each other, therefore unable to unite, recognize what is going on, and see who is really pulling the strings. The bread & circus distractions keep us from noticing Toto pulling back the curtain, while plenty of brave journalists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and others keep on pulling that curtain back. Sadly, the truths they tell are falling on too few ears that are actually listening. As the Ukrainians oligarchs say, “The people are the shit our money grows in.”
Distrust of education, expertise, and authority also run rampant in the American psyche. When combined with the rugged individualism myth, misogyny, and the racism inherent in the fabric of this nation, the brew gets toxic and dangerous, fast. Our education system has been hollowed and only teaches kids to be good little, consenting drones in the corporate & consumerist machines, and it gets even worse. People know instinctively there has to be a better or different way to exist, but all curiosity and critical thinking has been trained out of them. So, they find ways to rebel, when they are really looking for a meaning and a way to fill the hollowness that is left after their school years have left them bereft, especially if they find themselves feeling like square pegs for round holes.
We have created a bunch of people who act like entitled 5-year-olds who run around yelling, “Don’t tell me what to do! You aren’t the boss of me!”*They* want everything immediately, exactly the way *they* want it, and if *they* don’t get it, well it’s someone else’s fault because *they* deserve it. And you haven’t read their minds, it’s your fault. *They* don’t want to work for anything, they just want it sat in their laps. The desire for this immediacy is leading people to try unproven miracle cures like hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, etc.
I understand vaccine hesitancy and refusal, especially in the African American community, which has historically & truly been used as guinea pigs, such as the Tuskeegee experiment and Henrietta Lacks, or forced sterilizations. Dorothy Oliver in Panola, Alabama got 94% of her community to get vaccinated by simply talking to them (https://news.yahoo.com/one-woman-rural-vaccine-hesitant-010041741.html). Unfortunately, too many people elsewhere in the country can’t or won’t be reached because of the pain of cognitive dissonance, machismo, or whatever. Questions are fine, doubts are normal, but when the Grim Reaper knocks on your door and takes your friends and family members, to not reconsider your position is the unhealthiest form self-sabotage. There was even a Louisiana man who was hospitalized for COVID, who was refusing the vaccine because, “Their agenda is to get you vaccinated," he stated that he believes there are "too many issues" with the vaccines.” (https://tinyurl.com/39s97yvm)
As an RN, I saw a lot when I worked at the bedside, in public health, and in my current job reviewing hospital stays for managed Medicare and Medicaid. Plenty of patients direct their own care to the detriment of their own health. I’m not saying that patients shouldn’t be listened to, but sometimes their 2 cents is worth much less than they think it is. As a related aside, patient satisfaction survey scores haven’t correlated to better care, and one large study showed that high patient satisfaction correlated with higher utilization, expenditure, and mortality. (https://tinyurl.com/njv3ts4b)
There is an old adage, “…your right to swing your arm leaves off where my right not to have my nose struck begins”. But those refusing masks and vaccines aren’t just making choices for themselves. There are ripple effects for others needing the hospital beds, in Texas an Army veteran died of complications from gallstones because all the beds in all the local hospitals were filled with COVID patients, who are largely unvaccinated. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-us-hospital-icu-bed-shortage-veteran-dies-treatable-illness/). In California, an unvaccinated elementary school teacher took off her mask to read at story time and now half the class is infected with the Delta variant (https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/28/delta-variant-unvaccinated-children-elementary-schools/).
Rights come with responsibilities. If you choose to remain unvaxxed and unmasked, you have a responsibility to stay away from other people. Exercising your “rights” and hurting others is what selfish brats do.
And the politicization of COVID is just an extension of the selfishness and willful blindness, but we have to ask, “what are they getting out of this?” Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia is banning businesses from mandating masks on one hand, while calling in the National Guard to help in overflowing hospitals. (https://youtu.be/gzm10DIUsFo)
The damage to the mental and physical health of the pandemic on this nation is manifesting tangibly: we have already lost years of life expectancy across the boards. Social distancing, economic stressors from unemployment all play into this. I think about the effects the loss of 3 children in 1902 had on my great grandparents, grandmother, and mother. What were those effects? It is difficult to calculate, but events like these leave ripples in families… there even being some evidence that trauma can be passed to subsequent generations genetically. (https://tinyurl.com/cdsf3ym4) My great grandfather lost his mind for a period of time and left the home, leaving my great grandmother to have to place my grandmother in an orphanage so she would work. According to my mother’s telling, my great grandfather harbored resentment against my grandmother for surviving when all his sons had died. He didn’t seem to forgive my grandmother until she started having kids of her own. The family did eventually come back together... and my mom had the best memories of her grandparents, but I wonder if this might have been the source of my mother’s bouts of depression (that I recognize in retrospect).
How does such a level of tragedy, loss, and grief ripple out in a country absolutely devastated by COVID and exacerbated by magical thinking that it would just go away?
I have compassion for those who have not had access to, or real information about the vaccines. There are plenty of people with legitimate questions and concerns and they deserve the truth and easy access. But far too many of the unvaccinated are people who have made a stubborn selfish decision in the name of “freedom”.
As a nurse, I am angry. As a mother & grandmother, I am angry. I really just want to go out and slap people until they get it. I am enraged when I see people simply refusing to take simple precautions like masking, vaccination, social distancing because they feel like their freedoms are more important than the lives of those of every single person they come in contact with. They just cannot bear being inconvenienced; it hasn’t got a damned thing to do with freedom…. It has everything to do with selfishness.
