On Science, Propaganda, and Society

It's 2022. A lot has happened since my last blog post. My wife, son, dog and I have sold our little starter home and bought our new family house. Moving in over the summer, preparing for and releasing my second book in October (Hey, if you haven't ordered your copy of A Perfect Victim yet, head over to the "Buy" tab after you read this), all while chasing around a rambunctious toddler has filled most of my time. The other thing that has dominated my life, and the life of most Americans, is the constant presence of the Covid-19 pandemic. I've done what I could to stay out of the proverbial gladiatorial pit, but it's impossible not to think about. And what better way to return to blogging than to dump all my thoughts onto my website? Oh, this is gonna be fun. I mean, really, what could go wrong?

Some things about myself that are important: Deep down, I have a lot in common with those vocal anti-vaxxers that we all hear about. Throughout my 20s and early 30s, I never took a sick day, laughed at "flu season" and the notion of a flu shot, and firmly believed that my natural immune system protected me better than medicine. I hated prescription drugs (even had a hernia surgery at 23 and stopped taking my pain killers after 2 days, choosing to endure the pain instead of feel drowsy and sick to my stomach), and believed in herbal tea and vitamins over cold medicine. 

So what changed? A couple of things. One, I got married and had a kid. Two, I'm in a unique situation where my inner circle of friends consists of a pharmacist, a surgeon, two research PHDs (one of which studies infectious disease), and a wife who is part of the communications department for the local medical college. Information on this novel virus has not been hard to come by. Three, and perhaps more importantly, I've become increasingly aware of this country's disregard of the concept of a social contract.

​It's mainly this last point that I want to talk about. I think back to March of 2020 and when we first began to hear about masking, social distancing, and sheltering in place. I confess at this time, despite having a 9 month old child at home and a wife with, albeit minor, asthma, I still said to myself, "Well, I work from home, I only really go out to the grocery store once every week or so, I'll be fine just keeping 6 feet. I'll do with masks like I used to with flu shots: keep them for those who really need them." After all, we can't live in fear, right? When my wife insisted on masking when I was out, I naturally relented. And it wasn't just to keep the peace at home. I followed the CDC guidelines closely and made the decision to follow them. It just made sense.

That's not to say I like wearing masks, especially now that I'm vaccinated and boosted, but I continue to do so as we continue to fight new mutations of the virus. And why? Coming full circle from my point a few paragraphs ago, the social contract. And it is here that I have the biggest problem with the segment of the population who continues to very vocally cast disparagement on the concept of scientific recommendations, mass vaccination, and the current presidential administration. On the surface, I'm not opposed to the concept of bodily autonomy. I don't necessarily like the idea of vaccine mandates, and I can even agree that the CDC and the other medical experts haven't done themselves any favors by changing recommendations as often as they have and getting dragged into the political spotlight.

But here's where I differ from your staunch anti-vaxxers on these points. While I appreciate a person's fundamental rights to not get vaccinated if they so choose, I also appreciate and am in full support of private business and employees enforcing their health and safety policies. And honestly, as this segment of the populace also overlaps quite strongly with the segment that favors pure, unbridled, free market capitalism, these folks should support that too.

On the concept of vaccine mandates, here is where the idea of the social contract comes into play and I'm now going to address my perspective fully on this point. It constantly amazes me how much the American identity has become one of self focus. This myth that America is all about taking care of yourself and not worrying about anyone else's well being is the main reason why we haven't defeated this virus (in my opinion, anyway). When this country, the richest in the world, has had the vaccine for longer than anyone else, has so much extra vaccine that we're basically giving it away to the rest of humanity, and we only have 63% of our population fully vaccinated (where most, if not all, first world countries, all of whom were some 2 months or more behind us in their mass roll outs, have managed to fully vaccinate a higher percentage of their populations than we have), I have to shake my head.

And what are the arguments we here most from those refusing free protection? "I had it, I was fine", "If you're vaccinated, why do you care if I am?", "We can't live in fear". And while they're not coming out and saying it, the subtext (and I'm by no means saying it's intentional) is "I care about me, not you." And there is your problem. There is the breaking of the social contract. In a functional society, the people work together for the COMMON GOOD. And that is why I don't personally feel like the measures I take in public have anything to do with my personal well being. I do these things for others. Because that's what a responsible member of a society does. (Not to get overly preachy, but 22 months of introspection has begun to break my brain).

I'm starting to get a little rambly, so I'll just say this. I have no illusions that a little blog post will change anyone's mind on vaccination and the Covid-19 pandemic in general. I can sit here and make the arguments till I'm blue in the face and answer every bad faith question that the anti-vax community brings up with "You might have had it and been fine, but did you consider that maybe a couple of those people that you breathed on without a mask are in a hospital hooked to a machine or buried in the ground or the toll this cavalier attitude is putting on the healthcare system?," or "getting vaccinated shows others you care for their health and safety," "vaccine mandates wouldn't be necessary if we all just agreed to act for the common good", "a novel virus isn't a school bully that will just go away if you stand up to it and show it you're not afraid of it, its sole function is to survive and by surviving, it kills other living things", "recommendations from the scientific community change because science is not static and we're constantly learning about a virus that has never existed before and questioning the experts is not a crusade against propaganda (*cough* Aaron Rodgers *cough cough*), it is in fact giving into the propaganda machine that is keeping you ignorant," etc. etc. etc.

Unfortunately, while I've used the last few years to try and expand my understanding of medicine, health and the common welfare, these last few years have also strengthened my cynicism that most people in this country are just going to seek out the evidence that falls in line with their own preconceived notions and ignore everything else. And, for the last time I want to make this perfectly clear. I HATE ALL OF THIS. I hate wearing a mask. I hate getting constant pokes in the arm with a needle. I hate not having friends over to watch a Packer game or have dinner and a game night, DESPITE THE FACT THAT WE'RE ALL VAXXED AND BOOSTED! (Sorry again, brain breaking, really want to have a small Super Bowl party with my besties this year, especially if the Packers get there). But, again, sometimes doing what's right for the society as a whole means placing your personal desires last. Sadly, we're where we are because too many of us can't do that. We can't all look at something and agree that the same thing is going on. As the great Louis Black said in an HBO Special nearly 20 years ago: "You can't look at a video of a cat being hit by a car and say 'Oh, well, the cat was trying to commit suicide.'" We're all looking at the same video and a too-large chunk of our society is telling themselves that the cat is trying to kill itself. That's the problem and I, like everyone else, don't have an easy answer.

Except Fuck Covid. Fuck it hard.