I’ve spent way too much time the past week or two reading about COVID and looking at cases, hospitalizations, and deaths and this is where I come down. I don’t believe we can protect the unvaccinated and I don’t believe it’s our job to do so, so I’m against universal mask mandates. I support vaccine passports, but I don’t think they should be mandatory. And I believe masks should be mandated in schools since younger children are ineligible for the vaccine and too many older children live in households with parents too irresponsible to get vaccinated. Finally, we need better masks in places that require them.
Vaccines work. They might not stop the virus completely, but they do keep people from getting sick enough to be hospitalized and die. In North Carolina, more than 99% of hospitalizations and deaths have been among unvaccinated people since vaccinations began. We need to learn to live with the risk of being sick with COVID just like we live with the risk of flu, meningitis, and a host of other illnesses. Vaccines allow that.
That said, even people who are vaccinated are at more risk because of people who are unvaccinated. In Mississippi, where COVID is raging because of vaccine skepticism, the number of cases seems to be increasing the frequency of hospitalizations and deaths of fully vaccinated people, especially among the elderly and people with compromised immune systems. The greater the exposure to infected people the greater the risk of catching the disease.
If a business or organization wants to require proof of vaccination, they should be able to do so. The state should provide a certified vaccine validation card so we can distinguish who is a threat of spreading the virus and who is not. Employers should require vaccines, especially for employees who work in teams or with the general public. People who aren’t vaccinated are a public health risk and should be treated as such.
Masks should be mandated in schools. Most elementary school children aren’t eligible for vaccines so we shouldn’t put them at risk. Anecdotal evidence indicates that the Delta variant is putting more children in hospitals and even children who show no symptoms are later developing a life-threatening disorder called multisystem inflammatory syndrome. Until we know more about it, we shouldn’t have kids in classrooms with no protection. Since the Delta variant is infecting vaccinated people and they can spread it to vulnerable children, masks seem to be a common sense measure.
As for masks, if we are going to require them of students and staff, we need to provide them. Cloth masks with only one layer of fabric are not very effective. Children should be provided with masks that have at least two layers of fabric or with disposable surgical masks. There’s not much sense in requiring them if they don’t do what we need them to do.
I don’t believe we are going to get too many vaccine skeptics to get shots unless they are made to feel uncomfortable or scared. They should be treated like the public health threats that they are. They should be separated from those of us who are responsible citizens and prevented from exposing the vulnerable to the virus as much as possible. Since their children are going to be in school, we should require masks to limit the spread of the disease. Schools are places that require groups of people to be together for long periods of time and masks provide protection both for those too young for the vaccine and those who come from households with irresponsible adults. Vulnerable people may need to take additional precautions like wearing masks in public and avoiding crowded venues.
The rest of us should work on getting back to normal. Our vaccines will almost certainly protect us from serious illness, but we’re not going to eradicate it like we did small pox or polio, at least not in the short term. So, we need to get back to life, going out to dinner, going to movies, plays, and concerts. And we need social interaction, especially for our children. Otherwise, the virus is beating us.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
I disagree about not needing a masj mandate. The anti vaxxers are a threat to those of us who are vaccinated. We can still get COVID-19 because the Delta variant is so virulent. We need to go backwards thanks to those who don’t seem to care if people die or get very sick or get long haul covid. Being over 70 puts me at greater risk. I don’t feel safe being in a room with a group of people who are vaccinated these days.
I’ve been in Maine where 80% are vaccinated and they are getting 275 cases a day. I am not looking forward to being back in Raleigh.
I won’t waste my time commenting on one of the comments above, but concur with the third one, and as a rarity, therefore have to disagree with you re. requiring masks in any indoor situation for everyone at the state and national levels, though politically that won’t happen even if we continue to have thousands of more deaths. But if the unmasked find they cannot go into government or business offices, hospitals or doctors’ offices, restaurants, stores of any kind, schools/universities, museums, buses, sporting events, etc., that would be a real inducement to use masks. But covid, the current Delta variant raging through our state, country and the world, and future viruses likely to evolve if we don’t achieve AT LEAST herd immunity of 85% to me means we need to push business and the politicians to call for universal, required vaccination, and require people to present proof on an acceptable card/form (or copied easily onto a cellphone) to enter any indoor venue.
It is time to take this far more seriously, since every person unvaccinated or unmasked is a potential killer.
Thomas,
I’ve got to concur with Mr. Lineberger, certainly at least with regard to returning to a “normal” life – ‘course truth be told “normal” is subjective 🙂 The lunch bunch with whom you shared gustatory delight once gave up on our favorite dining location last March, that was 2020. A few of us, all jabbed, do get together for lunch now and again in our backyards, but at social distance. Long C-19, at our average age north of 70, is an unpleasant thought. I fear this will be our circumstance into 2022 … and longer if the next variant, and there will be one, is worse than delta.
Avoiding any “constitutional nonsense”, just looking at the economics of providing care for our “skeptical” friends, puts our national health care system at structural risk. All of us, in one way or another, bear some cost for care of the uninsured – and putative increases in our premiums for those of us publically or privately health-insured. No ICU beds left? How many deaths might result were that to become a common condition for our health care systems outside Mississippi? Deaths unrelated to the virus. Deaths are expensive. At a minimum, they reduce the consumer population.
Look at your shoulder. Do you happen to have a small scar confirming a small pox vaccination? We obliterated that disease with what has been a very much universal scratching. I know, not quite a perfect parallel.
I grant you, it’s much tougher to reach consensus today (on any issue, including sunrises) 🙂 than earlier last century. Just a few reasons include the myriad information sources available, the complexity of understanding the immune system, the regrettable 7th-8th grade average reading level of our neighbors (whether fond of red or blue regarding politics), the fumbling and contradictions of leaders political and religious.
But when we know that the infection rate among the unvaccinated is greater than 1 in 10, and perhaps 40% of our country have not rolled up a sleeve, permitting them to continue untouched seems something of an ethical question to me. As a society, we do support suicide prevention, don’t we?
I agree, it sure is frustrating to wander ’round masked-up. Especially since my glasses invariable fog up when chatting. 🙂 But isn’t mass masking likely to be relatively short term when compared to death?
Uncle Grumpy
Are you afraid of being censored? Why are you so willing to ape the Feds propaganda. Have you listened to what real virologists have to say? There is a lot of real data out there if you know where to look. Fauci is a hack with something to gain if the truth came out. He is connected to the gain of function lab this came from. I’m sure there is a lot more reason why we are being told lies about the vaccines.
This is just one concerned REAL doctor explaining in detail what the shot does to a body. He is not political.
https://rumble.com/vkopys-a-pathologist-summary-of-what-these-jabs-do-to-the-brain-and-other-organs.html
Mr. Mills, I am not so concerned about protecting the unvaccinated as I am seeing what happens if we do not reach herd immunity. The unvaccinated are currently causing the health care systems and health care workers in several states to reach a reach a breaking point. Statistics indicate that this is likely to get much worse. Now there is even a spike in covid cases with young adults and children. How many of them need to die before our society says enough is enough? I am glad to see businesses begin to lead the way. Conservatives are going to have a harder time railing against businesses than they will against Joe Biden and the Democrats. Unfortunately, as much as I would like, those of us who have had our vaccines cannot go back to leading normal lives. The unvaccinated have made this impossible. I am tired of playing nice. I do not want to die or have my loved ones die because of the crazies.