My social media feed lately has seen an almost daily posting of some anti-vaxxer of note laid out on a hospital bed gasping for breath and pleading with their brethren to go get vaccinated for Covid-19 before it’s too late; like it is for me. There’s also the disclaimer that, “While we hate to see someone suffer and die…” with the admonishment that it’s about time for the anti-vaxxers to line up and bare your arms for the needle; followed by someone commenting, “When will they ever learn?”

The latest reply I put out was, “I’m not holding my breath…”

This ongoing drama reminds me of Theodore Geisel’s tale of the Sneetches. The last line in particular, “You can’t teach a Sneetch” applies here. No matter what proof of efficacy is offered, we are going to continue to see people laid out on hospital beds gasping for breath and pleading with their brethren to go get vaccinated for Covid-19 before it’s too late; like it is for me.

From what I’ve observed in my own little corner of the DFW Metromess are people who are opposed to vaccinations and other measures to curb the pandemic (and the emerging variants) are doing so because “Freedom.” I get it. Wearing a mask is a pain in the patoot. I don’t care for having a needle stuck in my arm, either, but I’ve done both for no other reason than to hope to keep someone else from having to be confined to a hospital bed, gasping for breath… and so on and so forth. It kind of ties in with the admonition of a certain itinerate rabbi from about 2,000 years ago suggesting that we should love our neighbors as ourselves.

Perhaps this resistance to protecting ourselves from Covid-19 is, as if I’ve recently heard suggested, a political thing. A thumbing of one’s nose to the current President, or it’s being done in an effort to crash the economy which would bode better for the GOP in the 2022 and 2024 elections. Given what’s been happening in the last year and a half, such a move would not surprise me in the least. One would think that the GOP would offer some constructive assistance with the Covid-19 situation instead of trying to convince us that “The King is a Fink!”

Sorry. Wrong comic artist.

Fortunately, no one close to me has contracted Covid-19 and died. My son-in-law had it, despite having had the vaccine, but other than having to isolate himself for a couple of weeks and having a few mild symptoms, he’s come away from the experience as “Fit as a Fiddle.”

A woman with whom I used to work lost her husband to Covid-19 before the vaccines became available. Her experience was heartbreaking, yet, to this day she gets e-mails and social messages mocking her from people who presumably should know better. He was just another one of over half a million people who made a positive difference in the lives of the people around him.

Then again, “You can’t teach a Sneetch!”

Be Seeing You!