The “Delta Variant” of COVID-19 in the United States and the Ghost of Charles Darwin

It is just over one month since California officially reopened and face masks were no longer mandated. I was thrilled about about it.

But the virulent “Delta strain” is out and about, and the numbers of COVID-19 infected has risen recently. Although small compared to previous “surges,” there has been an increase in the numbers of Coronavirus ill in California. The virus is still out there, and people are getting infected by it. Neighboring Los Angeles County has had an even larger outbreak than where I live in Ventura, and starting tomorrow night they are reinstating indoor masking by law, even for the vaccinated.

But this is an outbreak almost entirely among the unvaccinated. I read today that 99% of those in the hospital in Ventura County right now with COVID are unvaccinated. That is a powerful statistic. Moreover, a few weeks ago I read with astonishment this article:

“Nearly All COVID Deaths in US Are Now Among Unvaccinated”
By Carla Johnson and Mike Stobbe
June 29, 2021

Wow.

Back in March when the vaccines became widely available I stood in long lines with many others to get vaccinated. I remember thinking to myself at the time this: “If you have all this opportunity to get vaccinated for free like the rest of us and you choose not to, and then you contract the Coronavirus and get sick — and maybe die — that’s on you, buddy!” And here we are. Some of the vaccinated are getting sick. Some of them will die.

I would love to go to the hospital wards and see these unvaccinated patients, and talk with them. Why did you not get vaccinated, brother? What were you thinking?

As of today a quick Internet search shows that some 73.7% of the residents 18 and older in Ventura County where I live have had at least one jab of COVID 19 vaccine. That still leaves more than 26% of the adult population who have — for whatever reason — chosen to remain unvaccinated. Whether they think that bikram yoga or a vegan diet will protect them better than a vaccine, or because of mistrust in medical authorities of the government, or a failure to believe themselves at risk, or simple inability to get off their ass and do it — they don’t get vaccinated.

I have one friend who, after researching the science, was concerned about the mRNA technology used in the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna brand vaccines. So instead he chose to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine which did not use that technology. That seems like a reasonable accommodation.

But there are certain segments of American society which have unusually high rates of those who won’t get any vaccine at all.

Most prominently, there is supposedly the demographic of Republican men. I have read that some ”conservatives” don’t trust the “experimental” vaccines or the government which helped to promote and propagate them; and some “Red states” have the lowest vaccination rate in the country. As a region, the South stands out here. Perhaps these are the same sort of “know nothing” populists who supported Donald Trump to “drain the swamp” of “elite institutions” corrupt to the core. They supposedly distrust anything coming out of Washington D.C.

But I remember Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell pointedly saying the following to the camera:

My father, about as “Republican” a man as they come, cannot understand why anyone would refuse a free, widely-available vaccine shot.

Some blame social media. I saw President Biden today claim that Facebook was “killing people” by allowing misinformation on its network which decried the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. Millions of Americans supposedly viewed these posts and decided not to get vaccinated. So they are “victims” of social media. They were killed by the lies which Facebook failed to suppress.

I call bullshit on that.

It denies agency to individuals who can make informed decisions and choose freely their best course of action. If you are so poorly educated — or able to be seduced by your fears and/or prejudices via misinformation, and so you fail to get a vaccine shot — fine. You have made a choice, bubba. Or maybe you allowed a choice to be made for you? But if you get sick with COVID, don’t go blaming anyone but yourself, you dumbshit. You read it on social media and automatically believed it? Much of what one reads on social media is like the scrawls on bathroom stalls — caveat emptor. Do you live in a cave and not know this?

For whatever reason, some will choose not to get vaccinated. Maybe some are just too lazy or whatever. The fact is that to get vaccinated you have to get up and get it done. Some won’t get it done. I got vaccinated and you probably did, too. But not everybody else will. I read recently that many young adults feel they are young, healthy, and therefore almost invulnerable to the SARS-CoV-2 virus (and everything else) and so don’t get vaccinated. Fine. The fact that some Americans won’t get vaccinated and contribute to our collective “herd immunity” drives some around the bend. They gnash their teeth in frustration. Not me. Some people are just plain dumb or helpless or whatever. No matter the pleadings to get vaccinated or the incentives offered, they will do nothing. They brought in 18-year old pop singer Olivia Rodrigo to the White House last Wednesday, and she urged young Americans to get vaccinated; supposedly Ms. Rodrigo has more pull with young people than all the scientists and doctors. Whatever.

My brother argues anyone refusing to get vaccinated is a prime candidate for a “Darwin Award” — given to those who contribute to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool by dying due to their own stupidity, and thereby failing to propagate their DNA to the benefit of the species moving forward.

I have heard some say African-Americans and Latinos are chary of getting vaccinated because of a lack of faith in American health care and the government generally — because of the infamous Tuskegee Experiments back in the mid-20th century, or unhappy experiences generally with “White” doctors more recently. They distrust the system, so they stay away from the vaccines produced by it; so if they refuse vaccines and then fall sick they are victims of “systemic racism,” some argue.

I call bullshit on that, too — and for much the same reason as with the Trumpkin voters.

It denies the agency of African Americans to make informed decisions as to what is in their best interests. It is as if they have to be talked into it. As if they are somehow unable to choose freely to get vaccinated. Whether you think that with enough exercise or the right diet you are protected better than with a vaccine — or that “systemic racism” or “elite culture” is forcing unhealthy vaccines on you — I give everyone the freedom to make up their own minds. Liberal journalists bend backwards to justify ignorance in “low information” communities typified by “mistrust,” as if people are not smart enough to research and choose freely.

I am not against any outreach efforts or education campaigns towards getting as many Americans vaccinated as possible. But past a point, nobody is in line anymore for a vaccine shot. In the past two months I have seen with my own eyes pharmacies in three separate states offering free and available COVID-19 vaccine shots, and next to nobody was taking them.

Fine.

Take those vaccine shots and ship them to South America or India, where many people WILL take the shots.

As for the dumbshit Americans who, despite everything, refuse to get vaccinated — it’s on you now, bubba. Don’t complain if you get infected and find yourself in an ICU. The look that nurse or doctor gives you when you admit to them that you chose not to get vaccinated — you earned that, buddy.

And it might be that the Coronavirus will continue to churn through mostly the unvaccinated population in the United States for months or even years in a “low-level burn” which results in illness and death, albeit at a much lower level than before.

Well, that would be sad. But so be it.

I wish illness or death on nobody. But I don’t see what anyone can do about it, beyond what they’ve already done.

No more masks for the fully vaccinated (as the CDC already says). No more cancelling youth sports or closing the schools. No more shutting down entire swaths of society with the enormous damage that causes. Limit the risk as much as is reasonable, and get on with the business of living. This seems so self-evident, I can hardly believe we are debating it.

So get a vaccine shot, if you have not already done so.

It’s free. And widely available. And safe. Maybe you will have a day or two of mild side effects, but that is a small price to pay for avoiding the prospect of getting sick, very sick, or even dying of COVID-19.

Or you can decide to remain unvaccinated and live with the possible consequences — some health care professional looking down at your corpse and thinking, “You dumbshit!” Yours would have been a totally preventable death.

I take you seriously as a thinking person free to make up your mind as an individual whether you will inject a vaccine into your body, or not.

So live up to my estimation of you as a thinking person, please.

The ghost of Charles Darwin is watching.

P.S. I have to concede that maybe over time the vaccine skeptics might be proven right. Maybe the mRNA technologies used in most vaccines will be shown to be harmful to our long-term health in some hidden, unforeseen way. Maybe we the vaccinated with mRNA technology will grow horns or become sterile from these vaccines. But I doubt it. There is no evidence for that.

But I strongly suspect remaining unvaccinated for COVID-19 in the United States by July 2021 is not really a political affiliation or a skin-color thing, but more a level-of-education thing. Where you find the least educated Americans, there you find the most unvaccinated.

But even many of the most “uneducated” of us Americans have chosen to get vaccinated. One assumes they studied the issue and made up their mind. What is the excuse for the others?