OPINION: It’s No Longer My Job To Protect Your Dumb Ass
Daniel Klein - Contributor Posted: January 29, 2022 6:30 PM
The current New Mexico health order, requiring masking by everyone age 2 and above in public places, expires on February 4, 2022. It should be amended not extended.
For a year now we have known the answer to protecting yourself from COVID, get vaccinated. The vaccine doesn’t mean you won’t get COVID. What the vaccine will do is give you tremendous odds that you will not be hospitalized or die. Of course, there are always those rare cases where a vaccinated person, who has an underlying condition, does die, but that’s rare. Almost everyone in the hospital or who have died from COVID has been unvaccinated. That’s fact.
The vaccine doesn’t stop the transmission of COVID, the majority of vaccinated people don’t even know they have it, or if they are sick, it isn’t that bad. This has been the main reason for the health orders mandating masks. To stop the transmission, but vaccinated people are going to be OK, so why is it our job to protect those people who voluntarily refuse to get the vaccine?
I am not saying that masks should never be worn, but instead of a blanket mandate, Governor Grisham and Doctor Scrase (both of whom I greatly respect by the way, it’s a tough damn job they have) should issue a targeted health order. They should mandate the wearing of masks where people, who are at greater risk of dying or hospitalization, congregate. Mandate masks for hospitals, nursing homes, senior centers, etc. Allow the rest of us to get on with our lives because we are protected.
The counter argument to this will be that hospitals are overwhelmed, and we need to support our health care workers (I just saw the commercial). This is correct, we need to do something and that something is to let the voluntarily unvaccinated know they will go to the back of the treatment line when they get so sick with COVID that they need hospitalization. The health order should mandate providing care to those who vaccinate, because they are doing what they can to protect themselves and therefore protecting the healthcare system. We should not be trying to save people who are making their own decisions not to be saved. Those unvaccinated must understand that there are consequences for their actions.
Hospitals nationwide are already beginning to make these types of decisions. For example, if you need an organ transplant and you are not vaccinated, many hospitals are removing you from the transplant list. In this case the patient is getting exactly what they are demanding. They don’t want the vaccine, then they don’t get the organ. It’s called personal responsibility. It’s not up to the rest of us to save you from your decisions, that’s on you.
Isn’t that what the unvaccinated are always screaming about? “Don’t tread on me! My body my choice!” MLG and Scrase should give them what they are demanding, but with a firm understanding that if there is a patient who is vaccinated and sick (from any ailment) that person will be treated before the unvaccinated adult COVID patient. Decisions bear consequences, government can’t bail you out from your own stupidity.
Life is tough, people need to think about the decisions they make for themselves. Of course, if a child is not vaccinated because of their parents, and that child gets sick, they deserve care. The child should not be punished for the dumbass decisions of their parents.
What about schools? Again, teachers and staff are all adults and have the ability to get a free vaccine. If they didn’t because of a real (not a make believe) exemption, the school should either require masks in their classroom or move the teacher into a setting where they have no contact with others. How about students? The studies clearly show that vaccinated kids are just like vaccinated adults, they just don’t get that sick. But what about those parents who decide not to vaccinate their kids? Here is where MLG and Scrase should target the mandate and not let that kid into public school. Those kids, because of their parents, will face the reality of remote learning or going to some private school that finds a way to skirt the system. That’s not MLG or Scrase’s fault, it belongs to their parents. Decisions have consequences.
How about workers in grocery stores, bars, theaters, etc? Once again, they have the ability to get vaccinated, if they decided against it, that is a choice they made. Masks should no longer be mandated by the government in those buildings. Of course, if the business still wants to mandate masks that is their prerogative and if unvaccinated, anti-maskers don’t like it they can shop elsewhere. That’s called American free market.
It’s time for Scrase and Grisham to target the health order mandate to protect those who really need it, the elderly. Let those adults who voluntarily decide against the vaccine live, or die, with their decisions, while the rest of us get back to normal lives. It’s not our job to protect them from themselves. Sorry, I am not my brothers keeper, neither should the government.