To All of the Anti-Vaxxers and Trumpists Who Are Refusing to Be Vaccinated, I Say This From the Bottom of My Heart:

You are screwing over everyone else.

Early in the pandemic, when vaccines for the coronavirus were still just a glimmer on the horizon, the term “herd immunity” came to signify the endgame: the point when enough Americans would be protected from the virus so we could be rid of the pathogen and reclaim our lives.

Now, more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable — at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever.

Instead, they are coming to the conclusion that rather than making a long-promised exit, the virus will most likely become a manageable threat that will continue to circulate in the United States for years to come, still causing hospitalizations and deaths but in much smaller numbers.

We need vaccination rates over 80%, preferably over 90%, to achieve herd immunity. That's about what we have gotten to with measles. It was vaccination and getting to herd immunity that relegated smallpox to the dumpster of history over forty years ago (smallpox was eradicated in North America nearly 70 years ago). Vaccination has eliminated the threat of polio summer. Vaccination relegated iron lungs to medical museums.

I know the anti-vaxxers like to claim that this is a matter of personal choice, that their decision only affects them. That, Gentle Reader, is a lie. Not getting vaccinated affects everyone around, it gives a disease a pathway to spread. Frankly, if not getting vaccinated affected only those who weren't getting their shots, I'd say "knock yerselves out, you want to take the risk of getting sick and dying, fine by me." But it doesn't just affect the anti-vaxxer.

It's not just personal choice, it's selfishness. It's just as selfish as deliberately puffing cigarette smoke into another person's face. It's as selfish as roaring up and down the streets at 2AM in a muscle car with straight pipes. It's an attitude of "hooray for me and fuck you." It's shirking one's duty to everyone else.

It is selfishness on an incrediby childish level.

So, please, get your shots.

And if you won't, then damn your twisted, shabby soul, forever.