No, I haven’t lost my mind. I’ve just rethought the whole situation based on current conditions. Mandates are not going to move as significant a number of people as we need to move at this point. The vast majority of people who were ever going to get vaccinated have already done so. Keeping up the pressure doesn’t make sense to me at this point.
I think that we need a new strategy now based on what we know. It seems to me that our only issue with the unvaccinated is that they’re flooding the hospitals and taking or delaying care from other people. We know that they’re not more able to spread the virus than vaccinated people are so we should stop acting like this is a factor. Don’t get me wrong, I still viscerally feel like, “Fuck you for not getting vaccinated”, but my plan deals with those feelings.
I want to drop all of the vaccine mandates. I don’t want to exclude the unvaxxed from restaurants, businesses, jobs, or anything else. Stay with me. I’m about to drive this home in a way that will make you less angry than you are right at this moment. I don’t want to stop the unvaccinated from doing anything other than costing someone else their lives.
So here’s what I propose: Step one is getting rid of this paper bullshit system that Trump started, and that Biden failed to fix. Paper cards are a joke. There’s too much room for forgery. We need to go to a 100% digital system. New York and California both have digital vaccine passports. Ours here in New York was created by IBM. I’m guessing that IBM has been to all 50 states, offering licenses to this product. California might well be using the same product, but that doesn’t matter. My point is that everything should be digital. Every American should be required to have their digital “passport”. For people who don’t want to get vaccinated, they will have to sign a statement vowing not to show up at a hospital for covid (or for the deniers, – flu-like) symptoms. Their passport will reflect that decision.
Don’t get me wrong, I will never advocate for denying care to anyone, especially in America where we already have an unacceptable amount of denying care. I also don’t believe that the remedy for stupidity should be the death penalty. The only times I’ve truly rejoiced over a story where a vaxxhole does from covid has been when they were in influencer. My hope is that their deaths will maybe get some of their victims to a vaccination center. But it doesn’t make me happy when someone who has been duped by a grifter or political ideologue dies.
The cold hard fact that we have to accept is that people are going to be denied care when we have covid surges. I simply want to manage the situation so that someone doesn’t die of a ruptured appendix because no hospital within a 100 mile radius can get them into surgery. I want to make sure that no one has to delay their chemotherapy sessions because a hospital is overrun with covid patients.
Now, I know that people are fucking hypocrites and that despite their pledges not to show up in the ED, they’re going to anyway. Signing the pledge not to show up at the ED won’t necessarily mean that you must be turned away. Some of those hypocrites will (and should) get treated. But those passports will allow us to allocate healthcare in a more fair way than the first-come-first-serve shitshow we’re employing now. Hospitals can go up to 80% or even 90% capacity before they start turning people away. Once they’ve reached a certain threshold, they should turn away anyone who pledged to see their decision not to get vaccinated through to its natural conclusion.
Anyone who doesn’t have a completed passport will be treated as unvaccinated, and therefore subject to being turned away from hospitals when the situation warrants it. It’s time that people understand that they have to make active decisions with active consequences.
Mask mandates would, of course, remain in place. Masks are our most effective tool for slowing the spread. I don’t support dropping those mandates until we’ve officially moved from pandemic to endemic.
So that’s my solution. It solves the problem that advocates on both sides have. If you want me to STFU about your vaxx status, you have to pledge not to fuck shit up for the rest of us.
Pretty simple, right?
