The Widder Curry Is at it Again – This Time Against the Anti-VAXXers

By Judi Curry

I attended a social gathering of twelve women the other night and more than two came up to me and asked me why I hadn’t written anything lately.  Basically I answered that I was so fed up with what is going on around me that I am trying not to let the social fabric of today get in my way.

Of course we all know that is impossible; every time you walk out of your house you can’t help but wonder if you are putting yourself at risk.

There are two things happening – or not happening – that have my dander up this week.  (It is subject to change next week.)

The first one has to do with those people that refuse to get a Covid vaccine. People very, very dear to me refuse to get it.  One person said that he had Covid, he is very healthy, and now has an immunity against it.  I asked him how he knew he had an immunity? After all, I had Covid; I was very ill; but I still had the Pfizer vaccines.

I asked if I could have a test to see if I was immune, but I was told there was nothing available. (That is also puzzling, because my son-in-law that also had Covid gave blood the other day and he was tested for anti-bodies. Why can’t those of us that had Covid be tested for anti-bodies without having to give blood?)

I have tried to begin my regular routines – shopping, restaurant reviews, small gatherings, and I am amazed at the people saying they are safe; that they do not have to have the vaccine.  The rationale behind so many of the anti-VAX’s is mind boggling – a conspiracy; with the vaccine the government will be able to track our every movement; it’s an excuse to murder us; today someone said to me that “ . . I don’t want to get dementia.”

I asked where she would be getting dementia and she told me that the” . . vaccine includes something that shrinks the brain.”

I think that many of you have the same memory I have when the polio vaccine came out.  People clamored to get it.  There was none of the discussion about losing one’s memory; of it not being safe.

I was just a kid and I remember my mother taking me to the pediatrician to have the sugar cube.  I also remember the horrific pictures of people in iron lungs filling up the hospital beds.  A very similar picture of today’s epidemic of Covid: the hospital beds, hallways, parking lots, etc. are filled to capacity and people are dying by the minute.

You seldom hear about Polio any more.  I can tell you that my late-husband had polio and the pain that he talked about was every bit as bad as what Covid sufferers are going through now.  Many polio patients didn’t survive; many, like my husband, had limbs that were atrophied from the disease.  But we seldom hear about anyone getting polio any more. Why?  BECAUSE THEY HAD THE VACCINE.

And that brings me to the second rant:  I was an educator for many years, from a teacher to a principal, to an assistant professor, to an assistant deputy director of a Job Corps Center, etc.  The most important part of any of the positions was the welfare of the students. They needed to be safe, and the only way we could insure that was if the staff was also “safe.”  Yes, there was a form for parents to fill out telling why they didn’t want their child to have the small pox vaccine, or the polio vaccine – or … And, for the most part it was based on religious convictions – not on their political persuasion.

School has reopened – although why it is opening during the hottest time of the year instead of the middle of September as it used to be done is another subject that I may discuss at a later date – but if you look at the television and watch the parents ridicule the school boards, the teachers, the governors for employing a rule re: masking and/or vaccines, you know that America has lost it.

As an educator I sure as hell would not want to be the only one in my classroom that had the vaccine when the 20-25 students sitting around me have not had it; nor do they have to have a mask.  Are they isolated? Do they not have contact with other human beings?

\Sure, I would prefer not to mask at all.  Many students need to see the lips of the teacher to understand what is being said; some students are hard of hearing and the mask muffles the words, but you know what? Dying reduces all hearing and seeing.  The hospital beds are once again filled, and this time with young people.

As a parent and a grandparent of 20 children, I would not want to have any of my relatives go into a classroom where everyone has not had the vaccine, and everyone is not wearing a mask.  And picture the child wearing a mask that sneezes into the mask. Where do you think the virus is going to go? Back in the sneezer?

Keep the children at home until a safe method is designed and utilized by all the children and staff.  It only takes one to spread the disease to everyone else. How many times recently have you heard said, “I wish I had had the vaccine?”  Or how many times have you heard a spouse say “I wish he had had the vaccine?”

Are these parents that are standing outside protesting the masks going to say, “I wish I had allowed him to be vaccinated.  Well Parent, if you have to say it it is too late.  Get off the political wagon and listen to the scientists, the physicians, the nurses – the people that are working with these dying and critically ill humans.

Don’t let people with an ax to grind make your mind up for you.  You have brains – use them.  Think about the person you may infect; think about a classroom of 25 children; one teacher that has been vaccinated and wearing a mask, and think about that one child that has been exposed to Covid and is sitting right next to your child.  Think people.  Think!