A senseless death

I’m angry. Mostly I’m hurt, but I’m very angry. Angry about misinformation, angry about lies, and people wanting to profit from killing others. I’m angry that there is a small, but incredibly vocal group of anti-vaccine, anti-mask, pro-death cultists basically that are causing people to question if the COVID vaccine is safe. And today I found out we lost someone close to us because of that misinformation.

It never fails, I post something about wearing the damn mask or getting the vaccine and someone tells me that they should be able to make their own choice and not be forced to do what the government tells them to do. This is a childish argument at best, imagine if I applied that to driving for example. I SHOULD be allowed to drive on the sidewalk, who the fuck can tell me not to do it? It’s my right as an American to drive my car on the sidewalk whenever I want.

See the problem?

We have laws for a reason and while yes, some of those laws are unfair and more than a handful of them (okay a whole fucking lot of them) are racist/sexist/a combination of the two. We have laws to protect people from the idiots who WOULD want to drive on the sidewalk. I need look no further than the drinking and driving death statistics to see just how selfish and arrogant people can be, one drunk driving death every ~50 minutes here in the US.

Today we lost someone who worked with us. I fucking hate this time of the year… Anyway she was the caregiver of one of the people in the lab. The person she cared for was someone who I would like to point out, like myself, is at high risk for complications from COVID. The caregiver, the one who we lost, was kind, funny, and everyone loved her. She was dependable and for as long as I’ve worked in the lab I’ve seen her around helping.

She was incredibly funny, talked a lot about her family and how she grew up. She was the kind of person who would always make you smile and laugh. I’ve only known her for a few years, but she would always go out of her way to ask how I was doing. I’ll miss her, not just because of what she did or how she helped, but because of who she was as a person.

She wasn’t vaccinated.

I’m honestly surprised she was allowed at the hospital, but she technically didn’t work for the hospital, she was just the caregiver of one of the hospital staff, so the vaccine requirement didn’t apply to her. I didn’t even know she wasn’t vaccinated until I found out she passed away. I don’t pretend to understand her reasons, or why when surrounded by hospital staff and people who could help her understand that the vaccine is safe, never really asked for information or comfort.

I assume, but don’t know, that she was scared. I mean at the end of the day vaccine hesitancy is caused by fear, but that fear is propagated by people, news outlets, people who make money from the pandemic, and of course people who genuinely want to hurt the US/other countries. It’s easy to be afraid when there’s so much misinformation out there being sprayed at people constantly. It’s exhausting to try to fight it, but that’s the point you can’t effectively fight it and that’s why there are certain groups of people who keep pushing misinformation.

I don’t know much, but I do know she suffered. Is that callous of me to point out? That her last months, yes months, on this earth were not peaceful, not painless, but full of suffering and struggle. She was in the ICU for months because she was not vaccinated. She died on a ventilator because she wasn’t vaccinated.

Yes, the vaccine isn’t 100% and there is a small, vanishingly small, chance that you could get the vaccine, do everything right, and still die from COVID. Why take that risk? Why not give yourself the best chance you have if you are unlucky enough to come into contact with it?

A vaccine does not keep you from getting COVID, it helps your immune system recognize and fight COVID before it actually comes into contact with it. The vaccine is not magic, it does not form a shield around you, and it’s not 100% effective, but it’s fucking close and it’s the best thing we have to prevent senseless death.

We lost someone close to us here at the lab. Someone who we all really cared about. It didn’t have to be this way. I wish we could’ve convinced her to get vaccinated, to give herself the best chance she had to survive this. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and there is no going back. Even if there was at the end of the day it was her choice and we couldn’t force her to take care of herself, even if we wanted her to for her sake, for our sake, and for the sake of the people we care for and who trust us.

So in short, get vaccinated, wear the mask, and help stop this senseless death. Oh and if you are going to come into the comments and loudly proclaim that it’s your right to kill others, then please, and I say this with absolutely no respect at all, go fuck yourself.