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Guest column
Mandate the vaccine?
Politicians love force.
The idea of leaving us alone to make our own decisions goes against their nature.
To be sure, civilized society sometimes needs government force: police to punish killers, soldiers to protect us from foreign invaders, JoHN SToSSEL environmental police to stop my smoke from flowing to your lungs ...
But the political class always goes too far.
Now some want medical police to force everyone to get vaccinated. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already.
“It has!” you say. “I have to get vaccinated to keep my job, for my kids to attend school, to go to the movies, a restaurant, etc.”
That’s force, absolutely. But it’s not mandatory. There’s an out — we don’t have to work for the government, eat indoors or go to a movie theater. We can home-school our kids. We still have choice.
So far, politicians haven’t sent police into homes to force everyone to get vaccinated.
They did do that once.
In Philadelphia 30 years ago, a measles outbreak sickened 1,400 people, mostly children, and killed nine. The outbreak spread because leaders of two fundamentalist churches told congregants to refuse the vaccine; God would do the healing.
Philadelphia’s health department got a court order that compelled parents to allow their kids to be vaccinated.
Remarkably, “They complied with the law,” said vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit in my new video. “They were law-abiding.” The Philadelphia parents didn’t fight the order. That ended the epidemic.
But I doubt that vaccine-resistant Americans would be similarly compliant today. Now there’s an anti-vaccine movement. I’m surprised by the outpouring of hatred for Offit on my YouTube and Facebook channels that follows my video.
Some of it is nonsense from ignorant anti-vaxxers. But I respect commenters expressing versions of the chant, “My body, my choice!”
That slogan makes a good point.
We are not really free if we don’t own our own bodies. (It’s another reason to oppose the Drug War.) Individuals should get to decide what’s put in our own bodies.
But a deadly pandemic is a special case.
COVID-19 continues to kill, partly because some people refuse the vaccine. “This virus has a great many friends,” complained Offit. “Science denialists, conspiracy theorists, political pundits — it’s hard to watch.”
“People have reason to be suspicious!” I siad. “The government has experimented on people and lied to people.” (Officials once promised Black syphilis patients treatment but gave them empty pills. The CIA sneaked LSD into people’s drinks. More recently, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Americans don’t need to wear masks and then he said we should wear masks.)
“I’m not saying that the government hasn’t done things that make one trust them less,” Offit responded. “Or that the CDC hasn’t made statements that were incorrect, (but) such is the nature of science. You do learn as you go.”
What we have learned now is that the vaccine
n See StoSSel, page A5
Letters to the Editor
Newsom exudes weakness
EDITOR: 1. Newsom says the recalls costs $81 million. Response: Elections cost. 2. Newsom says the recall is by extremists.
Response: It was lawfully balloted. 3. Newsom says the recall is part of Trump’s hateful attacks.
Response: Newsom uses hate mongering. 4. Newsom says he was elected in 2018 with big margin.
Response: Recall is about his performance. 5. Newsom says he prepared for wildfires.
Response: The Caldor Fire has maxed the resources of Cal Fire. 6. Newsom says he took care of the homeless.
Response: It’s grown worse under Newsom. 7. Newsom says the budget is balanced.
Response: Even wasteful budgets can be balanced with high taxes. 8. Newsom says the recall is partisan.
Response: No group is more divisive than the Democrats. 9. Newsom says he is demonized.
Response: Most of Newsom’s argument is demonizing opponents. 10. Newsom says school teachers support him.
Response: The leftist teachers’ union supports him.
KEN ZEIER Shingle Springs
Newsom’s true colors
EDITOR:
Whoever took that photo of Gov. Gavin Newsom enjoying an outing at the French Laundry after ordering lockdowns for everyone else should receive the equivalent of a Medal of Honor. Newsom showed his true colors and deserves a dishonorable discharge. CHARLES BERTOLETTE Placerville
Hey, Joe
EDITOR:
What makes you think you can give away our children’s future?
We, the people, are $28 trillion in debt. “Infrastructure”is just another slick code word (spelled B.S.). We don’t need anymore “anything” — roads, bridges, sidewalks, railings, stop signs, blinking lights, etc. Is all that new “infrastructure” so absolutely necessary that we should enslave our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars more in debt? Right now every adult’s and every child’s share of the U.S. national debt is $85,000.
And you want $6 trillion more? Everything you give away must be paid for by the people.
Just about every time you breathe into a microphone, you earn a couple more credits toward your “D.A.” degree. Please tell your fellow moron friends who are running our country to stop impoverishing the people.
DOUG ROSCOE Shingle Springs
Natural immunity
EDITOR:
Isee that the portion of the county website dealing with the coronavirus states (as of Aug. 26) that 446 fully vaccinated people have contracted the coronavirus after they were vaccinated. It is clear that there is a substantial number of people not protected by the vaccine. The number of vaccinated people getting COVID is increasing rapidly. Just a week before the county website showed only 350 such people.
I am greatly troubled by the majority of the medical establishment completely ignoring natural immunity — the ability of the body itself to prevent reinfection of a disease.
Several studies have shown that natural immunity provides very robust protection against COVID19. One such study involved the more than 52,000 employees of the Cleveland Clinic Health System over a five-month period. At the beginning of the study 2,579 employees had contracted COVID-19. At the end of the five-month study not a single one of those persons had been re-infected with COVID-19. There were 2,154 employees who did not previously have COVID-19 who got the disease during the study period.
I am unable to understand why most of the medical community is ignoring natural immunity. Could there be a political element involved? Perhaps a desire of politicians to hang onto dictator abilities they have acquired during the pandemic?
If there is a reason for ignoring natural immunity, other than malpractice, perhaps someone in the medical community could explain what’s going on. PHIL BERRY Placerville
n See letterS, page A5
The Not So Weekly Daley
Could this be the corner we’ve been waiting for?
We had a conversation Monday evening between the Giants game and the 8 p.m. cable news programs. The top stories ranged from the acknowledged end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan to Hurricane Ida and, a little later, COVID-19.
Georgette wondered if the last couple of days might signify more than the end of a tragic last couple of decades and an enormous piece of our national, general malaise. Could it also signify the beginning of the end of the last couple of years — the COVID years? And how about significant forward movement against natural and man-made disasters — wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, melting arctic and Antarctic ice, Haiti, immigration, earthquakes and let’s throw in things like voting rights and homelessness while we’re solving a
few other Everest-size issues. Imagine a couple of years of no IEDs, no terrorist plots or hostage crises or mass shootings in schools or hotels or churches; no killer storms, devastating deluges or rampaging fires. It surely wouldn’t CHriS DaLEy last forever but a decent break in that action would be heartily appreciated. Imagine next school year when kids don’t have to wear masks or keep 6 feet away from their friends. How nice would that be? Folks could get back to meaningful work or into programs that could lead them toward what they’d consider meaningful work. People could travel to their heart’s content — to Disneyland, the Alamo, the Big Apple, Denver or St. Louis, not to mention Paris, France, London or the Gobi Desert. I wanted to go to the Gobi Desert back when
I thought being an archeologist or paleontologist would have been my dream come true.
It would be heartening to open the paper or your online news site and not see which destinations are now closed again due to a CPVOD surge. It would really be refreshing not to have to keep cancelling travel plans because suddenly Rome and the Gobi Desert are now no-go zones.
I don’t think I’ve been to a movie in two years or so. I heard our local Regal Cinemas went out of business early in the pandemic. Apparently it’s back in business now, but I haven’t seen any listing that appeals to me so far.
Netflix has a few decent shows running. “The Chair” is pretty good. “The Kominsky Method” is/was really good as were the “Queen’s Gambit” and a pair of oldies, “Boston Legal” and “Community.” Take my recommendations for what they are, purely my recommendations for a long COVID-19 evening. Just got into “Ted Lasso” and recently heard “Defeated” is worth a look. Check your provider, because some of these are not on Netflix.
By the time you read this I will be back from San Francisco after two Giants games this week with my boys Aaron and Jamin. It’s been three years since I took Amtrak, went to a game and stayed in a hotel in the city ... and it was long overdue. I had to wear a mask much of the time, but that’s OK with me. Like a hundred other limits on different elements of our lives I’m used to it, but I’m looking forward to turning the corner on it and all the other stuff we’ve become used to. I hope this is the corner we’ve been waiting for.
Chris Daley is a biweekly columnist for the Mountain Democrat.
