You don’t get to have nice things.
Last week Howard Stern blasted unvaccinated Americans on his radio show, equating a vaccine mandate as “freedom to live.”
“We have no time for idiots in this country anymore, we don’t want you,” Howard Stern said on Monday’s broadcast. “Stay home, die there with your COVID. Don’t take the cure, but don’t clog up our hospitals with your COVID when you finally get it.”
ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel took a shot at unvaccinated Americans, saying they shouldn’t be admitted to ICU beds.
“Dr. Fauci said if hospitals get any more crowded, they’re going to have to make some very tough choices about who gets an ICU bed. That choice doesn’t seem so tough to me.”
In fairness, critical cancer treatments are being cancelled at hospitals in low vaccination regions because of the surge of unvaccinated COVID cases. At least two cardiac patients have died after being unable to find a hospital with capacity.
So maybe Kimmel is right.
Broadway is reopening at last, but every theater on The Great White Way requires proof of vaccination and, at least for the time being, a face covering.
Four NFL: stadiums require proof of vaccination to enter, as do a dozen college football stadiums.
Comedian and actor Patton Oswalt canceled his upcoming tour dates in Florida and Salt Lake City because the venues would not comply with his request that attendees either show proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test.
Oswalt told fans in an Instagram video that he made the requests to protect people coming to his “Patton Oswalt Live: Who’s Ready To Laugh?” tour.
“The good news is we’re keeping everyone who comes to these shows safe and healthy because the numbers are going up,” he said last Wednesday. “Now the bad news, of course, is there are five venues on the tour that are not complying with this. I have an ego but my ego is not big enough to think that people should die to hear my stupid comedy.”
An Alaska lawmaker who is banned from flying on the state’s leading airline for refusing to wear a mask was excused from attending floor votes for the rest of the year after telling legislative leaders she has no way of flying to and from the state capital.
I tend to think that listening, empathy, and respectful communication are the best ways to get someone to change their mind about anything, but every minute that we wait for the unvaccinated minority to change their minds, more people die.
Worst of all, fully vaccinated Americans in need of critical care are being turned away because hospitals in certain regions of the country are at or near capacity because of unvaccinated COVID patients.
Americans who have done their patriotic duty to protect others by getting vaccinated are dying because the unvaccinated are filling are hospitals.
There comes a time when listening and empathy aren’t working.
Perhaps if the unvaccinated and unmasked can’t fly on airplanes or attend a show or listen to the radio without someone as popular and far reaching as Howard Stern berating them for their selfishness and stupidity, they may decide to get the damn shot, like billions of people around the globe have already done.
I doubt it, but at this point, I think we should try anything. It’s time to bring this pandemic to an end.
If you don’t get vaccinated, maybe you just don’t get to have nice things.
