Professional Fallout
The wild world of sports and politics rarely collide, but they did so last week when two assistant coaches in the NFL lost their jobs because they refused to get the vaccine. One of them was former Houston Texans assistant Rick Dennison.
The NFL can’t fire players for refusing to get the vaccine because they have a collective bargaining agreement that bars such action, but you can believe if a player is on the bubble and refused to get the shot, he will likely be out on the street. While the league is not barring players from performing, they are highly incentivizing getting the vaccine.
If a player tests positive without getting the vaccine it could cause his team to forfeit a game. If that happens then no one on either team will get their paycheck. Money is always a great motivator and when you are talking as much as one million dollars in the form of a game check you better believe there will be peer pressure.
However, this is where we get to the point of asking how we even got here in the first place. There are people that are incapable of getting vaccines. They might suffer an allergic reaction or they have some other medical reason why they cannot. While I question it, there are also folks that have a religious objection. I’m not talking about these folks.
Other countries have both sets of folks within their borders and yet have found a way to get more than 70 percent of people 12 and older vaccinated. The U.S. isn’t quite to 50 percent. It is that gap that threatens to keep the virus going through the next several years. It is a merry band of idiots that are either questioning the safety of the vaccine or the efficacy of the vaccine. Then again, I don’t think they are using big words like efficacy.
At the heart of this debate are the rights of the individual and how far they extend. Everyone has the right to be a dumbass up until the exercising of their rights interfere with my safety. We’ve done this for years. Students have to have certain vaccinations by certain dates to be able to attend school. I’m not sure why COVID is so different.
I’m not sure why we have to be so stupid about this. In the past several months, the Texas Education Agency has decided to not fund virtual learning, but students under 12 can’t get vaccinated. Then, you have only 50 percent of those eligible getting vaccinated. If just one of those facts were mitigated somehow we would be okay. Yet, here we are stuck on freedumb. You can’t force me to do a solid for my neighbors and my community.
A party that is supposedly dedicated to life seems to be treating everyone’s life cavalierly. The irony if palpable. We made everyone get the polio vaccine and we eradicated it from the face of the earth. We did the same with small pox. We currently require measles and mumps vaccinations. They’ve even added one for chicken pox. I’m still struggling to understand why this is so difficult.
As to why this is happening, I’ve got a theory: Take FOX, add Trump, mix thoroughly.
And about the Republican party’s dedication to life: it ends at birth.
1Donald Trump could be out there advocating for folks to get the vaccine that his “Operation Warp Speed” came up with. He could be basking in taking credit for it. Instead, he’s having rallies focused on his Big Lie that the election was stolen from him, blaming Mike Pence, and as an aside, taking a shot at the women’s Olympic soccer team. And his Dead Head followers are eating it up.
When you have a nurse (a nurse!) in Louisiana who administers vaccinations say she’s still leery of them because she read “the government could flip a switch and turn everyone into zombies,” you know we are screwed.
2Some polls show that about 50% of the non-vaxxers say they are hesitant because the vaccines are “experimental” and not fully approved by the FDA. So, there are increasing calls for the FDA to go ahead and put the seal of approval on the vaccines.
Cue the nutjobs who will then say that the approval was “rushed” and doesn’t mean the vaccines are actually safe and effective.
We are paying, and will continue to pay, for such mass idiocy.
3We haven’t quite wiped out polio, yet; but we’re close. We haven’t had a case of polio in the Us for a decade that wasn’t brought in from somewhere else. Africa is the latest region to be able to say that. Unfortunately, polio in Afghanistan and Pakistan still isn’t under control, so vaccines are still necessary. Someday soon, though, it will join smallpox as a disease that science and untold amounts of human effort have eradicated from the earth.
4I found this snippet from an article in the L.A. Times about how people in Alabama are not lining up to get the vaccine:
“They didn’t have long enough to test it,” said James Martin, 68, explaining why he has no plans to get the vaccine as he stopped for cigarettes at a convenience store in Clanton, Alabama. “They don’t know what the long-term effect is. That’s what makes me skeptical.”
Priceless quote.
5I’ve decided the best I can do is to continue wearing a mask even though I’m fully vaccinated and make sure my under 12 grand is also wearing one. It’s those young kids that I really worry about.
6It’s no surprise that the best vaccinated group is 65 and over. We remember polio. And mumps, measles, chicken pox and rubella. (I have a hearing impaired sibling due to rubella, in fact.)
7And repugnanticans are saying it’s all Joe Biden’s fault people aren’t getting vaccinated. Of course they do.
8It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that once school starts up again in about a month, all the unvaccinated parents of school kids will be generating super spreader events daily in many areas. They’ll spread to more unvaccinated people, many of whom will die. This has to get much worse. I’d say it has to get worse before it gets better, but I’m thinking better is a long ways out.
Oh, but according to mikie lindell, Biden is resigning the morning of Aug 13 and the supremes will reinstate the stable genius as president. Won’t that be a special day.
I want to see the beat downs after NFL games get cancelled and players realize the financial hits they will be taking.
9It’s actually pretty simple. The Democrats are for it, so every member of the NSGOP is agin it.
10I’m sick of hearing whining from “elite” athletes, whether professional or “amateur” (olympics), because they get covid when not vaccinated and get disqualified. People like Dak Prescott make me sick complaining about vaccines. Instead of being role models, they do the exact opposite. I can’t wait for NFL teams to forfeit games because of these guys. I could care less when a PGA player gets disqualified. Boo hoo. Most are overpaid brats.
11What will it take?
12Does someone need to drive around in a van with graphic photos on the side? Showing a fetus that died because the mother was unvaccinated? Or perhaps pro-life COVID vaccine protests outside evangelical churches and Fox News headquarters?