Although we in Oregon are comfortably near the lowest of the states in terms of percentages of incidence and death by Covid, we have joined the country in the current spike. We’ve trolled along at about 300 new cases each day—until this week, when we flirted with 600 cases per day, and passed that on Friday.
And Wallowa County, where our vaccination rate hovers somewhere between 50 and 60 percent, we’ve had days and days of 0 new cases—until this week. It was 3, then another, and then 5 cases on Thursday. There is news of another local death too, a woman in her late 50s.
Small numbers, but we are a small place, 7000 of us plus the travelers from New York, Wisconsin, California, Washington, Idaho, and North Dakota. Can we assume that most travelers are vaccinated? I haven’t seen stats on that, but imagine they are split like the rest of us. Even with Fox News now, at least at times, advocating vaccinations.
Why is it so hard! The illogic of it is startling. The White House and some Republican governors are reeling.
I think it is our radical individualism and the belief in total personal control. Yes, air travel is safer than car travel by the statistics, but I am in control in my car—until another car crosses the center line. And yes, vaccinations might have worked with polio and measles, but I know or know by hearsay about someone who got the Covid vaccination and died. I’ll take my own chances.
Or, more combatively, “don’t mess with my freedom to live and do as I want,” and I don’t like shots, or don’t like doctors or anyone else telling me how to live, what to eat, how to take care of my heart or my overweight or smoking or drinking or couch-addicted self. Just leave me alone!
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