139. What Do We Want?

What do we—the vaccinated and mostly healthy people—want for the next weeks and months? What can we do to meet our wants?

 

We want health and safety for ourselves, our family and friends, and for our communities. So, we of the believing and vaccinated crowd want the broadest possible acceptance of vaccinations. We cheer now as the boosters and the vaccinations for children are approved. We watched the spike and hope it’s over. We want the numbers and percentages of the vaccinated to go up. How can we help?

 

Zeynep Tufekci’s NYT column, “The Unvaccinated May Not Be Who You Think,” is a starting point. First, we understand that not all of the unvaccinated are raving libertarians, Trumpsters, or anti-vaccine followers of Robert Kennedy. Then we find them and find out why they are not stepping up to get vaccinated.

 

It turns out, according to Dr. Tufekci, that the strongest correlation for being vaccinated is having health insurance and primary care providers. Yes, vaccinations are free, but remember people being charged for tests? And remember that without insurance people are always reluctant to go for medical care. Let’s continue to make schools, drop-in downtown centers, and pharmacies—shouting “free”—widely available. 

 

Next, let’s get clear on people with asthma and other health conditions, and with pregnant women. There are so many study results floating around that link problems with vaccines for some people in some rare instances. Let’s be honest. Yes, there is a chance that you will be one of the rare ones who has a serious side effect. We need clarity on your concerns, and need to  convince most of you to take the chance on behalf of your friends and family members. 

 

And yes, some breakthrough cases, especially among older people and those like Colin Powell with overwhelming health problems, get serious and even lead to death. But it is a small number and a small chance. People need trusted medical workers to talk with. Maybe we need “free clinics” like we had in the time of AIDS. 

 

Lastly, we need to understand that as many as 25 % of us have needle anxieties or phobias. After reading Tufekci, I quickly found that two close friends have in that group. And they hate it when TV newscasts feature shots in the arm. And they don’t like big public places—where they might faint—for vaccinations. And they can understand why some people might want an anxiety pill before getting the shot. 

 

If 20 or 30  % of those now unvaccinated can be convinced to be vaccinated with understanding and compassionate accommodation, it’s a better place for our tribe’s energy to focus.

 

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138. Encouraged

This week and last, Covid numbers in Wallowa County are down significantly from the daily 5-20 cases registered in September and early October weeks. 

My first thought was that the tourist season is winding down, and there are fewer Florida, Texas, and Idaho license plates on Main Street in Joseph than there were just two weeks ago. We’re also further away from Josephy Days and the Pendleton Roundup, two big-crowd events in Eastern Oregon. 

When I read my new favorite New York Times columnist, Zeynep Tufekci, on Saturday, more good news. In “The Unvaccinated May Not Be Who You Think,” the Turkish-born sociologist says that we have not paid enough attention to who is getting and not getting Covid vaccinations. My tribe has been fixated on anti-vaxxers; Tufekci focuses on the vaccinated, and the “vaccine resistant.” Who they are and why.

Her first bit of data is that 95 % of people over 65 in the United States have had at least one shot. Our older Wallowa County population helps us. And—the biggest factors in predicting who, overall, gets vaccinated are health insurance and regular—and trusted—health care providers. She notes that “low vaccination rates in rural areas may be that they are ‘health care and media deserts.’” 

That’s not us! And we consequently now have over 65% of eligible adults vaccinated, gradually adding a few more each day. When the vaccines are approved for children, our numbers and percentages will climb. 

We might even get a boost from the mandates. Although there is a lot of moaning and groaning with police unions and southern state governors, research shows that most of those not yet vaccinated who are in the “vaccine hesitant” group will comply with the mandates. Some because they need their jobs; many, including those with needle phobia—a category I had not considered—Tufekci argues, will obey they mandates because they can “cross the line… in a face-saving manor.”  

Taken all together—Wallowa County’s older population on Medicare; our robust health care system; the 65 % and growing vaccination rate; the 675 residents who have acquired immunity by getting the disease (almost 10% of our population!), and a quieter Main Street—I feel encouraged going into winter. 

Winter, that long-ago time when Wallowa County—and Oregon—were relatively Covid-free. 

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137. Random facts and thoughts

The Floridian running for governor in Texas says his wife was vaccinated; but he’s not. It’s a matter of personal choice. He’s now choosing to go to the hospital and take the antibodies plus ivermectin and hydro-whatever—the other drug that has not been found effective. The press release said that his wife tested positive too, but said nothing about her going to the hospital. 

 

A healthy, 67-year-old member of Idaho Lt Governor’s task force on educational indoctrination—formed to root out leftist teaching in Idaho schools, died of Covid, according to Boise papers. He told people he was “vaccinated in Christ...”

 

A reporter in Germany says wearing masks on trains and indoors is automatic, as is taking them off outdoors. In America, the left wears masks indoors and out; the right not at all.  

 

Some on my side of the vaccination divide ask that the unvaccinated not be allowed into hospitals when there’s a shortage of rooms. Some say not at all; “put them in their own tent outside,” said one. 

 

My grandson asks whether anyone has kept statistics on the numbers of Republicans and Democrats who have contracted Covid. How many Republicans have died? 

 

In today’s New York Times, two prominent Republicans call for moderation and common sense, for a new collation of Centrist Democrats, Independents and moderate Republicans to make sure that those in control of the Republican party are defeated in the short run, and a stronger, moderate Republican party emerges in the future. They are backing Liz Cheney, who has a challenger endorsed by the former president. I wonder how Covid and Trump will work in her primary campaign.

 

Masks—what’s so hard about them? Last winter I didn’t get a cough or sneeze; friends and doctors remarked on the same. But Masks have become a symbol, divorced from their purposes or even the ease or unease of using them.

 

When I was young—before 21—we found it easier to buy beer at 7-11 stores than most others. Occasionally, the San Diego paper would say that a fine of $100 or $500 had been levied against a 7-11 store. We chuckled at that, computing the amount of beer sold to minors that it would take to pay the modest fine. When I walk into the local grocery or hardware store and see that all workers and most customers are maskless, it makes me wonder…

 

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136. People I know

David died in a Boise hospital this week. He was 81—and unvaccinated. I didn’t know him well, but he’d grown up here and lived here for a time later in life. Frank died this week in Maine, after weeks in intensive care. I played football and baseball with his older brother in high school, and one college summer Frank and I played fast-pitch softball together. I have no idea about his vaccination status, just that Covid got him. 

 

Locally, three people I know have died of Covid. Not close friends, but people I know who worked at my kids’ school, the store next door, or Safeway, people I knew well enough to joke with on the street or in the post office. Of them, two were not vaccinated; one died before vaccinations became available. 

 

There are probably others. People who died of this or that “underlying condition,” but might have had the Covid as well. Sometimes people try to turn the tables: “it wasn’t Covid that killed her; she had a bad heart.” Or diabetes or asthma…

 

I’ve known others who have gotten sick and come out the other side. My grandson first, long before the vaccine. He is young and healthy, but still struggled with loss of taste and smell, and headaches. He says that that all changed after he did get vaccinated. 

 

Two friends from Umatilla County have been sick. Both were vaccinated, and both came through after a few days of sickness. I don’t know whether the Pendleton Roundup had anything to do with their illness, but the Oregon Health Authority reported the surge in cases after that event. The rodeo—the crowds, the lack of masks—certainly fanned Umatilla’s flames. The Umatilla Reservation has gone to near lockdown. 

 

Did it fan Covid our way? This week’s Wallowa County new Covid cases: Monday-20, including weekend numbers; Tuesday-2; Wednesday-22; Thursday-6; and Friday-11. That’s 61 cases in seven days. I don’t know how many were vaccinated, have no idea about the seriousness of their cases. I don’t know who they are—but I surely know some of them well enough to hail on the street. 

 

And I know that no close friends or relatives—other than the grandson who came home from Portland with it early in this Covid saga—and no one I work with has become ill with Covid. I also know that this group of friends, relatives, and co-workers wears masks and embraces vaccinations.

 

This is all anecdotal to be sure. Anecdotes add up. 

 

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135. Border county

Border County

 

Wallowa County is in the northeast corner of Oregon, with Eastern Washington acres of rugged country and a bit of the Grande Ronde River to the north, and Hells Canyon of the Snake River the natural separation from Idaho to the east. South and west is more Oregon, but not over easy ground. 

 

We’re a buffer: the Snake River a buffer and border with Idaho to the east; a windy road up and down to the Grande Ronde River and then to the Clearwater and Snake River corridors at Lewiston buffers the north. 

 

It seems we’re also a border and buffering place against Covid. At home, Wallowa County is relatively Covid-aware, with a vaccination rate higher than Union and Umatilla counties (Baker County’s is better). Our medical system has been diligent in testing and tracking, hospitalizing when necessary. 

 

But we have a vocal minority asserting personal choice above community health, just as they have in neighboring Idaho. And we have stubborn locals joining Idaho visitors and escapees from the other Oregon—many of them unvaccinated Oregonians—in refusing to wear masks in stores and other public places. 

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A couple of weeks ago, one of the unmasked and admittedly unvaccinated West-side Oregonians attacked our Joseph restaurant table’s conversation with the news that the Covid is a huge political plot. And here’s the news from Kooteni County in Idaho: “It’s gotten so bad in northern Idaho that some Kootenai Health employees are scared to go to the grocery store if they haven’t changed out of their scrubs,” said hospital spokeswoman Caiti Bobbitt…  “Some doctors and nurses at the Coeur d’Alene hospital have been accused of killing patients by grieving family members who don’t believe COVID-19 is real…”

 

We have a Wallowa County version of that: deaths attributed to heart conditions or bad lungs or diabetes. Yes, Covid has easy pickings among people with “underlying conditions.” That term is so hackneyed I hesitate to use it, but this is exactly what it means. Patient A has had some heart issues, refuses vaccination, gets sick, refuses testing, dies at home and the post-mortem test shows she had Covid. Patient B is diabetic…. Their anti-vax friends attribute the deaths to heart and kidneys. And to the vocal minority of locals and the anti-masking visitors from Idaho and the rest of Oregon, vaccinations—and the medical establishment and vaccinated majority who take Covid seriously—are deserving of contempt. 

 

We, the fatigued and sometimes intimidated majority, grumble about the lack of masks, and wait in this border county while Oregon’s overall Covid stats continue to look better—and Idaho’s situation sees no good end in sight.

 

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