Remember When Medical Decisions Were Considered Private Matters?
I get it.
As we pass the one-year anniversary of “15 Days to Slow the Spread” the excitement over the Covid-19 vaccines is understandable. Especially among those who have been hiding under their beds for the past year.
Still, the decision to take - or not take - the vaccine ought to be private. Not something we are required to share with the world.
That’s what LeBron James says, anyway.
The NBA’s superstar has refused to join the stampede of public figures getting vaccinated in a public setting and urging others to join in.
In a story headlined, “LeBron James Isn’t Saying When Or If He Plans To Get The COVID-19 Vaccine,” The Los Angeles Times reported the alarming news that James clings to the quaint notion that medical decisions should be private.
Lakers star LeBron James was asked Sunday morning if he planned to get vaccinated “as soon as it’s available” and if he would advise other players to do so.
“That’s a conversation that my family and I will have,” James said. “Pretty much keep that to a private thing.”
How dare he!
Former President Donald Trump, the man who speed-balled the vaccine onto the market with his Operation Warp Speed, reportedly got vaccinated in January without much fanfare.
The press, of course - hungry for a Trump story after two months of quiet - reported this as a “secret” vaccination.
USA Today: Donald Trump, Melania Trump Secretly Received COVID-19 Vaccine in January.
CNN: Trump Got Vaccine In Secret. Here’s Why This Matters.
New York Times: Trump And His Wife Received Coronoavirus Vaccine Before Leaving the White House.
“The secret approach by Mr. Trump came as a number of his supporters have expressed resistance to the vaccine, and as other officials have tried setting an example by getting the shot in public.
“President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former Vice President Mike Pence received vaccine shots in front of television cameras.”
Secret? Because they didn’t post photos on Instagram or invite the press? How could there possibly be any question that Trump supports the vaccine? Without him, we wouldn’t have it.
The frequently wrong-but-never-in-doubt Anthony Fauci criticized Trump for not rolling up his sleeve in public, saying that the former president’s supporters would be more likely to accept the vaccine if he did.
Really?
Is that where we are? The “experts” assume Americans can’t weigh their own risk versus rewards of the inoculation? They must see athletes and politicians getting vaccinated in order to muster the courage to get their own shots?
Frankly, the only advice I’d take from a former U.S. president would be on the best brand of denture cream.
In a Tuesday interview Trump in fact urged people to take the vaccine.
Making a rare media appearance on Fox News, Trump said he would “recommend” the shots that are currently being distributed but added a caveat about respecting individual freedoms, reports The Hill.
“I would recommend it, and I would recommend it to a lot of people who don’t want to get it and a lot of people who voted for me, frankly, and we have our freedoms, and we have to live by that, and I agree with that also,” he told Fox News's Maria Bartiromo, adding that “it’s a great vaccine, and it’s a safe vaccine.”
Trump’s right. The vaccine is not mandatory and shouldn’t be. Millions of Americans are clamoring to get the shots, millions more have natural immunity from infections.
We do not have warehouses full of unused vials due to reluctant Americans.
Still, pressure is mounting for “vaccine passports” that we’d have to show to board airplanes, enter some venues or to gain employment. In other words, Karens are pushing for de facto mandatory vaccinations along with a blatant invasion of privacy.
Lawyers, start your engines.
In a country with strong medical privacy laws, it’s inconceivable that Americans would have to show proof of vaccine to take part in ordinary life. But it could be coming.
Yet the one measure that would persuade nearly everyone to get vaccinated would be for the “experts” to declare that the shots work and masks should be trashed.
Not happening.
In fact, the opposite is occurring. Fauci and the CDC are ordering the vaccinated to continue to wear masks, avoid large crowds and not to travel.
That’s a mistake. Gloomy predictions about mask wearing into 2022, and being “allowed” to have small outdoor gathers on the 4th of July, discourage those on the fence from ever taking the vaccine.
As Sen. Rand Paul - also a medical doctor - pointed out during his elegant take-down of Fauci on Thursday, there is little incentive for people to become vaccinated if “nanny government” is going to continue to try to limit their interactions.
“You’re telling everybody to wear a mask, whether they’ve had an infection or a vaccine,” Paul said. “What I’m saying is: They have immunity, and everybody agrees they have immunity. What studies do you have that people that have had the vaccine or have had the infection are spreading the infection? If we’re not spreading the infection, isn’t it just theater? …
You’ve had the vaccine, and you’re wearing two masks. Is that just theater?”
I can answer that. Yes, Senator. That’s exactly what it is. Theater.
