What do you get when you combine deranged (are there any other kind) anti-vaxxers with vicious, brain-dead Trump supporters? The answer: 50 aholes who show up at Dodger Stadium in LA to block people from getting into this mass vaccination site to get their shot.
The anti-vaxxers are, plain and simple, nutters. When I was a kid, there were plenty of kids who'd had polio. They wore ugly leg braces and even uglier brown orthopedic shoes. But the ones I saw - and there was a girl in my grammar school class who'd had a mild case - were the lucky ones. The unlucky kids were dead or in an iron lung.
I was in first grade when the polio vaccine was made available, and they administered the shots in school. In order to get the shot, you had to have a card signed by your parent. On the day the signed cards were due, mine had been left on the kitchen table, propped up next to the sugar bowl.
There were a few other kids in my class who'd forgotten their cards, so Sister Marie Leo sent us home - in the middle of a nasty snowstorm, by the way - to retrieve them.
I bee-lined home, a half-mile uphill, grabbed the card and hightailed it back to school. I believe the only kid to beat me back was Kevin Mulcahy. He lived about the same distance away, in another direction, but he was really tall and had longer legs. (Nobody's family had a second car, by the way, so there was no possibility of a mom driving her kid back to school. The first car - if there even was a car - was off for the workday with dad.)
Kathy Shea took forever to return. Her mother, the wondrous Jo Shea, had made Kathy a cup of cocoa and warmed her up before sending her back out in the storm. (I was good friends with Kathy through high school, and I absolutely adored her mother. She was so kind and good-humored. She became a good friend of my mother, so I got to enjoy her company for a good long while.) When I asked my mother why she hadn't made me a cup of cocoa, she told me that I wouldn't even take my coat off. I was so scared of the wrath of Marie Leo that I bolted back down the hill without even stopping to pee or take a peek at my new baby brother. Which is probably true.
Even though parents had to sign the polio card, there was no question of anyone's parent not signing it. Not get your kid a polio shot that could save them from a crippling disease or death even? What are you, crazy or something?
And crazy or something is how I think of the anti-vaxxers. Not only do they risk the health of their kids, they risk the health of children who for health reasons, really can't get the shot. Selfish, self-righteous morons. I'm all in favor of schools not letting in students who are non-vaxxed for political reasons. F 'em.
There were other childhood diseases that most every kid caught in my era - measles, German measles, chicken pox. These didn't tend to be killers, but there were plenty of complications that could do pretty severe damage. Then there's HPV, which no one worried about when I was a kid. (Did sex even exist back then? I don't think so.)
Vaccines are available that take care of a number of diseases.
Who'd want to take the risk of leaving their kid vulnerable to them? Nutters, that's who. The kind who aren't satisfied with screwing up their own health and that of their kids, but who feel the need to take it upon themselves to block sane and rational folks who want to get vaccination to prevent (or mitigate) COVID.
At the gates of Dodger Stadium last Saturday, they joined forces with MAGAs and managed to block access for an hour. MAGAs were advised on social media not to wear their red caps or carry Trump flags so that normal people wouldn't react with a "what do you expect" shrug.
What is it that the MAGA's aren't losing their minds over? The stolen election. Hillary's emails (still). Obama's birth certificate (still). Liz Cheney (of all people). Nancy Pelosi, Mike Pence, AOC... Guns. BLM. Mexican caravans. Non-Christians. LGBTQ anything. And, of course, the pandemic.
Most of the things they are losing their minds over are actually rational, at least in their minds, if you consider fact-free lunacy from a fevered mind rational. Rant on. Your rants aren't going to kill you. Or me as a straight white cis woman, for that matter.
But considering the pandemic a scam? Trying to keep folks from getting vaccinated? This is truly insane.
I guess as long as "they" (science-respecting elites) are on one side, the Trumpists are going to be on the other.
Holding signs that said things such as "COVID=Scam," "Don't be a lab rat" and "Tell Bill Gates to go vaccinate himself," the protesters caused the Los Angeles Fire Department to close the stadium entrance as a precaution. People in hundreds of cars, waiting in line for hours, had to wait even longer.
The site was shut down around 2 p.m. Saturday as several Los Angeles Police Department officers arrived at the scene. No arrests were made, and by 3 p.m., the site was reopened. "We will not be deterred or threatened," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Twitter. (Source: NPR)
Do these idiots not know anyone who's gotten a bad case of COVID? Or even died from it? Do they not know somebody who knows somebody?
What's wrong with people?
As I eagerly (and anxiously - anxious about the signup process) await my turn to get vaccinated - I'm hoping by the end of March! - I'm getting sick and tired of these clowns. I don't think we'll have a similar show of stupidity in Massachusetts, but you never know.
It would serve them right if they all got COVID, and I will shed no tears if any of them (or the anti-mask protestors rampaging around stores) died. I just don't want them to take down any innocent bystanders on their way.
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