Get this through your head: #COVID19 is deadlier and more contagious than #POLIO. At times during this pandemic the US has seen more COVID cases and deaths in a single day than polio caused in it's worst years. From npr:
In 1952 alone, nearly 60,000 children were infected with the virus; thousands were paralyzed, and more than 3,000 died. Hospitals set up special units with iron lung machines to keep polio victims alive. Rich kids as well as poor were left paralyzed.
So far, just in April 2021, there have been over 1,470,000 cases reported in the US, and over 18,000 deaths. On February 12, 2021 — a single day — there were 99,565 cases and 5,463 deaths reported.
We talk about it now quiet tones and hushed awe, but Polio scared the CRAP out of us. Those of us old enough to remember can talk about lining up at school to get the vaccine and how we were attempting to wipe it off the face of the planet. I can remember as a child collecting money for the March of Dimes as part of my Halloween trick-or-treating.
When people like Senator Ron Johnson and “Doctor” Rand Paul start talking about how we’ve done enough, and we can relax now I just want to punch these idiots in the throat. Every time that they want to “relax” the mask mandates and re-open everything before enough of us have been vaccinated I feel the same. They have forgotten how bad it can be — and I’d bet they know of no one who needed an Iron Lung.
Or more likely they’ve never understood how bad it can be. They’ve forgotten. I would wager that most people you ask that they would believe that Polio was much worse than COVID-19. The truth is that COVID is horrifically worse. Comparing the two is almost comical.
We mobilized a nation over Polio. The Polio vaccine was MANDATORY. We’ve all had it. We don’t have Polio. We need to do more now.
Screw anti-vaxxers. Screw “free choice”. This is a public emergency. No one’s freedom of choice outranks my right not to die. Or even their right not to die.
The COVID-19 vaccines need to be MANDATORY. Every human being needs to get it. Mobilize the nation.
UPDATE: Do we still call this the Rec List? Either way, thank you one and all for reading and debating and putting my little bit of ranting at the top. In an effort to be fully transparent, I was vaccinated against Polio in 1970 by standing in line with every other first grader in my rural grade school named after a prominent slave owner’ house. I got a sugar cube and on the same day I also got a vision test and a hearing test — all done at the school. I would get the hearing and vision tests once a year for the next five years. I notice we don’t do that anymore.