Letter: An amusing look back at a year of vaccine vitriol

Posted 8/25/22

To the editor: “Unvaccinated people now have the same guidance as vaccinated people.” For readers convalescing from a breakthrough case after their last booster who may’ve missed …

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Letter: An amusing look back at a year of vaccine vitriol

Posted

To the editor:

“Unvaccinated people now have the same guidance as vaccinated people.” For readers convalescing from a breakthrough case after their last booster who may’ve missed it, that’s NPR on Twitter, Aug. 11, summarizing changes to the CDC’s Covid guidelines.

Now that “guidance from the CDC focuses on individual decisions” — repeat, “individual decisions” — I think it might be fun to have a look back at the vaxmaxxing howlers submitted to East Bay newspapers over the last two years. Having survived, with nary a sniffle, the “winter of severe illness and death” that my president promised me, I’m in perfect shape to curate a nostalgic recap. (At least the Unifier-in-Chief doesn’t spew mean tweets, right?)

Who can forget Paul Salesi’s best wishes for our health in “Maybe it’s time to ‘thin the herd’ ” (Aug. 5, 2021), concluding on that salute to the brave men and women who rolled up their sleeves for an experimental injection, “Make America Smart Again”? Who can remember Lisa Peterson’s polemic “Individual ‘rights’ vs. community responsibility” (Aug. 26, 2021) with expert use of scare quotes to champion the muzzles of received wisdom over aerobic skepticism?

However, the Phoenix’s best all-around howler is Dave Burlingame’s “The unvaccinated are putting everyone’s safety at risk,” (July 29, 2021). Its dire projections of mutant superbugs and death for “you, your kids, your grandkids and anyone else you care about who remains unvaccinated,” qualifies its author to give the next commencement address at RWU.

Meanwhile, the Barrington Times had more than its fair share of beauties.

There’s Daniel Becker, MD’s hilariously facile injunction, “Get vaccinated because you care about others” (Feb. 16, 2022), and the more sophisticated arm-twisting of “Vaccination as public duty, not personal choice” (ibid.) by Michael Johnson, MD — who seemingly milks his postnominal initials for an extra 150 words each, over the paper’s 500-word limit. The CDC having granted equal immunological status to the unvaxxed but not absolution, maybe these doctors will continue to amuse us by scribbling homilies on their prescription pads.

Finally, let’s revisit Dr. Kevin Blanchard’s commentaries. Like Dr. Jill Biden, Dr.-also-of-Education Blanchard leans onto his honorific when tackling the big issues, like epidemiology, in his knockout howler, “Mask Wars: Unvaccinated students should keep masks on in school” (March 11, 2022). For your reading pleasure, I underscore his earnest plea “to protect us from those individuals who have elected not to be vaccinated” which, unwittingly, gives the game away; somehow a “safe and effective” protection doesn’t protect the protected from the unprotected.

This flu season, just in time for midterm elections, expect community-minded hypochondriacs and their socially-responsible GPs to push the latest “safe and effective” remedy to upend our lives and enrich the manufacturers, distributors and promoters of the next novelty drug.

To close, I give an honorable mention to Bob Rottmann’s howler in the Sakonnet Times (Nov. 18, 2021), “Vaccine skepticism ‘increasingly untenable.’ ” Au contraire, Bob!

Zachary Cooper

48A Sherman Ave.

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Mike Rego has worked at East Bay Newspapers since 2001, helping the company launch The Westport Shorelines. He soon after became a Sports Editor, spending the next 10-plus years in that role before taking over as editor of The East Providence Post in February of 2012. To contact Mike about The Post or to submit information, suggest story ideas or photo opportunities, etc. in East Providence, email mrego@eastbaymediagroup.com.