I’m Vaccinated. Here’s Why It’s My Business That You Aren’t

(This post was updated on October 25, 2021 adding a link to mutation data and adjusting calculations resulting from a transcription error rendering “12,700” as “12,400.” Ultimately this results in the originally-reported 53-minute strain cycle being closer to 48-minutes. -jh)

I keep running into this dishonest, manipulative, and frankly stupid response from the murdering plague-bearers who refuse to do what’s necessary to end this pandemic. (Don’t @ me and don’t bother whining; if you don’t like the description, don’t fit it.) It goes like this:

“Well you’re vaccinated, so why do you care what anyone else does?”

This is a question that really does require quantum-singularity level stupidity to even ask, and a complete lack of self-respect to do so out loud, but it seems to be the narrative the boiler rooms are using to troll the stupid into killing as many people as possible, so since the stakes are that high let’s go ahead and answer the question definitively, then you can just link this article from now on when you run across that puerile, psychopathic, abjectly dim-witted and pathetically gross argument.

I care what anyone else does because I understand how viruses work (at least to a point sufficient to this conversation).

Makes a big difference in your attitude.

See, while a bunch of knuckle-dragging pencil-necked fit-throwing entitled twits decided this was their moment to claim the 15 minutes Andy Warhol promised them, this virus has been mutating. Last time I had solid numbers, between Feb 2020 and April 2021 it had mutated some 12,700 times (per https://srhd.org/news/2021/coronavirus-mutations-and-variants-what-does-it-mean using WHO & CDC data), which bakes down to about one new strain every forty-eight minutes or so. Given the radical increase in the number of cases since that time, I would imagine this estimate is if anything fairly optimistic, and the actual average time between new mutations is probably more like half an hour. That would mean 48 times a day, every day, all day long, we are spinning the chamber and pulling the trigger.

Someone who actually understands these things will immediately point out that probably 12,200 of those strains were self-terminating; they had a failed mutation that caused them to be non-viable, and they died out.

But someone who actually understands these things will also immediately point out that every single mutation carries the risk of hitting the big trifecta: resistant to existing antibodies, far more contagious, and far more deadly. If that combination hits, it’s the end of life as we know it, permanently. IF the species survives, the impact will be immeasurable and will absolutely and fundamentally change who we are, quite possibly thrusting us back into pre-technological and steampunk pockets of innovation at best for centuries.

Every time that virus mutates is another round of Russian Roulette we’re playing with the species because some Muffy somewhere misses her afternoon delight with the pool boy that she can’t have now that the kids are going to school in the living room.

Every hour we take the chance of wiping ourselves off this planet, and the ONLY reason it’s happening with that frequency is because people think they can argue opinion against science. I swear it’s like some of y’all WANT to meet Randall Flagg. If people get vaccinated, mask up, and stay home as much as POSSIBLE – which does not mean “as much as I want,” but “as much as is needed” – the possibility STILL remains that we can get a lid on this stupid thing, even though the chance of actually eradicating it are now very, very slim (15 months ago it would have been easy, if we’d done what we were supposed to THEN instead of cutting corners and letting the plutocrats rush us back to work).

The longer we continue this infantile, suicidal, ego-driven insanity, the greater the chances are that you and I will live to see at least the genuine beginnings of a civilizational collapse on a scale that simply can not be imagined.

And that is why your vaccination status is my business.