There's No Booster Shot To Give People Immunity To Ignorance (Or Cowardice)

Trump Attacks His Own Candidates As "Gutless"

"Under The Bus 2" by Nancy Ohanian

I used to teach at McGill in Montreal, so I wasn't surprised when I read last night that François Legault, Quebec's premier had announced a health tax on imbeciles refusing to get vaccinated. Warning the amount would be "significant," he said he thinks, "right now it's a question of fairness for the 90% of the population who made some sacrifices. I think we owe them this kind of measure." With hospitalizations-- primarily among the unvaccinated, spiking, the province already requires proof of vaccination if you want to shop in liquor or cannabis stores.

Before dawn today, the Washington Post reported that Fauci had said that "the omicron coronavirus variant will infect 'just about everybody' regardless of vaccination status... but those who have been vaccinated will 'very likely, with some exceptions, do reasonably well,' and avoid hospitalization and death... 'Those who are still unvaccinated are going to get the brunt of the severe aspect of this,' he said, referring to the omicron surge. 'And although it is less severe on a case-by-case basis, when you quantitatively have so many people who are infected, a fraction of them … are going to die,' he said."

Although the Trump interview everyone is talking about this morning is the one he abruptly ended with NPR-- he doesn't put up with being called out on the Big Lie (listen)-- he did another noteworthy interview yesterday as well. It was with One America News. Trump called politicians who don’t disclose their booster shot status when asked in interviews are "gutless." I wonder if he understand that the only politicians who refuse to disclose their booster status are far right Republicans from his wing of the party. Democrats and mainstream Republicans are all urging people to get boosted and using their own booster status as an example-- as, to be fair-- Trump did himself.

He told the OAN host that "I’ve taken it. I’ve had the booster. Many politicians-- I watched a couple of politicians be interviewed and one of the questions was, 'Did you get the booster?'-- because they had the vaccine-- and they’re answering like-- in other words, the answer is 'yes' but they don’t want to say it. Because they’re gutless. You gotta say it-- whether you had it or not. Say it. But the fact is that I think the vaccines saved tens of millions throughout the world. I’ve had absolutely no side-effects.'"

Virtually none of Trump's recruited candidates will admit they've been boosted. The moron he recruited in Georgia, for example, Herschel Walker,"will not say whether he has been vaccinated. But in Walker’s mind, he may not need the shot. That’s because, months before the vaccine was available, Walker was swearing by-- and encouraging others to use-- unproven mystery treatments, including an allegedly FDA-approved 'dry mist' that will 'kill any COVID on your body.' In an August 2020 interview with right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck, Walker hyped two unspecified aerosol COVID prophylactics. One was the aforementioned 'dry mist,' for use in an interior environment; the other was some sort of 'spray.'"

Walker dropped the big news unprompted about 40 minutes into the interview, amid a discussion of law enforcement, beginning by telling Beck that he “probably shouldn’t tell you.”

“Do you know right now, I have something that [you can bring] into a building, that will clean you of COVID, as you walk through this, this dry mist?” Walker asks.

Beck, processing this information, squints. Walker interprets this as an invitation to proceed.

“As you walk through the door, it will kill any COVID on your body,” he continues. He leans in and adds, “EPA-, FDA-approved.”

That claim would seem to indicate that the mystery treatment is an existing product. While there are obviously disinfectant sprays that are FDA-approved, no spray has been proven to stop the transmission of the airborne coronavirus. Walker’s claims seem to be based on nothing. Beck does a double-take, but the football icon isn’t done.

“When you leave-- it will kill the virus as you leave, this here product,” Walker says. He adds that he has a second unspecified miracle product, a “spray” possibly indicated for use after the dry mist treatment.

“They don’t want to talk about that. They don’t want to hear about that,” Walker says. “And I’m serious.”

Beck appears to search the room for a response, before landing on impending totalitarianism.

What's wrong with these right-wing GOP goons and false prophets? Last May, John Pavlovitz tried coming to grips with the problem: Conservatives are Not Getting Vaccinated, to Own the Libs. This is a symptom of the sickest kind of political tribalism. He wrote that the "resistance to getting the shots isn’t based on reliable evidence that suggests any medical risk, it is simply the putrid fruit of a political movement that has trafficked in conspiracy from day one of this disaster: with the former president spending months downplaying the virus, debating the death toll, mocking mask-wearers, pushing phony cures, and turning safeguards into a form of anti-American oppression... Conservatives: you’ve been brainwashed. You are so afflicted with partisan politics and bad theology, that you are unable to think clearly because of it. You are so intent on validating your vote that you will do anything to feel that way... the sad truth here: the refusal of tens of millions of professed adults to be vaccinated despite the unthinkable death we’ve witnessed, is a symptom of a political movement that was so bereft of ideas, it needed to turn a pandemic into a war against their opponents. In doing so, they made opposing the vaccine a political stance that is simply wasting lives and delaying progress and exacerbating suffering. If only we could figure out how to give people immunity from ignorance and to boost their empathy…"