Toll of vaccine denial
It’s a pretty good bet that, had all eligible adults received vaccinations for COVID-19 when they became available, we’d now be sending every kid to school and attending public gatherings without a need for masks. By serving as a reservoir for mutation of the virus into new variants, and as high-titre spreaders of the disease when they do contract it, vaccine deniers have extended the pandemic and complicated our lives.
But there’s a darker side to their obstinacy that has to do with the burdens on our health care system, which in some areas is again stretched to its limits. Who among us doesn’t know someone whose preventive or even remedial care has been delayed, or skipped altogether, because doctors’ offices and hospitals are overwhelmed? In time, those lost appointments and untreated conditions will shorten lives, as missed diagnoses and disease progression take their toll.
And in the short term, the impact is even more obvious. Anti-vaxxers and science deniers, when they fall ill with the coronavirus, are as quick as anyone to head to the emergency room and the hospital for intervention. There, they consume scant resources and further exhaust overworked personnel. That’s to the detriment of people who desperately need help and who haven’t put themselves in harm’s way.
The recklessness of anti-vaxxers isn’t about personal freedom; it’s daredevil behavior followed by a demand that others risk their lives when a rescue is needed. It isn’t just a case of “they made their own bed and now they have to lie in it” because the intensive care unit beds they’re lying in are in short supply. And it’s not that anti-vaxxers have a right to suffer from COVID-19 if that’s what fate dictates.
So long as health care resources are strained, one can fairly say this: By redirecting resources away from others who are sick through no fault of their own, those who seek medical intervention and accept intensive care for COVID-19, after refusing to get vaccinated, are costing lives.
— Andreas Danckers, Libertyville