Prioritize public health and get COVID-19 vaccine

Aside from the war in Vietnam, no American public phenomenon in my lifetime is a troubling as our incompetent response to COVID-19.

The virus has killed more than nine times the number of Americans as the war. The Vietnam war ended in 1975, after 11 years, and its consequences are still being felt in the world. The virus is a little more than a year old — that’s pretty potent.

The latest issue is vaccine “reluctance,” I suppose because 548,000 virus deaths are insufficient. According to an article published in “Scientific American” this month, a Kaiser Foundation Family survey found that 42% of Republicans, 35% of African American adults and 33% of “essential” workers said they would refuse the vaccine when asked about it three months ago. That’s a lot of reluctance.

Some of it results from hideous, cavernous stupidity on display in the extensive community of worshippers to our deposed chief executive. Some of it is distrust of White institutions and social norms by nonWhite Americans, even as nonWhite people reportedly suffer from COVID-19 to a far greater extent than White people.

Some of it is sincere doubt among persons of faith regarding the perceived place of science in the modern world.

Here’s the thing: Getting the vaccine is neither a personal political preference, an issue of faith nor a question of race. It is a problem of public health — a seriously, persistently deadly one. Public health wins all the arguments, hands down.

Let’s keep this in mind.

— Craig J. Corsini, San Rafael