It’s important to vaccinate the dummies

When I walk into restaurants these days, I’m usually picking up takeout for a person who is “neutropenic,” which (loosely translated) means his immune system has been entirely disabled, in this case by aggressive chemotherapy.

So when I go into a restaurant, I wear two face coverings: a KN95 covered by a cloth mask. Ideally the cloth mask ties at the back of my head, because the KN95 has ear loops, and I have discovered that my ears begin to flap forward like folding side mirrors when stressed by two sets of ear loops. I never thought much about the strength of my ears before, but suddenly they seem small and limp.

The two masks deprive my eyeglasses of the nose real estate they need to stay put, so I bought an eyeglass strap and put it on some old glasses. The glasses also fog easily when worn with the masks, so I carry a defogging spray.

If you were watching me get ready to leave my car and go pick up some Chinese food, you would be forgiven for thinking I was getting ready for a SEAL raid on an ISIS cell. First mask, then second mask, which has to be tied behind my head (not easy), then spray the glasses, rub in the solution, wipe off the excess, then put them, strapped, over my head.

Restaurants are all over the map about pickup. Some of them will walk the bag out the door to you. J. Timothy’s Taverne in Plainville has a very impressive system where you never leave your car.

But there are still places where they insist that you go inside, and many of these have two cups of pens, one marked “clean” and the other some version of “dirty” or “used,” and even though I have done a lot of reading about fomite transmission and therefore realize how unlikely transmission from a pen is, I can’t help wondering why these restaurants can’t catch up.

The other thing I wonder is: who the heck are these people I can see sitting in the restaurant at tables for six or eight, talking really loudly with no masks on?

Some of them are jerks. Some of them are idiots. I believe jerks and idiots should be given priority status in our vaccination programs.

I know it seems counterintuitive. Why reward people who are creating risk for the rest of us? But the fact is, they are exactly the people who do create risk, so let’s vaccinate them before they kill us.

Maybe right there at the table. We might have to use zip ties with resisters, but I bet a lot of jerks and stupid people would be perfectly happy to be vaccinated, especially if they could go to another restaurant the following weekend and have a really loud conversation bragging about how they jumped the line.

Meanwhile, I head back out to the car where I sanitize my hands before taking off the glasses and the two masks. By the time I do all this stuff and get the dinner home, it’s almost my bedtime.

Our family attempted to find out whether, as direct caregivers to a patient who is fully immune-suppressed and without platelets, we could be among the first cohort of vaccinees, but it seemed no plan had been made for us.

By dint of my age, I have now received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, which — I am not supposed to mention this — has given me limited x-ray vision and the ability to fly for short distances.

On Wednesday, I’ll get the second shot, at which point I plan to allow myself a few special treats, like an overdue colonoscopy and eye doctor appointment.

Not much else will change. I’ll still wear a mask — only one — everywhere. I’ll keep my distance and my clean hands. The vaccination program is amazing, but we mainly know that the inoculation prevents a serious expression of the disease in roughly 95 percent of injectees. Does it prevent me from acquiring the disease and asymptomatically passing it to someone else? Unclear, though the research trickling in is very promising.

Meanwhile, I understand the worries and objections among grocery store workers and younger people with co-morbidities. They need protecting. But I think it’s also possible the Lamont approach — do it by age cohort rather than risk getting slowed down by sorting out special cases — will work just as well if not better.

That’s because we’re not really vaccinated until pretty much everyone is vaccinated. Ninety-five is not the same as 100. The new variants come with question marks. The way we win is by shutting down access to so many bodies that the disease can’t find new hosts.

That’s why we need to vaccinate jerks and stupid people. And especially stupid jerks. My advice is to tell them they’re not eligible. Then they’ll insist on it.

Why reward people who are creating risk for the rest of us? But the fact is, they are exactly the people who do create risk, so let’s vaccinate them before they kill us.

Colin McEnroe’s column appears every Sunday, his newsletter comes out every Thursday and you can hear his radio show every weekday on WNPR 90.5. Email him at colin@ctpublic.org. Sign up for his newsletter at http://bit.ly/colinmcenroe.