Hospitalization rates in Alabama hospitals still show that this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.
If you think that is too much, too harsh or too mean, fine, but this pandemic is undoubtedly hitting the unvaccinated harder than the vaccinated.
That is not debatable — it is just math.
But, this is America, and the idea of a vaccination mandate is something many will push back against.
I will, as well.
If shaming them doesn’t work, I guess forcing them might.
My radio employer has a mandate that most are begrudgingly following. I predict almost all do.
Most people will just go along with it. Their employer, their school, their landlord or their government will put a mandate down, and most people will go along.
We are not there yet, so the shaming goes on.
But, in American reality, personal choice is the name of the game.
CNN and plenty of others have decided college football fans are the most reckless monsters that have ever existed.
Headline: States making up the SEC have low vaccination rates, but stadiums will be at 100% capacity as college football kicks off this weekend
Dr. Anthony Fauci got in on the act as well by declaring, “I don’t think it is smart.”
The horror!
As if everyone there is unvaccinated.
The students? Definitely not.
Some in the crowd? Surely.
But the media looked the other way on festival concerts, presidential celebrations, protests and riots (including those that happened pre-vaccine).
Football in the South? Go get ’em, guys.
But again, this is the pandemic of the unvaccinated, right?
Much like every moment in your life, you have to take a risk assessment and decide what you are willing to do and who you are willing to do it with.
I did that this week. My mother and I were planning on going to the Florida vs. University of South Florida game in Tampa this week, but I never ordered the tickets because the Delta variant surge was ramping up in the previous months.
She’s 70 and in relatively good health, but I still didn’t feel comfortable going to an NFL stadium with her and rolling the dice.
She is fully vaccinated, and so am I.
Do I have a problem with her going to restaurants or any other daily life events? Obviously not.
I just don’t think it is wise to take her there and expose her to the potential, no matter how small.
I don’t even have a problem with the football experience in this area. My wife and I are going to the Alabama vs. Florida game in Gainesville next weekend.
Those are the choices we all have to make here.
Did I rob her of her choice? Yes.
But a son making this choice for his mother is far different to the state making those choices for all of us.
She let me know she wasn’t thrilled about it on my radio show this morning on WVNN in Huntsville.
She even implied that she might not live to make the next game, which is ice cold. She tried to tell me the next game between the two schools wasn’t happening for years, but that game is actually happening next year.
Brutal.
Will I have her over to watch the game this weekend? Yes, the Gators will win, and all will be well.
But this year is not the time for me to take my 70-year-old mother on a plane ride and stick her in a stadium full of rowdy reptiles and whatever the USF mascot is.
Next year, I will get her really nice seats at the game, and we will have an amazing time, hopefully.
We are currently in a surge that places us at three times where we were at this point last year, and if that continues, next January is going to be crazy.
The pandemic is still ongoing, and we all have to make decisions about how we are willing to live in it; sometimes that means not taking unnecessary risks.
Listen:
Dale Jackson is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts a talk show from 5-9 AM weekdays on WVNN and on Talk 99.5 from 10 AM to noon.
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