Dear Editor,

The amount of resistance to simple community health measures like masking and getting vaccinated is very strong amongst a minority of the US. Approximately 70 million still will not get a vaccine. And the angry protests at school board meetings about masking across the state have been stunning to me. I wanted to understand why.

I wrote to my cousin who is not vaccinated. He’s an intelligent man who recently retired from an IT job. He routinely goes between Alaska and Texas to visit his grandkids. I made the pitch for MRNA vaccines and their extraordinary effectiveness, that with about 300 million doses in arms in the US, there have been minimal side effects, that there are over 660,000 dead (1 in every 500 Americans), and that these vaccines are highly effective against serious illness and death from Covid. I told him that the horse dewormer he was recommending was dangerous, and that the anti-malaria drug he also was recommending has nothing to do with this virus. I pointed out that he is visiting young children who cannot get vaccinated yet and he could spread it to them or vice versa.

Finally, I made the point that if he gets vaccinated, that is one less person who could be the host for the next terrible virus variant. His response really surprised me. He said he didn’t believe anything I said. He said he knew several doctors who would prescribe Ivermectin (large animal dewormer). Also, why is Africa still not having a huge spike in deaths? He claims it is because they have been taking hydroxychloroquine (the antimalaria drug). He said Big Pharma gave the data to the govt, and the govt doesn’t do its own research, but only takes the data the drug companies give them. And big pharma is only in it for the profits, and with the boosters, now a steady stream of profit for them. I wrote back asking if he had seen the CDC stats last week stating that unvaccinated people are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized and 11 times more likely to die from Covid. That this is an epidemic of the unvaccinated. He answered that we are wasting each other’s time. When I told this to my wife, she agreed… I am wasting my time.

Recently my wife was invited to a birthday celebration for her niece. She inquired if they would be masking or help her avoid social contact. She was told that no one there believes that masks make any difference and would not be masking. She decided to skip it. She learned that her niece was told to get a vaccine or lose her job as a nurse’s aide. She chose to not get vaccinated and give up this job. But what makes this more amazing is that she is considering suing her former employer. Apparently being a hero to this minority of deniers is more important than keeping employed. She could get a free vaccine that is highly effective in keeping people from dying or ending up in the hospital, or she could spend several hundred dollars fighting this. What would you do?

A friend of mine teaches in a Catholic grade school in central Wisconsin. The public schools there required masks but the Catholic one where she teaches did not. Many anti-vax and anti-mask students then decided to leave the public schools and go to her Catholic school. My friend, who is vaccinated, got a breakthrough case and has been dealing with medium symptoms for 11 days now. But where will she turn when she wants to go back to work? These resistors made her workplace unsafe.

As for the existential crisis of climate change, the slow-moving train wreck that we are living through and contributing to, how can we ever mount a serious challenge to that when some can’t even agree on how to protect our own health and that of our community?

Bill Thibedeau

Gilpin County