Val shies away from controversy. Is not, by design, a pot-stirrer. But sometimes a situation grabs her by the ear and drags her into the fray. Such as the current VIRUS situation in her neck of the woods.
Let the record show that I don't care if you wear a mask or don't. If you want the vaccine or don't. I DO care about you riding in on your high horse, jonesin' for accolades for your exemplary moral standards, and then jousting the common people off their glue-factory-destined nags, while your high horse's hooves kick dirt clods in their faces.
This VIRUS seems to have brought out a sickness in select people. A sickness that has been around for a while. Any little thing seems to turn people against each other. Rich/poor, young/old, urban/rural, working/non-working, political parties, races, TP hoarders/square-sparers. It's almost as if people have too much time on their hands, and look for a way to be offended!
I'm not offended. Do your own thing, but don't tell me what to do. As we used to say on the school playground: Who died and made YOU boss?
I've noticed an ironic twist to this VIRUS situation! Okay. Maybe ironic is not the word I'm looking for. Irony and I are not even as close acquaintances as me and my old buddy, world geography.
A couple months ago, St. Louis news reports were full of online comments about how the city hospitals were full of rural people. RURAL PEOPLE! Because rural people shouldn't be clogging up city hospitals, you know, but should keep their VIRUSy rumpuses in their own backyard hick hospitals! Obviously, somebody had a direct line with the hospital administrators, keeping them updated on where each patient came from, heh, heh!
Anyhoo... I'm sure there were a lot of rural people in the city hospitals. But it's not like those poor old nursing home hicks were out partying it up without masks, just daring that VIRUS to infect them. They were stuck in a nursing home, somehow got sick despite all the masking protocols and quarantine against family visitors, and got sent to a city hospital.
Here's the thing. We USED to have our own hospitals, until the bigger hospitals bought them and laid off workers and closed some of them. We now have a hospital with a trauma unit, and maybe a couple hundred beds. Or less. We can keep you alive until we can get you to a specialist. If you're pacing back and forth between death's door, and alternately knock-knock-knockin' on Heaven's door... you'll be whisked away to the city toot-sweet! (Tout de suite, in case the Grammar Police are on patrol.)
That's the thing. Our local hospital can deliver babies. Take out your gallbladder. Rehydrate you. Give you chemotherapy. Observe you and run tests. But for anything serious, you'll be shipped to a city hospital. It's been that way for at least 15 years. You can make an appointment with a specialist who comes to the area once a week, but your treatment will be in a city hospital. Nobody seemed to be complaining about our business until the past six months!
Anyhoo... I AM finally getting to my point. The VACCINE is like that hard-to-find Christmas toy. The Cabbage Patch Kid in 1983, Tickle Me Elmo in 1996, the Furby in 1998, the Xbox 360 in 2005. People WANT IT! They want it NOW! They will go to the ends of the earth to get it! Even to RURAL WALMARTS!
Heh, heh! Last night I read that a pharmacist at the Jackson, Missouri, Walmart said that 85 PERCENT of the VACCINES they've given have been to people from St. Louis!
WHOA, now! Rein in that high horse! Are people from THE CITY actually traveling to get the VACCINE meant for RURAL FOLKS?
It's just anecdotal evidence. A comment on a Facebook page that does VIRUS data updates. A lady asked the pharmacist about the VACCINE supply, and that is the answer she said he gave her. Heresay.
Make of it what you will. People not in the correct VACCINE-receiving tier are jumping line all over the place to get their VACCINE, butting ahead of great-grandmas and great-grandpas who qualify.
It just seems a bit hypocritical that certain city people had a hissy-fit over their hospitals treating rural patients, yet those certain people do not have a problem with driving a hundred miles or more out in the sticks to get VACCINE that was specifically shipped to a rural area.
Not my pony, not my show. I have no dog in this fight. I just wanted that title!
We are quick to define "other."
ReplyDeleteIf only we could put that on the back burner to simmer, in the fridge to marinate, or chew the fat and ruminate on "otherness." What I'd really like is a QUICK way to define "irony."
DeleteJust published a similar complaint.
ReplyDeleteI sure don't have the solution, but I have an opinion. And you KNOW what opinions are like!
DeleteI just read that the county north of us CANCELLED 1,900 appointments to get the vaccine, because somebody had shared a sign-up link (that was supposed to be private) on social media.
The people who had gone through the process properly were sent an email by the county health department, to schedule their appointment. The county health department canceled the 1,900 appointments of those who had NOT been sent an email invitation after registering on their website.
https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/vaccine/jefferson-county-cancels-covid-vaccine-appointments/63-c8a00e2c-608a-470c-a2ff-5db8c9ee29dc
As they said in that movie The Legend of Billie Jean: "FAIR is FAIR!" [2 second gif]
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/c259c00a-0e12-402d-9f26-4e4f7e3b7b48
It seems to be the same hissy fit that happened here over the toilet paper/other goods shortages. People in the cities travelled clear across the state to smaller towns buying up THEIR stocks, leaving the smaller towns to do without. My reaction? HOW DARE THEY! Do they think the smaller townspeople will somehow manage without toilet paper and not mind that their city cousins came and bought it out from under their noses?
ReplyDeleteWith the vaccine, there doesn't seem to be any of that malarkey happening here, people know they will get their dose when their turn comes around and by then it may be available from local doctors and chemists. There was a bit of hoo-ha a few days ago, when a doctor received vaccine doses but failed to read the instructions letter and gave a few eldery people four times the amount they were supposed to get, they oldies landed in hospital, but were thankfully okay and the doctor got fired.
Maybe they expected the small town people to use corn cobs instead of toilet paper! So instead of asking "Can you spare a square?" to the person in the next stall, you could say, "Can you lob a cob?" Heh, heh. I amuse myself. Sorry you're not a Seinfeld fan to get that spare-a-square reference.
DeleteThey're giving the VACCINE in the pharmacies and Walmarts and grocery stores around here. Even Country Mart! Not sure how to register, but then I don't currently qualify anyway. Not old enough, not sick enough, not a front-line worker.
I'm sad about the oldies getting 4X the VACCINE, but your comment made me laugh, because "hoo-ha" is an expression that some of my cronies use as a euphemism for a woman's private parts!
I registered with my county health department, as we both do qualify. It has been three weeks and I still haven't been offered an appointment. I figured the extreme cold temperatures had them rearranging appointments. I am mostly ambivalent about getting the vaccine. I don't get flu shots. I also don't go out much around here, preferring my own company to that of the locals. Who knows, I may have a natural immunity. I am content to wait and see if they ever get around to me. If they don't, then maybe I shouldn't get the vaccine?
ReplyDeleteUntil the narrative changes, as it seems to do often with the VIRUS, all I've read is that the VACCINE keeps you from getting a severe case IF you catch it. The VACCINE doesn't keep you from getting it, and doesn't keep you from spreading it. Thus the need to continue with mask-wearing and distancing, even after both shots.
DeleteI used to get the flu shot every year, until I had a bad reaction to it shortly before I retired. Haven't had one since. Haven't had the flu. I only had the flu once, back before I started getting the shots. I don't plan to get the VACCINE. Hick is old enough and sick enough, but he doesn't want it, either. Several of his cronies have gotten it, and some are waiting. No severe side effects for them after their first shot.
We know of people around here who got an appointment and the VACCINE, and are NOT in the correct tier to receive it. They had registered and got notified. Seems to be who you know on the county health board...unless they were lying about ages and illnesses.