Idiot's Delight

I'm beginning to think that the COVID pandemic will never end in America.  Because we let too many people who know nothing about public health speak out on public health issues.

Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson are the latest major impediments to progress toward getting out of COVID.  Rogan, a comedian best known to network-television viewers as the savant electrician in "NewsRadio," now has a podcast, while Carlson . . . er, you know about him.  Anyway, Rogan recently said on his podcast that anyone young person who's healthy, eats right, and works out shouldn't have to get a COVID vaccine.  Rogan - who was not the most entertaining cast member of "NewsRadio" - doesn't get it.  It doesn't matter how healthy you are; an airborne coronavirus can infect anyone.  Take it from someone who twice got the flu because he didn't get vaccinated.  The only different between that coronavirus that causes the flu and the SARS CoV-2 virus is that the flu virus is a lot less likely to kill you.  

Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson said the most outrageous thing in his career since Friday.   He sais hat anyone who sees a child wearing a face covering (FC) ought to call the child abuse hotline and, I assume, have the parent arrested, because of the psychological damage the wearing an FC will cause for children that will last for the rest of their lives.  Look, I get it.  I don't like wearing an FC. I don't like looking at people wearing FCs.  I even listened to President Biden's address to Congress on the radio last night because everyone expect President Biden had to wear them and the thought of seeing that on TV made me queasy.  But we have to wear them until the pandemic ends - nay, we have to wear them to make it end - and there are three very good reasons why children should:

• Children can get COVID and spread it.  
• The British variant is now dominant and can kill any child that gets it.
• A first-grader in Minnesota died of COVID.

Not having to wear a face covering may spare psychological damage to a child for the rest of his or her life, but the kid isn't going to live very long.

As to the suggestion that warning an FC does cause psychological damage . . . well, my paternal grandfather was ten years old when the Spanish flu pandemic hit.  He grew up in Philadelphia, one of the worst-hit cities during the Spanish flu scare.  He must have had to wear a face covering.  He went on to study physics at the University of Pennsylvania, graduate in the upper half of his class, work for RCA designing television sets, and own and operate affordable-housing rental units.  Oh yeah, and in between, he sired seven children.  That's not the life of a psychologically damaged pandemic survivor.

What's really scary is that Joe Rogan is one of the most popular podcasters in America and Tucker Carlson is one of the most popular cable-news commentators in America.  They have influence.  Their "advice" can lead not only to an interminable pandemic but to more needless deaths.

I may be wrong about Carlson's remark being influential, as it's so ludicrous, even conservatives wouldn't take it seriously, but Rogan's take on vaccinations is much more serious because there's already vaccine hesitancy to deal with. So far, such hesitancy isn't having a negative impact on vaccinations.  Vaccines were being administered at about three million a day about a week ago; now it's 2.7 million people a day.  But that's still 2.7 million people more who've been vaccinated today than there were last week.  As long as the overall number of  vaccinated Americans keeps going up, there isn't a problem.

But when the daily vaccination rate plummets to 100,000 people a day, then we have a problem. And we'll know whom to thank for that.