Late in October, I started getting COVID-like symptoms, sore throat, runny nose, and achy muscles without a fever.
Since I was vaccinated in the spring, I wasn’t sure if I had a mild case of COVID or some other thing going around. I got a rapid test, which came back negative.
Over the next couple of days, the symptoms improved, even though I had an elevated morning pulse and my temperature peaked at 99.5 a couple of times.
I got vaccinated for a few reasons; I wanted to stop wearing a mask, both my daughters were vaccinated without side effects, my hyperinflated lungs could be an underlying medical condition, I’m part of that older age group, and I was allowed to travel out of state without quarantining. The latter reason allowed me to run the two New England state marathons in May.
There has been push back from some on being vaccinated. I like one’s freedom of choice deciding the impact on one’s health. I don’t believe the unvaccinated give me an unnecessary risk that I can not mitigate.
The federal government has mandated that employees be vaccinated, and employees of companies with federal contracts must be vaccinated. Either their government employment would be terminated or contracts canceled.
The feds believe COVID is a public safety threat like measles and polio. The latter two diseases have long used vaccines.
Some believe the measles vaccine is a cause of autism.
Almost every major corporation has significant government contracts. Southwest Airlines has contracts to provide transportation which requires employees to be vaccinated by December 8. A weekend sick out didn’t go well for Southwest, with over 3000 canceled flights. They did not need to have a 100% sick out. A 5 to 10% sick out of the right people could stop planes from getting where they need to be.
If the federal government can dictate what goes in a person’s body, can they make people eat more healthily or lose weight? The vaccine was to reduce the requirements on our medical resources. Eating more veggies and less fat may do the same.
There is a simple solution to the situation based on personal freedom. It’s part of that life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness clause.
Open all businesses without any COVID restrictions. Don’t require people to wear masks. Don’t require people to be vaccinated. Let people exercise their freedom of choice. Stop paying people for not working.
Then, don’t require medical care providers to treat unvaccinated patients for COVID. Hospitals could use their resources to treat people who took the vaccine and not need to increase capacity.
In-patient care of COVID in hospitals is for people needing to be on oxygen. Hospitals may need to release the unvaccinated patients to open space and give the released access to oxygen at home.
Medical care providers would need to get a legal exception not to treat unvaccinated as current laws require treatment to all. Of course, this one legal exception could lead to more exceptions for other medical conditions like sugar consumption or obesity.
Let people evaluate the risks and make personal decisions. New Hampshire’s motto is “Live Free or Die.” I believe people can make intelligent personal choices.