Freedom

 

Freedom, keep tryin'
People stay alive and people keep dyin' for
Freedom, so don't lose it
Ya gotta understand, ya just can't abuse it* 

They are calling this the fourth surge.  Thousands of Americans are once again getting sick from COVID-19, and too many are dying.  The latest uptick in cases is largely a pandemic of the unvaccinated as over 99% of people requiring hospitalization are those that refused to get shots.  Breakthrough cases are occurring among the vaccinated population, but they are relatively rare, and their symptoms tend to be mild.

In any case, the country and the world have been suffering through the COVID pandemic for nearly a year and a half.  How much longer will we have to endure it?  That remains to be seen.  The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 lasted about two years before life began to return to normal.  That was without a vaccine, but with far fewer people.  The U.S. population in 1918 was approximately 103 million versus 330 million today.  More people logically means more potential hosts for a virus that continues to mutate.  And the unvaccinated are the most receptive hosts.  They provide the virus with its best opportunity to spread and evolve into new, more dangerous variants.

That is why I sought a vaccination at the earliest possible opportunity. Not only did I want to protect myself from getting sick, and possibly dying.  I wanted to protect others from being infected by me, especially my grandchildren who are not yet eligible to get vaccinated.  Earlier this year, it was difficult to find a location offering the vaccine.  My daughter relentlessly searched online to find a place where my wife and I might get vaccinations.  We ultimately had to drive over 100 miles to Wilkes Barre to get our shots.  Two weeks after our second shots, we felt a sense of relief – a sense that we hoped the whole country would feel as the percentage of vaccinated citizens climbed.  At its peak on April 10, 2021, 4.6 million people received a COVID shot.  Then, the number of doses began to decline as many Americans chose to not seek a shot. 

News articles about “vaccine hesitancy” began to appear as federal, state, local governments and private employers offered incentives to encourage people to get vaccinated.  Those choosing to not be vaccinated cited various reasons for their hesitancy or outright refusal – from distrust of all vaccines, to distrust of the government, to wild conspiracy theories that the vaccine contained a microchip that enabled the government to track your movements.

Despite former President Trump’s role in speeding the development of the vaccine and the fact that he received a vaccination in January, outright hostility to getting vaccinated has become a political marker of the far right.  To be fair, some Republican leaders have encouraged people to get the vaccine, but their voices have been weak and largely ineffective.  Freedom to choose has become the battle cry of many refusing to vaccinated.  Likewise, many of these same people want the freedom to not wear a mask in situations where medical experts recommend masks to slow the spread of the virus.

Sadly, this freedom is the reason this country is in the throes of the fourth surge in cases of COVID, aided by the highly infectious delta variant.  Regions of the country with low vaccination rates have been the hardest hit, their hospitals filling beyond their capacity with sick people who chose to ignore pleas to get vaccinated.  Many now suffering from COVID have come to realize that the freedom they sought was false – not a freedom worth dying for.  Some arrive at the hospital begging for the vaccine they had shunned, only to be told by hospital staff that it is too late for them to be vaccinated once they are sick with the virus. 

Freedom is a funny thing.  For some individuals, it means the power to ignore the measures scientists recommend even though ignoring those measures may cause real harm to themselves and others.  To those, like me, who have done our best to follow those recommendations, freedom means crushing the virus so we can begin to do those things we enjoyed before this pandemic, like dining in restaurants, attending live theater, and shopping inside stores without the fear of contracting a deadly virus.

Recently, my son’s family, my wife and I visited New York City’s newest park, called The Little Island. This man-made island in the Hudson River is constructed with flower-like, concrete piers and is beautifully landscaped with trees, shrubs and flowers.  A curved pathway rises and falls over artificially created hills offering spectacular views of the city’s skyscrapers.  It opened in May 2021 and can be accessed via timed tickets to regulate the number of visitors while COVID concerns remain. It features several performance areas including a 687-seat amphitheater and has food trucks with a variety of offerings that include beer, wine and cocktails.

We all took masks even though it is outdoors and all of us, excepting my 3-year-old grandson, are vaccinated.  We walked paths covering the entire island, listened to music performed by a guitarist and flautist, and ate a filling lunch.  Between our vaccinations, and masks that we put on whenever approaching a crowd of people, we felt safe from potential COVID infections.  As we left the park and headed to the subway, my son remarked that the experience had felt like the freedom we had craved for the past year and a half.

I hope those that speak of freedom will consider freedom to move about without fear of contracting COVID as a better alternative than freedom to ignore the recommendations of health experts.  To paraphrase the lyrics of the 1970s song by Bread, freedom is something you have to understand; you just can’t abuse it.

* Lyrics from the song, “Mother Freedom" by David Gates, performed by Bread.