One of my favorite series of books is The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey.
It’s a science fiction series of eight novels, but recently I was reminded of a age in the fourth book because I think it relates to our community and the pandemic.
That book focuses heavily on the tensions that emerge between two groups that are trying to colonize a newly discovered planet and face many issues, including an outbreak of a pathogen or virus that renders people blind. Even as they adopt an uneasy alliance and search for a cure, significant division remains as does an us-versus-them mentality that one of the doctors bemoans as she recalls something a mentor told her.
“One of my teachers back in school always used to say that contagion was the one absolute proof of community,” she said. “People could pretend there weren’t drug s and prostitutes and unvaccinated children all they want, but when the plague came through all that mattered was who was actually breathing your air.”
I was reminded of that exchange a few weeks ago when another Expanse fan brought it up on Twitter, and as I watched a lot of what unfolded these past few weeks with the Delta Variant surging and an uptick in the publicized activity from local anti-vaxxers.
Two weeks ago we saw more than 100 people, most without masks, protesting outside of Rady Children’s hospital, claiming that any attempts to require vaccinations is an infringement on human rights.
Last Tuesday we saw a bizarre San Diego County Board of Supervisors meeting — one that became the butt of jokes on Twitter even from prominent comedians outside of San Diego like Patton Oswalt and W. Kamau Bell — where more than 100 speakers spent 6 hours, some threatening local officials, for ing masks, proof of vaccination or regular testing in many workplaces.
These speakers — whose arguments often devolved into profanity-laced, unhinged tirades — threw around claims that mask and vaccine requirements are akin to apartheid rules or Nazi death chambers, and some called county supervisors terrorists.
Then on Saturday we saw another rally against COVID-19 restrictions, this time at Waterfront Park, where about 150 people also promoted the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The whole thing is an unfortunate spectacle that occurred against a backdrop of hospitals already burdened with workforce shortages because of COVID-19.
I’m at a bit of loss here because I am the son of a physician and a nurse, so I people getting vaccinated, I mask mandates and I most efforts that can be backed up by medical science if they protect people in our community.
I also recognize that this pandemic did not need to be as devastating as it has been, and I have people close to me who have lost loved ones to COVID as recently as last week. So, I have very little patience for folks like those at the county board meeting who appeared totally uninterested in science and wanted to pretend they are akin to people who have truly been oppressed.
That said, I also understand there are people who may have legitimate anxiety about being vaccinated. These may include people from communities where there is a well-founded, historical reason for being hesitant to trust the government about medical issues.
For example, throughout the 20th century, federally-funded sterilization programs took place in 32 states, often targeting people of the color, the poor, immigrants and mentally ill individuals, among others. In California alone, the state reportedly coercively sterilized more than 20,000 people between 1909 and 1979, an effort that apparently drew the praise of Hitler’s Nazi regime, according to some scholars.
According to recent polling from Morning Consult, some people are also reluctant to get the vaccine because of the fast clinical trials or unknown side effects. There’s some logical merit in those concerns, though I don’t share their view. I believe the cost of COVID on hundreds of thousands of Americans warrants having enough courage to look past those concerns.
The true test of a community, by my estimation, is how it responds to true existential threats. By that I mean when something like a pandemic occurs, do people come together and make selfless choices to try and protect everyone? Or do they fracture and make choices with primarily their own self-interest at the forefront?
I think throughout this pandemic you’ve seen a mix of both here in San Diego and in our country.
We’ve seen people who have stepped up to provide mutual aid, assist others with food drives, grocery shopping, housing costs, all while embracing getting vaccinated, wearing a mask or reducing the risk posed to our community’s most vulnerable.
At the same time we’ve seen others go into their foxholes, lash out at others who care enough to help because they are either scared or, more cynically, they only want to engage in what most conveniently serves their own interest.
We’ve also seen certain media organizations and elected officials embrace the political opportunism that comes with promoting the anti-science voices.
If you don’t want to get vaccinated, technically you have a right not to get vaccinated — even if you are being selfish.
At the same time, those of us who are worried about COVID and care about protecting the most vulnerable in our community also have the ability to shun you or take steps to protect us all from you — and that includes requiring people to be vaccinated or to test negative for COVID before ing us at public events.
I don’t know where this overall divide leaves us, but it reflects a troubling picture of where we are as a country. That’s especially true when you recognize that this anti-vaccine, anti-mask, anti-science sentiment is significantly more pervasive in the U.S. than in other global powers.
A July Morning Consult poll of the nations that make up the world’s 15 largest economies found that 30 percent of U.S. adults are unwilling or uncertain about getting vaccinated against the coronavirus. That rate means the U.S. is one of the most hesitant countries in the world to get vaccinated.
For example, 17 percent of Americans state they are “unwilling to be vaccinated,” a rate that is only lower than one of the 15 countries surveyed — Russia, where that figure comes in at 27 percent.
Now with the FDA giving full approval to the Pfizer vaccine on Monday, hopefully that hesitancy will drop significantly.
Until then, I just keep coming back to this pandemic test of our community; how some of us are proving we are all one community and others are proving we aren’t.
