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BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2021
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
- Henry Ward Beecher ~
Anti-vaccine movement
On life and death
is really anti-government
In looking through some old local newspapers
last week. I tripped across a story that echoes
today.
In early April 1955, The Jackson Herald an
nounced that the (then) new Salk polio vaccine
would soon be available in the community.
The initial push for the polio vaccine was
done through the local school systems and
aimed at first- and second-graders.
Schools sent home permission forms
for students’ parents to sign.
Immediately, 80% of first and sec
ond graders had the form signed.
Within a week, that shot up to 95%.
The vaccine was free for those chil
dren.
The school systems provided buses
to take students to local vaccination
sites where volunteer doctors admin
istered the shots. In Jefferson, that site
was the old club house. In Commerce,
it was at the Women’s Club House.
The county health department and
the county school superintendent coordinated
the Salk vaccine effort, which kicked off on
Monday, April 25, 1955. Three shots were re
quired. spread several weeks apart. (Outside of
first- and second-graders, other children could
get the three-shot vaccine regime through their
local doctor at a cost of around $15 for all three
injections.)
The following week, the newspaper published
two large photos of local children lined up to get
their vaccine shots.
• ••
Fast-forward to today.
If local school systems were to organize vac
cinations for children to fight Covid, the radical
anti-vaxxers would raise hell.
You couldn’t get 95% of parents to sign any
thing to do with Covid in today’s environment,
an environment that has politicized and polar
ized medical information for partisan purposes.
Local school leaders have to tread lightly on
mask mandates or discussions about vaccines
least they hit a cultural tripwire.
Although Georgia has long required a number
of vaccines for children to attend public schools,
any talk of a Covid vaccine mandate would be
slammed as being communistic, pushed by de
mon Democrats who want to control everyone’s
life.
I’ll bet most readers here didn’t know that on
July 1, the state began mandating that all rising
1 lth-graders get a booster shot of the meningo
coccal conjugate vaccine (MCV4).
You missed that medical mandate because no
body cares about other vaccines. But Covid-re-
lated discussions have become nothing but po
litical. the science and facts be damned.
• ••
Which brings us to this: The anti-vaccine
movement associated with Covid has a large
strain of anti-government rhetoric intertwined
with it. It’s not just about medicine or science;
it’s about politics and the rising tide of anti-gov
ernment sentiment in the country.
The issue is framed as being about “freedom”
and the “right to choose.”
But that’s just the paper wrapping. Under
neath is a deep anti-government feeling that has
bled from the fringes of society into the main
stream. For a lot of people, anything the govern
ment does or says has become suspect.
I saw that in a newspaper column from anoth
er Georgia town where a guy declared we’re all
being lied to: “Pick a topic,” he wrote. “We’re
not being told the truth.”
He blamed the media. He blamed Democrats.
He blamed the CDC. He blamed big tech. In his
view, we’re all victims of a giant conspiracy to
mislead the nation and to “make us obey.”
Within his diatribe, he took off on the Covid
vaccine, questioned its effectiveness and de
clared that the government is withholding infor
mation.
In that same newspaper, a letter to the editor
declared the Covid vaccine as being “experi
mental deadly” and that the virus isn’t spread
in the air, but from the hands. That writer, too,
spouted anti-government talking points.
That newspaper also suggested, in a photo
cutline, that a neighboring county which had a
mask mandate in its schools was “smothering
children from fresh air and smiles...”
To a large segment of the population, we’re
all just victims of a conspiracy concocted by
the government, media and big tech to control
us and Covid is just a scare tactic designed to
“make us obey.”
That’s what many, many people honestly be
lieve.
• ••
But it’s not really logical.
If we’re going to fight against Covid masking
or vaccine mandates as being anti-freedom, then
maybe we should also fight against government
rules that say we have to wear a seatbelt in a car.
or wear a helmet to ride a motorcycle.
If the government is overstepping its authority
by saying we should wear a mask or get vac
cinated, then isn’t it overstepping its authority
when it tells us to wear a seatbelt? Shouldn’t
that be our “choice?” Shouldn’t we have the
right to kill ourselves by getting tossed out of a
car at 70 mph?
And what about zoning rules — if we don’t
want government encouraging masking or
vaccinations during a deadly pandemic, then
shouldn’t we be against zoning rules that tell us
how we can use our property? Shouldn’t we al
low large warehouses to be built next to subdivi
sions because, well, that’s the property owner’s
right? Shouldn’t we let large subdivi
sions be built anywhere developers
want to build them without having to
get a rezoning?
More to the point, if vaccines
are just a personal “choice,” then
shouldn’t we do away with all vaccine
mandates for school children?
And if we’re going to celebrate
“choice,” shouldn’t we extend that to
the controversial abortion issue and
get the government out of that med
ical decision by patients and their
doctors?
The vaccine issue has become more relevant
in recent weeks as the Delta variant has become
the dominate strain. Like most viruses, Covid
has mutated over the last 15 months and the Del
ta strain is more virulent than its predecessors.
According to published reports, it is 25 times
more contagious than the early strains of Covid,
making it easier to transmit and to get. It has
higher viral loads that appear to make people
sicker. It seems to affect younger people more
than the earlier strains. And the Delta variant
seems to infect even vaccinated people, al
though those people tend to have milder symp
toms and less hospitalization than those who are
unvaccinated.
None of this is really shocking or totally unex
pected. The flu virus mutates every year, which
is why we have to get updated flu shots each
season. And no vaccine is 100% effective.
But we thought when the vaccine became
available, it would help wipe out Covid and we
could all go back to living our normal lives.
Because so many people refuse to get the vac
cine, however, Covid continues to mutate and
spread.
•••
Locally, we’re not doing well on this point.
Banks County has the lowest vaccination rate in
north Georgia at just 23%. Jackson County is at
35%, Barrow County at 32%. Both are far below
the overall state and national rates. And some lo
cal citizens have celebrated the low local rates
on social media, bragging about the area being
among the lowest in Georgia.
There are two ways to look at all of this.
On the one hand, we could just sit back and
let the virus roar. Let Covid infect the unvacci
nated — if they survive, they will have gotten
some immunity and thus contribute to the over
all “herd immunity” necessary to end the pan
demic. If they die, well, that was their “choice,”
The other view is to increasingly isolate the
unvaccinated through more mandates. Some
governments and private businesses are start
ing to impose vaccine mandates. The idea is to
make it difficult for the unvaccinated to work or
travel so that they will have an incentive to get
the vaccine.
•••
The big unknown is what will Covid look like
if it continues to mutate because of low vaccina
tion rates? Will it find a way around our current
vaccines and become more lethal? Will it mutate
so that it is more virulent in children and young
adults?
The longer the virus hangs around and spreads
unchecked, the more likely it is to mutate in
ways we cannot predict. It could get less seri
ous — or it could become another plague and
kill millions.
Those medical questions should transcend
politics. But I doubt that will happen.
Those who believe all the anti-vaccine non
sense they see on social media will continue to
not get vaccinated. Because of their “choice,”
the rest of us will have to continue altering our
lives in attempts to avoid getting sick.
In 1955. the community worked together to
stop polio. A vast majority of parents didn’t
question the medical doctors who had created
that vaccine or those who administered it. Peo
ple in 1955 didn’t spread stupid rumors that it
would make someone magnetic. People back
then didn’t believe the vaccine was a plot by the
government to control their lives. And because
people believed in the science and trusted their
medical professionals, there is no more polio in
the country and it has mostly been eradicated
around the world.
Times have changed since 1955. In 2021, the
community has largely embraced not getting
vaccinated as a way to give a middle finger to
the government and to all the “elite” doctors
who created Covid vaccines.
Nope, the anti-government folks ain’t gonna
get vaccinated and their political “choice” is go
ing to give all of us many more months of health
care hell.
Mike Buffington is co-publisher ofMainstreet
Newspapers. He can be reached at mike@main-
streetnews.com.
mike
buffington
I remember being really little and
having an angelfish in an aquarium by
my bed. Then it died. I wasn’t attached
to the fish, which we buried by a tall
tree in the back yard, but I remember
a real sadness that I couldn’t articulate
at the time except through tears, the re
alization that a thing can be
here alive with me, then not
be here. What a jolt.
I don’t think the shock of
this fact will ever leave me.
It’s as fundamental to life
as breathing, that inevitable
loss of breath, but it can feel
like the most alien thing we
know. Death is a fact that is
both real and imaginary. We
don’t know what it feels like,
but we can’t help but try and
imagine it. We have to live
with this imagining, which is
hard. We live with another’s presence,
and also imagine their absence. Then,
one of us, in every deep human connec
tion, has to feel it for real. I think this is
the hardest aspect of all.
I’m not meaning to write a religious
column or spiritual one or secular one
or any of that. I am not meaning to
sway anyone in any way toward any
thing other than care for each other. I
feel an obligation to try and persuade
people of that notion, of empathy, but
outside of that. I don’t care much about
trying to persuade you or anyone else
of anything. We all think what we think
based on our own experiences. I write
to help clarify things for myself and
to feel like I’m in a good conversation
with another person. That’s really all
there is to it. If you take nothing else
from this, maybe you could try to write
out some thoughts, too. That’s more
valuable than anything I have to say to
you on the subject of death.
Of course, I’m thinking of it in a time
of pandemic. I think we all are to some
degree. I think we’re bitterly divided, in
part, because we’re all wrapped up in
our feelings about control and our own
mortality. And it’s extremely hard to
get to these deeper issues in the middle
of heated political talks.
I think of all the jobs where death is
so present so much of the time, where
there’s some routine in it: the coroners,
the medical professionals, hospice,
nursing home, EMS. law enforcement,
funeral homes, preachers. I am surely
leaving out something important from
that list. If it’s your profession, I apolo
gize. But I feel appreciation for the peo
ple who confront the hardest part of life
— the loss of it — on a regular basis. I
don’t think I have the fortitude to deal
with that. When I have to write about
death in this paper, it’s always with
heightened anxiety. I know the grieving
will read it. This really makes me think.
It feels like the hardest task in the job.
As a kid, I had an extreme fear of
being orphaned. If I was at a baseball
practice and my mom was five minutes
late and I heard a siren, I was thinking
the worst. I still feel some of that. My
mom is going through chemo right
now, which is a new, difficult fact of
life. She is the most selfless person I’ve
known, and that feels true in this expe
rience, too. She’s always focused on us,
not herself, even now. My parents are
quarantining now due to her situation
and the rise in Covid cases.
And so, I can’t go see them.
These are a few sentences
of fact, but there are a lot
of feelings underneath all
this. Every family has those
times.
I was not in a fraterni
ty in college, but it kind of
felt like I was. There was a
group of about 15 guys that
hung out together for sev
eral years. And it was real
ly fun. One of those guys,
Nathan “Nate” Feder, was
diagnosed with melanoma this year
and died about three months later. He
was more of a friend of a friend these
days. I kept up with him through anoth
er person I speak with more frequently.
But now I wish I had reached out to
him over the years. I keep pulling his
picture up online and looking at it, just
thinking about how weird it is for him
not to be here. He was a traveler and
a brilliant photographer who had just
completed boat-construction school,
where his memorial was held. This one
pinches me. It feels like, “Wait, that just
can’t be. That’s just not right.”
I think of how inadequate all obit
uaries are in capturing the real story
of a life. We have them each week in
this paper. They never suffice, but they
stand as a small testament to lives lived.
I’m not writing to be sad. I basically
just think, man. we are on a little planet
in space for a short time.
And as angry as I get about so many
things, and as much as I think other
people can be wrong or just horribly
idiotic at times — don’t we all think
that? — I repeatedly come back to the
equalizing sameness in us, that brevity.
It is just there as a fact to see or ignore,
but a fact about every human life. And I
think this fact holds a clear compass for
us to point our way toward kindness,
not hate.
Every child has to come to the most
basic realization as they grow, that jolt
of understanding. And none of us get
to escape that shock to our system —
of life that’s here, then not. People are
walking past us all the time feeling ex
actly that, suffering.
In an age of pandemic, in an age of
political hate, I think it’s important to
look people in the eye and think less
about how we’re different and more
about how we’re so similar in the most
basic way.
I wish we could all see that in each
other.
Zach Mitcham is editor of The Madi
son County Journal, a sister newspaper
of the Barrow News-Journal. He can be
reached at zach@mainstreetnews.com.
Letter to the Editor
Winder residents 5 appeals
fell on deaf ears
Dear Editor:
Unfortunately, the public hearings
regarding the doubling of the City of
Winder’s millage rates fell on deaf
ears.
Despite many residents’ appealing
to the city council, the mayor and
Mandi Cody at the helm, they refused
to listen to their constituents and
passed the millage rate increase.
Perhaps, if the powers that be had
not been remiss and addressed some
of the budget items over the past three
years, lower tax increments would
have resulted.
Prioritizing this year’s budget items
should have been considered and
some items reduced and designated
for next year’s budget. Unfortunately,
this route was not considered result
ing in a doubling of the millage rate.
I applaud Jimmy Terrell and Holly
Sheats (who unfortunately resigned)
for listening to their constituents and
Write a Letter to the Editor:
Let us know your thoughts: Send
letters to sthompson@barrownews-
joumal.com. Please put “Letter to
the Editor” in the subject line. Please
include the city of the writer.
suggesting alternate measures to this
year’s budget.
One can only hope that the City
of Winder residents will remember
these “hearings” when they go back
to the polls.
Barbara Goddard
Winder
The Barrow News-Journal
Winder. Barrow County. Ga.
www.BarrowJournal.com
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Thompson Editor
Susan Treadwell Advertising
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