Science has always led the way to save us, not divide us.

I got mine… Did you get yours?

I don’t get it.

I have said this so many times before, but I mean I really don’t understand people’s thinking.

As we have sat through one of the worst periods in our collective history as a WORLD, the divide in this country over vaccinations is mind-boggling.

Conspiracy theories abound and my nephew and I can always go back and forth on the plausibility of any one of them, but when public health and the survival of one’s loved ones is in question, do we really need to keep up an argument as people die?

I love science. In grammar school, as a child, camping and following the Park Rangers and Naturalists all over Emerald Lake State Park in Vermont, whenever there was a salamander to pick-up; I became somewhat of a science geek in high school, service in the Chem Lab (which is funny on many levels as I hated Chemistry); in college, Anatomy & Physiology, Kinesiology and Exercise Science – Professor Carpenter & Professor Acosta and countless others – my love for science culminated in a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Science in Physical Education.  I taught Physical Education and Health for two years and General Science, Life Science and Earth Science for three more.

I love science. 

What’s more?

I TRUST science.

I TRUST medicine.

I TRUST educated professionals.  And I don’t care what field they are in.  I have been called a “Jane of all Trades” in my lifetime, but I am smart enough to know when I am out of my league – let the professionals handle the tricky stuff.  I will learn, study, read, inhale may a science base video, book, TEDx talk and more.  But my money is on SCIENCE.

Recently, someone said that the don’t trust Dr. Anthony Fauci – “All he wants to do is be on TV”.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m 80 years old, I would like to look back on the things I have done in my lifetime and career and reflect poetically.  I don’t know that I want to be working full throttle at that point in my life and be targeted and bullied by conspiracy theorists, trust-fund-raised-TV-personalities, and certain political figures, not to mention one very agitated pillow salesman and many, many people in the general population. I still have a couple of years before I hit 80 – I’m hoping that retirement might be a possibility for me.  But at 80, to think that anyone would be looking to be the target of what this man has become is ridiculous.  He is an accomplished, Cornell-educated, award-winning physician with more accomplishments than you can shake a stick at.

We have been through pandemics before – in my lifetime, many that didn’t reach our shores here in America and one that decimated the LGBTQ+ community.  I lost an uncle at a very young age to the AIDS crisis in the 1990’s; I lost the opportunity to meet “in-person” a grandfather I didn’t know I had to COVID, two cousins in Europe, a woman whose child I taught years ago who was always the “one you’d know would be at the game – Mets or Cyclones”.  I now live worrying day to day for members of my family, my friends, my business connections that are all over the globe.  A friend in Brazil, a cousin in Italy, a colleague in the Carolinas…

Makes me think that the vaccine is really a no brainer.

We don’t live in a bubble. 

Hence, we really don’t know if getting the shot led to some people becoming ill, some dying. Too many other factors.

We really don’t know if getting the shot will lead to an issue with reproduction. Too many other factors.

We really don’t know because things have happened too fast.

But we do know basic science, or at least we all should.  It amazes me how many of this country’s population were not paying attention in science or health class – viruses kill, viruses reproduce, and science is ever evolving.  That’s why what the scientists and doctors say changes from time to time.

Perhaps we need a dose of what it meant to parents who watched their children die of “simple things” like polio, the flu, Scarlet Fever, and the like – back when they prayed for a quickly found and effective treatment.  The old “Little House on the Prairie” episode when they bought meat off the back of someone’s wagon, only to have half the community be sickened with natural Anthrax poisoning, with several townsfolk dying.  If it was some devastating diagnosis for which there wasn’t a cure “right now”, wouldn’t we grasp onto the hope if there was one coming down the road a bit?

My hope for the world and everyone in it is that this COVID pandemic subsides, goes away completely would be even nicer.  Worry about your family, worry about your community, worry about those you don’t even know yet. And in the meantime, please don’t be one of the ones that say “Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve” when it is too late. 

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