The Wrong Side of History

Hindsight is 20/20 so they say. It's easy to look back at our cultural failings with the benefit of time. How will our grandchildren ultimately judge the decisions that are being made today?

This week we learned that Gray Television will be mandating that all employees must be fully vaccinated by October 1st. While I don't work for Gray TV, my employer is in the same industry as Gray. So this news hits a little harder for me. Though my employer does not currently have a vaccine mandate, opting instead for a scarlet letter to be worn by the dirty adulterers in the company, a full vaccination mandate to keep employment is something that I think is probably coming in the weeks ahead. Maybe more concerning, there are now rumblings that those who have not been vaccinated will be prohibited from travel across state lines. In Data, Censorship, and the Cost of Isolation, I laid out some reasons why I believe people are totally justified in waiting for more data before taking the jab.

We know that if you were to get vaccinated and unfortunately experience a severe or life-altering side effect, Pfizer and Moderna have been given full immunity from litigation to rectify those issues. Essentially, those getting the vaccine are gambling. Just like those who do not get the vaccine are gambling. Which gamble one takes should be entirely up to each individual and without public shaming.

From Data, Censorship, and the Cost of Isolation

Regardless of what most people think about COVID vaccinations, I think it should be pretty damn worrying to all of us that we are getting grouped into vaxed and unvaxed sub-groups. Beyond that, one of these groups is now being economically punished explicitly because of the group they are in. This is discrimination. Pure and simple. And when we look back at this time in the years and decades ahead, it is my belief that the companies and jurisdictions that enforce this kind of discriminatory tactic will be on the wrong side of history.

Propaganda?

This past weekend, my wife and I went to a local fundraising event. While there, we interacted with a few people that she knew through her professional connections. We spent a considerable amount of time with a husband/wife power couple who specialize in two distinctly different health professions. Both are very smart and very successful. At one point, COVID came up and the husband blamed the Delta variant on the unvaccinated. It was odd to me because it's definitely a sentiment I've seen before. But I felt a practicing healthcare professional should know better. Now, if you're reading this and feel that it is indisputable truth that Delta came from the unvaccinated, let me try to provide some context that I feel is probably being intentionally left out of the conversation.

What do we know about the Delta variant? Well, we are told that it originated in India and was first identified in December of 2020. Is this new context important? Of course it is. Why? Because when Delta was born, nobody in India was vaccinated yet. So it isn't fair to insinuate that Delta is a viral mutation that spawned in the unvaccinated during a time of high vaccination rates. This kind of depiction frames the vaccinated as victims of the unvaccinated. In this instance, that portrayal is simply not correct.

Origin is just one part of it though. What about the ability to spread the disease? Surely the unvaccinated can spread Delta easier than the vaccinated right? Turns out that might also be incorrect. The Provincetown breakout shows similar viral loads between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. So while it might be true to say Delta came from the unvaccinated, that statement alone leaves out some pretty important information. A health professional should know better. Blaming the Delta variant on the unvaccinated is factually flimsy and causing division among the populace. Have we seen this before? Yes! Somehow we never learn from history.

Lice and Typhus

Jews Are Lice: They Cause Typhus

The quote above is a claim made by a Nazi propaganda poster back in 1941. At this time in history, Jews had already been systemically discriminated against by the Nazi party. The Harvard Business Review did a study a couple years ago that showed the economic discrimination of Jews in Nazi Germany had a profound impact. Specifically profound (and negative) on the companies that participated in scrubbing their leadership teams of Jewish individuals. Why do I bring this up? Well, two of the things the Nazi's did to the Jews before they sent them to concentration camps were blame them for disease and make their economic participation burdensome. They accomplished the first with Nazi doctors spreading false claims that the Jews were responsible for lice and typhus outbreaks. They implemented economic hardship against Jews in the early 30's by nudging companies to fire Jews to show support with the Nazis.

Health and economic hardship. Wrongful blame and removal from the workforce. Parallels getting a little too close for comfort? America is now openly doing the same. We have medical professionals incorrectly blaming Delta on the unvaccinated. We have publicly traded corporations openly discriminating against human beings on the payroll for not sharing what should be private health choices. This is how it starts. And if you think I'm being ridiculous, I'd ask you to keep an open mind. Surely the unvaccinated won't end up in concentration camps though, right? Not in America, right?

What was it like being Japanese in America in 1942?

UPDATE 9/14/21: my employer has now mandated vaccination by November 12th.