I’ll Drink to COVID - the Pandemic Beck'sts

Introduction

I feel like we’re finally far enough along in our nationwide recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic that we can start reflecting on it instead of just reacting to it. Of course the virus is still raging, and morphing, but hospitals haven’t been overwhelmed in a long time, and most of us are out and about in the world again. Throughout the ordeal, I drank a lot of beer and sent a lot of Beck’sts, but it seemed “too soon,” until now, to blog about it. I think now it’s finally okay to look back and that strange, shut-in, deeply isolated period, through the lens of what beers my friends and I were drinking, in what environments, and how we attempted to safely share that experience.

(What? You haven’t heard of Beck’sting? What rock have you been sheltering-in-place under? Get thee to a brewery! Or, click here.)

Note: as with previous posts about Beck’sts, I’ve grouped these thematically. I’ve included captions and commentary, and the initials of the Beck’ster. Where you see one letter only (e.g., “E—”) that’s generally somebody’s spouse. These are arranged chronologically, oldest at the top, spanning the period from late March through late July, 2020.

Newbie Beck’st

JH: Aaaahhh. [This was a Beck’st snapped during our first Virtual Pub Night (VPN) the previous week.]

MC: Nice one! Let’s do another session very soon!

JH: Agree. I’m free every night forever.

DA: JH, I think that’s your very first Beck’st, innit? And it’s a great one ... interesting beer, we get to see the color, it’s good lighting, and the Clorox wipe for context. A solid debut! As for our next VPN, I’d be up for tonight! I don’t have a lot of variety in the beer department but I just stocked the fridge so quantity-wise I can totally outlast this coronavirus... Should we do Hangouts or does someone have a Zoom?

JH: I’ll set up a Zoom. Otherwise my carefully selected wallpapers will go to waste.

Temperance Beck’st

DA: Since I did Virtual Pub Night (VPN) last night I figured I better go easy on the booze tonight, so E— and I are splitting this watery lager. (As watery lagers go, Stella is hard to beat.) DW, please pardon the unsightly stemware ... these little etched glasses, which we got from somebody’s driveway “FREE” box, are the perfect size for this. It’s weird going for walks because Albany is like a ghost town, and shelter-in-place seems to be awakening people to how overcrowded their homes are with stuff, because every other driveway seems to have a box of unwanted treasures. It’s like a garage sale except nobody wants any money.

JL: I went alcohol-free for eight weeks [to lose weight for cycling] but couldn’t take it anymore about two weeks ago when things started to get “real” with the ‘Rona. But even without any pandemic anxiety, I can’t imagine ever drinking just half a Stella and being satisfied! I admire your fortitude in these uncertain times…

Shelter-in-place Beck’st

DA: It’s tempting to complain about being stuck at home and about work being overly busy, but then I think of Dr. S manning up and caring for the sick and I stop myself. Nevertheless I do turn to beer in these trying times, such as this very good Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA. Would you fellers be up for a Virtual Pub Night (VPN) soon, maybe Friday? PCS, can you make that work?

DW: I’d be down for that sometime. I have a standing “Book Club” @ 4pm on Fridays with my [school] staff via Webex and I think we have another one with some friends going this Saturday. Geesh...sounds like we drink a lot. This pilsner from Terminal Gravity is outstanding. Tiny little brewery in Enterprise, Oregon, which is pretty much far away from everything.

DW (continued): Looking forward to it - now on to my day of public school Distance Learning administration!

Tall, fluty Beck’st

DA: DW, where do you come down on the question of tall, narrow beer glasses? Are such fluty vessels as offensive as stemware? Frankly, l like how full this is from a mere 12-oz bottle. The empty space at the top of a pint glass always irritates me. Anyway, this Racer 5 is really taking the edge off my shelter-in-place.

DA (continued): In other news, JL, I took the liberty of including your full name in my latest blog post. I hope that’s okay. You’re famous now! In other news, how does Saturday night work for a VPN?

JL: Aw yeah, more free press for me! That public relations firm I hired is really earning their keep! Are you charging them pay-per-click or something? I can’t wait to parlay this notoriety into a popular podcast — maybe something like, Homeschooling for Dummies! Or, How to Gain 15 Pounds and Keep it On! Or, Takes One To Know One: A Podcast About Bipedal Hominids! I’ll make a million. Oh, and yeah, I’d be up for a VPN on Saturday.

Cooped-up, stir-crazy Beck’st

DA: After a couple weeks of grey and cold we got some lovely weather today. When’s our next VPN!?

BA: I’m sorry I missed the last VPN! I didn’t open my email in time, you know, what with the virus and all. Let me know about when the next one is and I’ll try to get over to the store to buy some beers. I’ve been out of beer for a week now … I haven’t been in a store since I hear they put face shields up for the clerks, so that we can’t cough on them as easily. I don’t get out much...

DA: PCS, since you’re the one out there saving lives and can’t work from home, why don’t you suggest a few times? I’ll text BA this time since he clearly can’t stay on top of his email. Maybe he’s trying to be cool like our teenage children...

DW: I’m going to bring some serious, that is Orygun, IPA to the next VPN. No more of this Pilsner nonsense. Boneyard RPMs are available in cans now. Just happened. So there’s that.

DA: OMG, Boneyard RPM ... I love that beer! Alas, E— has us on this crazy pandemic lockdown where we can only shop like every two weeks, so my beer variety is almost nil. Not that we can get Boneyard here anyway…

Free Beck’st

DA: So, we haven’t had restaurant food since March 15 when we picked up Alexa from college for the lockdown. E— just isn’t comfortable. So I said what if we get a slightly underdone Zach’s pizza and put it in our oven for a while? She’s fine with that so I ordered it uncut so it wouldn’t slop over on the pizza stone. But when I went to pick it up, they’d screwed up and cut it. So they had to make me a whole new pizza, meaning I had to hang around for over half an hour, risking my life in their (albeit entirely deserted) restaurant. In recompense they offered me a free beer so I picked this giant Racer 5!

DA (continued): So, it turns out E— wants to bake the crap out of this pizza, long past the agreed upon five minutes. With the delay I already incurred, the family will be eating without me at this point, since I have virtual book club, but at least I have plenty of good beer to drown my sorrows in. Family and pizza (especially overcooked pizza) are overrated ... am I right?

PCS: Look at that MASSIVE brew, how many ounces are in that? Damn, no sorrow for you. So, was the pizza good or no??

DA: 22 ounces, baybee! The pizza was delish. I’m not sure it was worth the hassle but I’m sure my kids were stoked and that their stokage was unalloyed. Maybe they’ll look kindly on me one day.

JL: That beer looks epic! We’ve been getting restaurant food delivered about once a week. We usually stick it in the oven for a few minutes once it gets here, but none of us are convinced it’s doing anything... it’s just a matter of how much risk is acceptable and from whence that risk comes!

Dura-Ace Beck’st

DA: Do I look like I’m f***ing around?! (Hint: I am not. Not with this Double IPA, and not with my new Dura-Ace wheels...)

JL: That’s a nice looking Beck’st. I counter it with this not f***ing around Beck’st. Nothing in my photo is in focus because I’m already drunk — with power!

Anger management Beck’st

DA: If the anger is not too pronounced, beer can actually help. So what am I angry about? Two things: 1) the sad fact that this beer, the highlight of my day after ten hours of teleworking, will soon be gone; 2) the lack of Beck’sts I have lately received (or, more to the point, not received); 3) the dearth of VPNs lately; and 4) my evident inability to predict how many items will be included in my lists. You bitches are on the hook for items 2 and 3. I have taken care of item 1. Item 4 is hopeless. Item 5 is pending. So how about a 5pm PDT VPN on Sunday, 5/24!? DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT. RSVP ASAP.

PCS: Angry white man....BAM!

DW: I could potentially make a Sunday PM VPN. However, I have a Herd Immunity Get-Together at a pub at 4pm with my anti-vaxxer group. Those tend to go on for while… Also, I will only attend the VPN if we can dedicate some portion of the discussion to my wheel dilemma, without bringing up the fact that they are not Dura-Ace.

JL: Yeah, 6 pm PDT works for me. And I am happy to discuss at this VPN all subjects, as long as they are about Dura Ace wheels or wheels that are not Dura-Ace (but secretly wish they were Dura-Ace).

Broken hero Beck’st

DA: I bought this Kick-Ass fieldwork IPA crowler for our VPN that never happened. Since these crowlers have a shelf life, and I’m not allowed to drink until late next week at the earliest (due to my upcoming surgery), I have to give this away to a nearby friend. Alas, ye broken hero, I never got to drink ya...

DW: Alas...what the heck happened? Are you OK? Are you having surgery because of a bike accident? Not sure I can wait for our next VPN.

JL: Yeah, what DW said — what’s up? Upcoming surgery?? This was not discussed during the Dura-Ace wheel VPN.

DA: Dudes, here is what I had originally written about it before I decided to get an x-ray.

I’m resorting to this fallible voice recognition software instead of just typing, since I can’t type right now. That’s because I took a little spill on my bike the other day. I was descending after a bit of rain, but it had rained all night so the oil should have been rinsed off the road, but I came around a curve and my tires slid right out. I got up and got off the road and was putting my chain back on, and another guy came around the curve and stacked exactly as I had, and then a few seconds later a third guy came through, and he hit the tarmac exactly as we did, as though we had all rehearsed this together beforehand. Another guy came riding back up the road who had come through right behind me and almost crashed. He said his tires were sliding all over the place. The road was slicker than snot as they say, really almost like a bunch of soap or oil. So it was just kind of a freak thing, maybe something spilled in the road, I don’t know. I’ve done that descent many hundreds of times and my line was perfect. Anyway, my hand is all scraped up and swollen so I can’t really type, and I think I cracked some ribs because it hurts to breathe, and my shoulder seems pretty wrecked up. But, I was able to ride home, and I don’t think I’ll need to go to the ER or anything, which is good because they’re pretty packed lately, because of all the riots and so forth. Well, I suppose they’re pretty packed, I’m actually just guessing, but I don’t imagine I want to take valuable medical resources away from the agitators and so on.

Update: I went to Urgent Care for an X-ray and my collarbone turns out to be broke as f***. So I have a surgery scheduled on Tuesday. Happy happy joy joy.

DW: Damn, DanaDrive! No way that shoulder is going to grow back together. You’ll finally be riding some titanium with that break! Sorry that happened. What a bummer. The Fieldwork would be pretty handy at the moment.

DA: I donated the beer to JH and he Beck’sted it. Looks delish, eh? <sniff>

JL (a few days later): This is such a bummer of a story. Not the broken bone — the giving away of perfectly good beer! But seriously, the surgery should have happened by now … how did it go? I could VPN tonight I think.

DA: It apparently went well. I am typing with just one thumb which is really tedious so I am going to paste in a big block of recycled text now, which I’d dictated to my phone:

I have the sling that seems like it was made in shop class by a junior High kid, combining his father’s sling with a shoebox. The shoe Box presses against my belly making me feel like the Buddha, if the Buddha were an obsessed consumerist American who loves to carry around a box of treasures, if only his shoe box had a lid. I had a nerve block in my arm, which makes it feel like I fell asleep on it so my hand is all tingly, but instead of whacking the hand to wake it up because that’s annoying, I’m just leaving it because the tingling, as it spreads up my shoulder, will gradually be replaced with pain. I think it is going to be a very boring 6 weeks, followed by some very boring physical therapy, but I guess we were all destined to be bored anyway now that our library DVDs are all spent, and we realize that Netflix and Kanopy and Hoopla and YouTube are still all tools of man, and man is essentially boring. But I’ll take boring over zombie apocalypse, in the final analysis, though the way things are going I guess I wouldn’t be all that surprised if a zombie apocalypse did come to pass. I guess the silver lining there would be that all of their staggering around and flesh eating would be diverting.

I can give you more detail if we ever get the next VPN pinned down. That’s right, I’m off the pain meds and can have booze again! BA, are you back from your road trip yet?

BA: I am indeed back from the road trip and [our late] Dad’s teardrop camper trailer [which BA inherited] is now parked in front of the house. I don’t believe I contracted COVID-19 along the way, only time will tell on that (or not, depending, I guess). I had to figure out why T—’s van (a newer and shorter version of our 15 passenger van) wouldn’t drive the running lights on the trailer, and I managed that. I ended up pulling a relay from the fuse box in the engine room and installing a jumper instead, and lo and behold, it worked. It’s kind of surreal seeing the trailer there, like I expect to see Dad cooking out of the back of it when I look out. I don’t even know what to do with the thing, I don’t even have a vehicle that can tow a trailer.

DA: So BA, I’m glad your road trip went well and the teardrop came through okay. I’m quite impressed that you thought to pull a relay from the fuse box and replace it with a jumper to get the taillights working … that’s an ingenious trick the likes of which English majors don’t generally learn until grad school (though we did mess around a bit with jumpers during my honors post-modernism seminar). So here’s what to do with the trailer: you need to start a celebrity blog/vlog called “Teardrop Life” or something and drive around to scenic places in the US taking glamorous photos and shooting tantalizing video footage. You and J— are getting pretty old, so to stay “current” and “vital” you’ll need to attract a steady stream of groupies to help “fill the frame.” I think you still have the star power to make good money with that. Just be sure to wear your masks around those groupies. Don’t worry, the masks add an air of mystery and emphasize your eyes, one of your strong points. Well, two of them I guess, technically.

Controversial Beck’st

DA: Just because.

PCS: Wait....is it legit to Beck’st Heineken?

DA: Oh, so since you’re a big fancy doctor, you’re too good for Heineken?

PCS: I just don’t know why you would Beck’st a bottle of water! But please, feel free to send pictures of the next LaCroix you’re having. I know you love those.

DA: Now you look here, Mr. Big Shot, if I happen to like my water to have a golden glow to it, and its green bottle to cast a lovely green shadow, and if I’m secure enough in my masculinity to admit I like flowers, and nice arrangements, I think maybe you should just honor that and remember that some of us have feelings, and we don’t need to be pushed around by the big Associate Professor of Medicine with the American car, the big bully who always took the top spot on the podium. Sometimes our wives try to tease out our sensitive side by refusing to buy the IPAs we like, and so tonight it was either this Heineken or another 11.2 ounce 4.2% ABV Spanish thing. Oh, sure, you can stand in judgment, all high and mighty with your Deschutes Juicy Haze IPAs and your dual suspension mountain bike. Just kick a man when he’s down, would you? All injured and everything? Really? Does that make you feel powerful? I have to go. I think I’m starting to cry.

JL: I’m torn here. Because on the one hand I agree with PCS (as an aside, I decided against “Beck’st’ing” my white wine spritzer with a lime garnish tonight because I thought it was similarly against the rules). But on the other hand, denying a guy his Beck’st — especially when he’s injured and hurting [we assume] — seems cruel. In the end, however, I think this is a fair Beck’st, if only for the cute flower arrangement and the lovely table cloth, both of which (along with the dappled sunlight) evoke the ineffable redolence of a quaint European café — the sort of place where when you ordered, “une biere, s’il vous plait?”, they would bring you this pathetic ersatz ale, while sneering at you with that European contempt and superiority that only sweaty men from the continent, with their crisp white shirts and their glossy black hair, can muster. And even though the beer is lame and the service is perfunctory at best, it is served very cold (as evidenced by the drops of condensation languidly forming rivulets descending the emerald glass) and it is, at that moment, the best thing that you have ever tasted.

Epilogue

Did you notice that the last Beck’st in this chronological sequence made no reference to the pandemic? No inquiry about the next VPN? This was during that honeymoon period, post-vaccine but pre-Delta-variant. Alas, as we all know, that taste of unsheltered freedom was too good to last, so watch these pages for another post about Beck’sting through the pandemic…

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Has Any Good Come From the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Introduction

The columnist Marilyn vos Savant was asked recently if anything good has come from the COVID-19 pandemic. Her answer was woefully incomplete so I aim to provide a better one here. Before I begin, though, I want to acknowledge that the pandemic has been tragic and of course I don’t want to minimize that. I merely hope that looking at silver linings can help us feel some gratitude.

Marilyn who??

Marilyn vos Savant is a columnist for Parade magazine, which comes tucked inside the Sunday paper. (Reading Parade is admittedly a waste of time, but the writing is so brain-dead simple, you can read the whole thing in about 40 seconds.) I’m often struck at how wrong Marilyn is, for being a supposed genius. For example, she explained the 40% college freshman attrition rate by saying, “In college, students must study subjects in which they have no interest and will never put to use.” This is both false and not the point. Students drop out because so many of our high schools don’t prepare students properly. (Given Marilyn’s defeatist attitude about college as an institution, should we be surprised she herself dropped out?)

On the topic of good coming from COVID, Marilyn acknowledged only that it might encourage people to wear masks when they’re sick. That was her whole answer, and it’s more of a hope (and probably a vain one) than a reality. And yet, there are a number of good things to come out of the pandemic, and the world’s response to it. What follows are just the more obvious silver linings.

The vaccine

Can you imagine the situation if there had never been a COVID-19 vaccine? Today, according to this article, the World Health Organization estimates that “nearly 15 million people were killed either by coronavirus or by its impact on overwhelmed health systems during the first two years of the pandemic.” But it would obviously have been worse without the vaccine. When’s the last time a vaccine was created on the fly, with a great reduction in governmental red tape, in time to save countless millions of lives? Hint: never. As described here, the worst five pandemics in history ended thus:

• Plague of Justinian—“No one left to die”
• Black Death—The invention of quarantine
• The Great Plague of London—Quarantine
• Smallpox—The first epidemic ended by a vaccine, but only after more than two centuries and countless millions dead
• Cholera—The discovery that bacterial infection was spreading via contaminated drinking water

The COVID-19 vaccine totally saved our bacon. Without it, we might have no end in sight with countless dead, and/or we’d all still be sheltering-in-place. The vaccine represents a giant leap forward in the development of vaccines in general; a tremendously encouraging example of scientific cooperation; and, despite a lot of whining I choose to ignore, a triumph in governments’ ability to produce and deliver the vaccine at scale. Today, two thirds of Americans have received the vaccine.

Granted, I’m accustomed to great medical care because I live in an affluent community and have top notch insurance, but I was astonished to be able to get all four of my shots with very little trouble scheduling appointments, and moreover without having to provide any insurance information, and without paying a dime. For those of us sufficiently clear-headed to appreciate all this, it’s cause for cautious optimism that our healthcare system isn’t completely hopeless.

Telecommuting

At the outset of the pandemic, I worked for a division of a company that officially disallowed working from home. Nevertheless, due to a special dispensation  I’d managed to negotiate with my management, I was allowed to telecommute four days a week (and yes, it made me plenty nervous to be the outlier). From March 2000—when my employer went entirely remote due to the pandemic—straight through to last month, my colleagues and I only went in to an office once. Our entire division now follows a “hybrid” working model of visiting the office just twice a month.

I am super stoked because my commute, from the Berkeley area to Sunnyvale, was absolutely soul-crushing. My colleagues—all of them—are similarly delighted with the new arrangement. And this change is permanent—our former HQ building was sold off. (When we want to meet in person, we do “hoteling,” which means finding an empty cubicle in a corporate building shared among divisions.) The pandemic forced my employer to try out the telecommuting model, and it ended up working far better than anyone had expected.

This isn’t an isolated case. According to this article, before the pandemic only 6% of employed Americans worked from home; by May 2020, over a third were telecommuting. And as of last October, according to this article, 25% were still telecommuting all the time, and another 20% part of the time. And as of April, according to this article, roughly 25% to 35% of workers are still working from home, though only 10% cite COVID-19 as the reason.

Think of how many hours of commuting are saved. By my rough math, about 38 million Americans are teleworking who used to commute, and we’re each saving an average of an hour of commuting per day. Given that transportation is the largest contributor to carbon pollution, this telecommuting arrangement is a huge benefit to the environment … and it was brought about by the pandemic. How could Marilyn vos Savant not mention any of this? For a genius, she sure doesn’t seem very thoughtful.

Less illness outside of COVID-19

Did you find you seldom got sick during shelter-in-place? I used to dread the cold and flu season every year, but since March of 2020 I’ve only been sick twice, and both times it was pretty mild. There’s not a ton of nationwide reporting on minor colds and such, but this article notes a sharp drop in flu cases during the pandemic. So that’s been something of a silver lining.

Of course it’s hard to get excited about not getting sick when we were stuck indoors and tolerating masks all the time, but I think there may be lasting benefit. All that emphasis on hand washing could engender permanent behavioral change. I for one always wash my hands thoroughly when I get home from being out and about, and I’m not thinking about COVID per se when I’m doing it: it’s truly automatic. And who knows, maybe Marilyn is right and many sick people will be masking up from now on before they go out in public.

More outdoor recreation

Obviously COVID has killed a lot of Americans—almost a million, as of this posting—but heart disease (as described here) is the leading cause of death in this country, claiming about 659,000 lives every year. Unlike COVID, rampant heart disease in the U.S. shows no signs of going away. With the obesity epidemic closely tied to heart disease numbers, I think it’s significant that outdoor recreation increased significantly during the pandemic, even during shelter-in-place.

This was my own observation, from encountering crazy numbers of hikers along the trails in our regional parks, but is also substantiated by various data. For example, this article declares that “in 2020, 53 percent of Americans ages 6 and over participated in outdoor recreation at least once, the highest participation rate on record,” and that “7.1 million more Americans participated in outdoor recreation in 2020 than in the year prior.” And this article cites a 63% increase in bicycle sales in June 2020 vs. the previous year and a 31% increase in camping gear sales.

Perhaps some of this change will be permanent, now that so many more people have discovered the joy of being outdoors. Suffice to say the pandemic did a better job exposing people to exercise than PSAs ever did.

More outdoor dining

Where I live, in the Bay Area, lots of restaurants dealt with the shelter-in-place by creating outdoor seating areas, taking advantage of relaxed restrictions on things like putting tables on sidewalks or building seating areas out into the road, with barriers to protect diners. Traffic and parking have not become noticeably more difficult; what you mainly notice is how much fun people seem to be having and how many of them (about 100%, by my count) say things like, “How come nobody thought of this before?”

Actually, all kinds of people thought of this before but were stonewalled by the various interests who put motor vehicle accommodation above all other priorities. In this article, a state lawmaker from San Francisco explains:

If a city had come forward before the pandemic and said, “Let’s dramatically expand outdoor dining,” there would have been a lot of pushback. Like, “Whoa, what’s going to happen to the neighborhood? We need parking.” This is not a mysterious unknown now. Not everybody likes it, but most people do. They love it. And cities will go through their own local decision-making. In San Francisco, the mayor has proposed an ordinance to make the outdoor dining program permanent.

Silver linings for high school kids?

It is widely understood that the pandemic has been particularly hard on teenagers (and I even provided an albeit jocular coping guide in these pages). But in terms of silver linings, I’ll ask you to consider that not all teenagers would call the pandemic a purely negative thing. For example, I asked my younger daughter, a high school senior, if she feels like anything good came of the pandemic. She immediately replied, “I got to see my friends more.”

This probably sounds pretty close to unbelievable, but her explanation matches what I observed myself of her behavior. The shelter-in-place didn’t forbid people from getting together outdoors in small numbers, and for the better part of two years my daughter constantly went for long walks with her friends. Before the pandemic, most of these kids’ lives were booked solid with extracurricular activities so they seldom got to just hang out. To me, their less structured pandemic days looked like a time machine, taking these kids back to my generation when kids did what they felt like instead of only what would look good on their college apps.

Obviously I won’t be able to cite all kinds of articles supporting any notion that my daughter’s experience was widespread, but I do note this article pointing out that “Suicide rates for all ages dropped by 5.6% in 2020 compared to 2019. But this is not entirely unusual. Known as the ‘pulling together’ effect, suicide rates tend to dip during shared experiences of catastrophe.” And this report on a survey on the wellbeing of families states that although 31% of children reported that their emotional/mental health got worse during the pandemic, 16% report that it actually got better. Again, the pandemic still sucked, but 16% is a silver lining. (I say “sucked” instead of “sucks” … is it really the case we can now start speaking of the pandemic in the past tense?)

Online schooling, though it has been almost universally assailed as a big negative overall, also has its positive side. A Johns Hopkins University article from May of 2020 quotes Beth Marshall, associate director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Adolescent Health and an assistant scientist at the Bloomberg School of Public Health:

The pandemic has given schools a push to move everything online. There will be an incredible utility for this even after the pandemic has ended. For instance, schools may now be able to tailor learning to specific kids by supplementing their classroom education with online material. It is often a struggle to meet the learning level of all students. With virtual content, students can access gifted and advanced learning opportunities that are otherwise unavailable…. The same is true for districts that are resource-poor and do not have enough textbooks for their students. Many of the texts that accompany curricula are now online. If we can continue to access these when we return and have a hybrid of online and in-person education, it might start to reduce some of the inequities we have in school systems.

Another thing my younger daughter mentioned as a positive is that with online schooling, she no longer had to get up as early and finally started getting all the sleep she needed. Her experience is corroborated by the same Johns Hopkins article. Tamar Mendelson, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Adolescent Health and Bloomberg Professor of American Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, states:

Adolescents’ sleep clocks are programmed to go to sleep later in the night and wake up later in the day than children’s sleep clocks are. Adolescents can follow these rhythms to a greater extent now that they are not forced to wake up early to get to school, as long as they're getting an adequate amount of sleep.

(The article does caution that lack of routine can throw off a sleep schedule and lead to reduced sleep overall.)

Silver linings for college kids?

I asked my older daughter, a college junior, if she saw any benefits from the pandemic. Right off the bat, she cited three opportunities it created for her. Since she’s pre-med, for years she’s been on the lookout for healthcare-related volunteering opportunities, and was stoked to get work at a vaccination clinic. She was then able to find a paid position working a COVID hotline for students and parents, which led to a volunteer position at a hospital emergency department. She was able to handle all three gigs only because online schooling provided so much flexibility: with all her lectures recorded, she no longer had to work in the volunteer stuff around any kind of class schedule. In fact, she can even work a ten-hour shift on a weekday, which would have been unheard of pre-pandemic.

This flexibility also made getting required classes much easier, because she could double-book classes (i.e., enroll in classes that theoretically met at the same time). She also corroborates Beth Marshall’s comments about online schooling supplementing the classroom education with additional material for advanced students.

Meanwhile, since my daughter stayed on campus during remote learning due to these jobs, she made all kinds of new friends from among the international students who couldn’t go home. Sure, she’d have made friends anyway, but this widened the demographic from what she’d had in high school.

In closing

Next time somebody goes on a little long griping about the pandemic, or asks you if you see any silver lining, you can just … wow, I was about to suggest you refer him or her to this post. But of course that’s absurd, this essay is 2500 words! You’re a pretty special person to make it to the end … don’t kid yourself that your hypothetical interlocutor has that kind of patience. Just send him or her to Marilyn vos Savant’s column. Sure, it’s woefully incomplete and misses the most important points, but it’s only 100 words and she’s really, really smart.

More reading on the pandemic

• Shelter-in-Place FAQ
• E-Book Options During COVID-19 Lockdown
• Is Cycling Safe During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
• The Toilet Paper Hoarding Conundrum
• More COVID Chronicles – Baking in Place
• When Will the Pandemic End?
• What Are Hospitals Like During the Pandemic?
• How to Talk to Your Cat About COVID-19
• Teleworking During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Why Don’t The Dutch Wear COVID Masks?
• Travel Tips During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• COVID Wristbands
• Can COVID Anti-Vaxxers Be Reasoned With?
• COVID-19: Helping Teens Cope

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COVID-19: Helping Teens Cope

vlog

In case you are suffering a migraine, or your contact lenses are too strong, or you can’t find your reading glasses, or you just plain hate to read, I am offering this post as a vlog. You can even blindfold yourself and pretend it’s a podcast. On the other hand, if you can’t stand the sight of my face and/or are teaching somebody how to read, scroll past the video ... the entire text awaits. Don’t miss the artwork from my daughter Lindsay!

Introduction

Obviously the COVID-19 pandemic is a grind for everyone. It’s tempting to think teenagers have it easier since they’re invincible, invulnerable, and impervious to disease, or at least think they are—but actually, the pandemic could be especially hard on them. Why? It’s because they’re in the very flower of life as opposed to those of us who kind of gave up long ago and are just running out the clock.

If you’re a parent of a teen or young adult, perhaps this post will help you support your child. And if you’re not a parent, but have a taste for schadenfreude, you should read on, too.

The pitfalls of COVID for the young

According to this article, typical teens’ reactions to global crises like the pandemic include feeling “stressed or overwhelmed, frustrated or angry, worried or anxious, restless, agitated, … teary, sad, fatigued or tired,” and they could be “losing interest in usually enjoyable activities or finding it difficult to feel happy.” Unfortunately, these are also totally normal symptoms of being a teenager, so it’s really hard to tell how, or whether, the pandemic is affecting your teen or young adult.

Some problems are undeniable, of course. Outside of the anxiety and stress, there’s the simple matter of not getting to hang out with friends, or doing so with all kinds of restrictions. Resentment can develop when your kids’ friends have cooler, more permissive parents. On top of that, kids are understandably just sick of everything: the online schooling, the distancing, the masking, and the hand washing. Yes, we parents are sick of these things too, but at least we grasp that they’re actually important, since we don’t have delusions of invincibility.

So what is to be done? Articles like this one and this one recommend getting more exercise. This is a fine idea, except that a) it’s so eye-rolling-ly obvious, and b) the likelihood of its adoption is empirically low. According to this article a study has just found that only 1 in 10 teens is getting enough exercise right now, vs. the (already poor) figure of 16 percent who were exercising enough pre-pandemic.

Can parents help? Well, you could start by setting the right example. If you suit up and go running or biking, there’s a chance your kid will notice. Better yet, try taking an online Zumba class with your kid. That should help, I think … though I’ll admit I haven’t tried it. (I just mentioned it because I like the word “Zumba” and am hoping it’ll help this post show up in Google searches.) My wife and I did do an impromptu dance party today, which got our eighteen-year-old giggling quite a bit, while also introducing to her the novelty of actual rock music coming out of actual speakers instead of just earbuds. (I would explore this dance party concept even more, except that my wife made fun of my moves, and my kid gets gobs of exercise anyway.)

Self-care

As pointed out by this website, you should “teach self love,” starting with self-care. Unfortunately, the advice is given only via an infographic so there aren’t actual instructions, but I have a few suggestions. First off, it’s not enough to just advise self-care; you need to practice what you preach. I’m talking about that stupid COVID beard you’ve grown. It doesn’t make you hip, and there’s too much grey in it, and it lowers the effectiveness of your KN95 mask, for crying out loud. Shave it off already. And if you’re a mom, keep your legs shaved and make sure your daughter notices. (Note that leg-shaving can be a highly political matter; if you leave your legs hairy on purpose, point this out, and celebrate it. Tell your daughter, “I want my legs lush, like I’m a coed at UC Santa Cruz. And I always shampoo them when I shower.”)

Self-care isn’t limited to nice things we can do for our bodies; it’s also about the damaging behaviors we should avoid. Remind your teenager not to seek comfort in drugs or alcohol. According to the CDC, “These substances can weaken your body’s ability to fight infections, and increase the risk of certain complications associated with COVID-19.” Beyond that, it’s obviously harder to remember to wear a mask or socially distance when you’re totally tripping or drunk off your gourd.

You should also bear in mind that there’s more to self love than self-care. Self love can include a bit of good old fashioned vanity and/or self absorption. Maybe it’s time to finally give your kid that “DAMN I’M GOOD” bracelet your dad bought back in the ‘70s and passed down to you.

But don’t go overboard with self love! When people are suffering, there’s always the risk they’ll become insufferably self-absorbed. It’s important to try to remind them of the larger world around them and the unique problems others face. Start with the fiscal waste of the pandemic. If your child is in college, bemoan the already egregious cost of their tuition and dorm fees, which are basically being totally wasted. If your kid is in high school, talk about the heinous property taxes you pay to support that school, and how it’s all for naught because so little actual learning is happening. Explain how you’re being robbed blind on these KN95 masks, and how rising inflation, fueled by supply chain problems, could be the next great economic crisis. (In general you should try to work the phrase “supply chain” into conversation whenever possible, because it totally improves your cred.)

How to draw teens out about COVID

Where can teens and young adults go for advice, sympathy, or just someone to vent to? Certainly not their friends, to whom they have to present a brave, stoic front. And their teachers—overwhelmed with technical issues such as remote learning, COVID tests, and contact tracing—clearly don’t have time. Once again, the job falls to us parents, as if we asked for this. So the question becomes, how do we get our kids to open up?

Here’s one way: announce to your kid(s), “Let’s all sit down in the living room. Your father and I are creating for you a safe space to share your feelings while we listen without judgment.” It might take a moment or two before your kids open the floodgates, but as long as you just sit still, with your hands in your lap, gazing at your children with pure love and devotion spread across your face, they’ll launch right in before you can say “mindfulness training.”

Naw, I was just screwin’ with you. Of course that would never work. Let’s turn to the experts for suggestions. Dr. Lisa Damour, a psychologist and school counselor, advises here that you should “make space for relief and joy.” Sounds easier said than done, eh? I for one have no idea how such a thing could be accomplished. But remember, our kids are smarter than we think. Why not put it to them to figure this out? You can say to your son, “Brent … I know this pandemic is hard on you. You’re hurting, I get that. But the thing is: you need to make space for relief and joy.” Then just watch as he tries (or doesn’t even try) to keep a straight face. Smirking, giggling, or outright laughing at you isn’t exactly the same thing as joy, but it’s somewhat close. Obviously this is a short-lived pleasure, just a little burst, so follow it up with another: use the word “quaranteenagers” in a sentence. Then hit him with the one-two punch of “lean in” and “show up.” He’ll be in stitches.

It’s crucial to show your support by communicating with your children on their own terms. It’s tempting to hover over them dropping bits of advice here and there, like shaking bacon-bits on a salad, but remember, lots of modern kids are vegetarians, figuratively speaking. (Okay, that metaphor got kind of screwed up … sorry.) Suffice to say, words are not necessarily what our kids need. Gestures, behaviors, and actions “speak” louder. For example, my younger daughter doesn’t exactly gush when I meet her eye and say, as sympathetically and authentically as possible, “How are you doing?” But recently I bought her a totally sweet camera and she really responded well. I mean, she didn’t talk too much (other than to say thank you, having not been raised in a barn thank you very much), but weeks later, she spontaneously kissed my forehead. (I’ll confess I flubbed the moment, because as she approached I instinctively recoiled, but so long as I remain gainfully employed, I’ll surely have other opportunities like this.)

Managing our own distress

This helpful article reminds us not to snap at our teens, pointing out that “this is good advice at any time, but it’s particularly important right now.” Well, this is a simple enough concept, but what about us parents … aren’t we totally stressed too? What if venting like this is necessary for our own coping?

It’s tempting to ignore this “don’t snap” advice as wildly unpractical, but actually, there is a way forward. If you have a cat, you can berate her as a proxy for your child. “Now Fluffy,” you can say, “you’re an absolute disgrace. I’ve seen you washing, which looks life self-care, but I know where that disgusting tongue has been. And I can smell your cat box from here. Ugh.” Fluffy couldn’t care less (unless you raise your voice, which could startle her). Best of all, you’ll feel terrible after admonishing that innocent creature, so you’ll give her all kinds of love, which makes you both feel better. (Well, okay, maybe it only makes you feel better, but still.)

Note: do not try this with your dog! As tempting as it is to say, “BAD Waldo! You are a VERY BAD DOG!” you simply mustn’t. Dogs are very sensitive. At least, I think they are … I’ve never had a dog. Anyway, if your pet happens to be canine, leave the poor animal alone. Go out and buy one of those Hasbro Ugly Dolls, or even a Yoda action figure or something, and just chew its freaking head off! Tell it how awful it is, how useless, how selfish, how lame. You’ll feel a lot better, and if you don’t, then alternately abuse and comfort the doll, in kind of a lather-rinse-repeat style. Or not. I actually have no idea how/if this would work. Forget I said anything. (Man this pandemic thing is hard!)

Confronting fear

Perhaps the biggest problem for teens isn’t how to wash their hands more effectively, or how to best maintain social distance, or how to tolerate the 0.5-second-long pin-prick of being vaccinated. The real issue is their fear. This kind of global crisis has never before happened in their lifetimes, and none of them ever paid attention in History class during that unit on the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. (If my teachers even covered that, I sure as hell wasn’t awake.)

So you need to confront this fear thing head-on. Convey to your teenager that it’s okay to be scared. Note that teens don’t want to be preached to, so it’s important to let this sentiment seem like their idea. The best way to do this is reverse-psychology. Say to them, “Oh, are you scared? Can’t handle a little stay-at-home? Totally freaked out just because your little world got shaken up a bit? Oh, is that needle gonna hurt too bad?!” (Stop short of the old “Chicken! Braaawk-brak-brak-braaawk braawk!” bit because they won’t get the reference.) When your kids push back and say, “Hey, Dad, it’s a global pandemic, I have every right to feel afraid!” then you know they’ve become true believers, because this will be coming from them. (Just don’t ruin the moment by pointing out that “global pandemic” is technically redundant.)

The tech dilemma

Remember my comment earlier, about the problems that can arise when your kids’ parents are cooler and more permissive than you? Well, you should be careful when your draconian policies extend to the virtual world, with restrictions on your kids’ Internet use. Some experts, such as the authors of this article, are actually advising parents to lighten up on “tech time” restrictions. And yet, others (like this one) warn that too much social media, and too much COVID news, can really bring your kid down. Here’s one way forward: if your WiFi equipment is sophisticated enough, consider removing the time-of-day restrictions, but implement a DNS blacklist so that the only site your child can reach is albertnet. This blog is like 99% news-free and all the hateful comments are directed at me … so it’s a safe space on the Internet for your teen.

Surely some experts would find my solution extreme, and that’s fine … but why haven’t they addressed the increase in bullying and other insensitive behavior our kids can expect as their so-called friendships go virtual? It’s much harder to be sensitive online than in person … meaning the pandemic will just compound the problem. If you’re lucky, your kid will mention to you the anguish that is gradually building through this ongoing fusillade of small-scale abuse. This is the time to “be there” for your kid, to make sure he knows you’re on his side. Tell him, for example, “Really, Ricky posted that? Well you know what? He’s an asshole.”

What about videogames? I’ve heard they’re a great way to blow off steam. Should parents be worried about violence and other thematic content? Probably not, so long as their kids don’t actually play these games. I know almost nothing about them, but a little bit of research turned up a game called Boyfriend Dungeon, which (according to this Wikipedia article) is “a role-playing game mixed with a dating simulator, in which the potential romantic interests are generally male characters that can turn into weapons that can be used within dungeons,” with “stalking and emotional manipulation of the player-character.” With games like this, who needs a deadly virus?

Now, I’m probably not being totally fair here, since my knowledge of these games isn’t firsthand. A neighbor of mine was going through a divorce some years back, and I asked how his son (aged eight or so) was doing. My neighbor replied, “Oh, he’s got his [World of] Warcraft, he’ll be fine.” I am happy to report that this kid, who’s probably in high school now, hasn’t yet opened fire on anybody. So I suppose you should go ahead and allow gaming to be your child’s pandemic panacea if that seems to be their thing.

What if the pandemic is helping your kid?

Now, is it possible your child is feeling stress or guilt because the pandemic is going just fine, and in fact has its benefits for her? Of course! This article acknowledges that some kids may have “commitments they didn’t want to keep or some people (classmates, teachers, coaches) they didn’t want to see, so this crisis might actually bring some relief,” but assures us this doesn’t need to be seen as a problem, since “it’s also OK to be happy.” The article suggests you tell your kid, “There’s no right or wrong way to feel.” I actually disagree with this (for example, it’s wrong to feel compassion for anti-vaxxers, those fricking savages) but the overall idea is a good one. You can tell your kid, “Look, the reality is, your standard of living has always been higher than that of most of the world’s population; this country was built on slavery and the eradication of the native population; and all your clothing and electronics are made in overseas sweat shops by underpaid children with no benefits. So there’s ample precedent for you to come out just fine while others across the globe are suffering. Why worry about that now? Just be happy that you’re happy!” I’m sure she will feel much better.

Your teen has COVID … now what?

If your teen gets COVID, he or she is bound to feel pretty humiliated, given all the haranguing you did about staying safe, and all the resources available that he or she obviously failed to take advantage of. In this instance you need to take an honest look at how your teen is doing overall vs. yourself. If you’re in an even worse way, then it may be time to go ahead and rub it in, saying, “I told you so!” and “You should have listened!” and maybe even “You’re getting what you deserve!” This will of course be devastating for your child, but it’ll feel so good for you, it’s probably worth it. On the other hand, if your kid has been suffering even more than you, then his or her feelings come first and you need to do whatever is necessary to prevent guilt or shame from surfacing. “Whatever is necessary” basically means saying, with utter sincerity, “Hey, don’t feel bad—it happens to the best of us.” Now, “sincerity” in this case means you speak from experience. That’s right, it’s time to go get COVID. Head down to an indoor megachurch service, replete with a full choir, preferably in Houston, and don’t you dare wear a mask!

But seriously…

Okay, I had a little fun here, but you might be thinking, “Hey, this is no laughing matter.” I would politely disagree—to me, almost everything is a laughing matter—but I will concede that we should take this issue seriously. Perhaps this post at least has you thinking about how the pandemic affects your teen, and if nothing else I’ve linked to ten perfectly sincere and potentially helpful articles.

More reading on the pandemic

• Shelter-in-Place FAQ
• E-Book Options During COVID-19 Lockdown
• Is Cycling Safe During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
• The Toilet Paper Hoarding Conundrum
• More COVID Chronicles – Baking in Place
• When Will the Pandemic End?
• What Are Hospitals Like During the Pandemic?
• How to Talk to Your Cat About COVID-19
• Teleworking During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Why Don’t The Dutch Wear COVID Masks?
• Travel Tips During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• COVID Wristbands
• Can COVID Anti-Vaxxers Be Reasoned With?

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Can COVID Anti-Vaxxers Be Reasoned With?

Introduction

I came across some crudely written graffiti recently, spray-painted on a pillar. It read, “ANTI-VAXXERS PIE.” I was like, huh? Another pillar a quarter mile away had the same thing but the vandal’s skill had improved: it read, “ANTI-VAXXERS DIE.” I guess this made a little more sense, but how persuasive was this presumed to be? (This graffito was itself vandalized before I return to photograph it.)

At the other end of the spectrum is an article I read recently in The Atlantic titled “Stop Death Shaming.” I found this article as annoying as the graffiti. In this post I explain my annoyance, and examine the larger question of how we might persuade holdouts to finally get the COVID vaccine.

 Stop Death Shaming

What a stupid title, clearly intended to be shocking so as to attract readers, like clickbait. Of course nobody is “death shaming” because the dead can’t feel shame and nobody is so clueless as to scold a corpse. Meanwhile, the article doesn’t actually provide examples of anybody shaming the non-vaccinated. It does go on to reasonably bemoan the lack of constructive dialogue between those who believe in the COVID vaccine and those who don’t. It also usefully recounts a poll that ranked the top reasons anti-vaxxers list for abstaining:

• Potential side effects (just over half of respondents)
• Don’t trust the vaccines (nearly 40%)
• Don’t trust the government (a third)
• Don’t feel they need it (just under a quarter)
• Aren’t sure the vaccines are protective (22%)
• Don’t see COVID-19 as a major threat (17%)

The author concludes that at least these people show “significant willingness to consider vaccination” (though I can’t figure out how she arrives at this conclusion), and describes a dialogue she had with her uncle about why he and his wife aren’t vaccinated. The uncle asks a few questions, puts his willful ignorance on display, mentions the “little bit of research” he’s done, and concludes, “We’re not, you know—we’re still thinking about it.” The writer wraps up this little vignette by saying, “I felt good about our talk.”

You know what? I don’t feel good about their talk. This guy, and anti-vaxxers like him, have had over six months to ponder this decision. When are they going to get around to their “research”? They’re dithering while people are dying, and this Atlantic writer seems to think that’s fine as long as nobody hurts anyone else’s feelings.

But what really irks me the most about the article is that this journalist misses the biggest point of all: she seems to think it’s perfectly acceptable to only ever expect people to act in their own self-interest. Her uncle, and people like him, are failing to understand or admit that this is a matter of public health. In fact, they are failing to realize that there’s even such a thing as the greater good. In short they are thinking selfishly. This is the real crux of the problem.

Really?

Now wait, you might be thinking. If somebody believes the vaccine works, and gets vaccinated because he or she doesn’t want to get COVID, isn’t that also acting in one’s own self interest? Yes, of course. But this is a situation where one’s self interest happens to coincide with that of the rest of the population. This is what makes it so frustrating when selfish people do the wrong thing to the detriment of themselves and everyone else. It’s a lose-lose.

I suppose you might also question whether selfishness is really the core of our dilemma. Given that all these people are fixating on outlandish fictions such as the risks of side effects, a nefarious government, or the idea that the vaccine is somehow unnecessary, isn’t the real problem that they’re all just as dumb as a sack of hammers?

Okay, now that is not constructive, and I don’t believe it’s even true. According to the New York Times, about thirty percent of the adult U.S. population hasn’t had a shot yet. I don’t think 77 million people actually lack the mental capability to understand that the vaccines do work, that there hasn’t been a rash of side effects, that COVID really is highly contagious, and that you can contract and spread it unknowingly. I think the problem is that people are so scared, as they struggle to adapt to this insanely bizarre new reality, that they’re simply not thinking clearly.

Neuroscience and the vaccine holdouts

Perhaps a shallow dip into the literature of social neuroscience can help illustrate what is going on here. According to this article by Dr. David Rock, a cognitive scientist, “Much of our motivation driving social behavior is governed by an overarching organizing principle of minimizing threat and maximizing reward (Gordon, 2000),” and “several domains of social experience draw upon the same brain networks to maximize reward and minimize threat as the brain networks used for primary survival needs (Lieberman and Eisenberger, 2008).”  When humans feel threatened in a social situation, the “resources available for overall executive functions in the prefrontal cortex decrease.… Due to the overly vigilant amygdala, more tuned to threats than rewards, the threat response is often just below the surface and easily triggered.… This discovery that our brain is inherently attuned to threatening stimuli helps explain many disquieting parts of life,” including “why the media focuses on bad news.”

In evaluating how this plays out in social situations, Dr. Rock focuses on “five domains of human social experience: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness” (which form the handy acronym SCARF).  Understanding how to approach these realms, he contends, is the key to motivating people, particularly when they’re facing the uncomfortable prospect of significant change: “For example, a perceived threat to one’s status activates similar brain networks to a threat to one’s life. In the same way, a perceived increase in fairness activates the same reward circuitry as receiving a monetary reward.”

So what does this have to do with trying to reason with anti-vaxxers? I would argue that just giving them their say, and being a good listener, as the Atlantic writer does, won’t change anything; nor will directly attacking their stated reasons for declining the vaccine (which are really just positions—you could even say excuses—rather than firm beliefs, not that they’re up for discussion). I think you need to cast the entire matter into a new light, that shocks the anti-vaxxer into a reassessing his or her status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness.

How to reframe the conversation

So here’s what I propose, should you find yourself in a position to discuss the COVID vaccine with, say, an uncle willing to hear you out. Instead of denying the risk of side effects, assume that they’re real, and focus on the utter selfishness that the anti-vaxxer displays when letting other people assume this risk. “So let me get this straight, Uncle Clyde,” you could say. “You’re so concerned about side effects, and the possible meddling of our untrustworthy government, that you’re going to stand by and let people like me take that risk so you don’t have to? So you’re basically looking out for number one? So if you were on the Titanic, you’d be elbowing women and children out of the way to get to a lifeboat? And in an active shooter situation, you might avail yourself of a human shield?” This argument would certainly light up the status, relatedness, and fairness realms described in the SCARF model. I wouldn’t expect the dialogue to continue much longer from here, but you’ll have presented Uncle Clyde’s amygdala with a new series of threats, and he might just start to reconsider the clever stories he’s been telling himself about vaccination. At some point he might even knuckle down and enlist the support of his neocortex.

As for your utterly selfish cousin Clint, who maintains that he’s robust and healthy and could totally kick COVID’s ass, you could say, “Oh, I see … and the possibility that your immune system is so good you could be infected but asymptomatic doesn’t concern you, because spreading the virus to Grandma isn’t your problem? So, if you were a smoker, you’d be the kind who totally blows smoke in people’s faces, and if they don’t like it fuck ‘em? I guess this is fine, until Grandma dies of COVID and me and the rest of the family blame all you for the rest of our lives.” This seems like a pretty decent appeal to the Status and Relatedness realms.

Let’s move on to our brother Bill who conveniently sits out the fight against the coronavirus by pretending COVID-19 isn’t a major threat. “So Bill … If this were a war that killed 670,000 Americans instead of a disease, and you were young enough to be a soldier, would you enlist, or just hope that the evil dictator running amok calmed down and called back his troops because he changed his mind? Or would you find some excuse, like flat feet or microscopic testicles, to stay home and hide out instead of facing the enemy?” His sense of relatedness, fairness, and status would have to be reevaluated. Is this shaming? Yes, of course it’s shaming! But it’s not death shaming, it’s selfish asshole shaming. Shaming is required here because these anti-vaxxers are shameless.

Now, when it comes to the poll about why people were declining the vaccine, there was of course the elephant in the room that nobody wanted to admit to: the pressure to follow their political party’s lead. This wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the poll results, but as detailed here, vaccination rates track closely to political party. This is primarily a GOP thing, obviously, though I blame the extreme right wing media more than the politicians. After all, as the Times reports, Mitch McConnell is encouraging Americans to get the vaccine, as is Mitt Romney, and even Donald Trump says he’s a “big believer.” The anti-vaccine mania is largely the fault of heartless, soulless, utterly self-serving media shitheads like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity who understand that keeping their acolytes’ amygdalae in a state of perpetual frenzy is instrumental in creating the seething, hyperbolic division among Americans that keeps ratings high. I think it’s very telling in this interview that twice Trump brings up the vaccine, and twice Hannity completely changes the subject.

Vaccination behavior shaped by political party can also slop over into the Democrat camp. This article in the San Francisco Chronicle, discussing various reasons locals gave for avoiding the vaccine, describes one person’s viewpoint: “It was bad enough that she felt nervous about the vaccine’s side effects. But it also felt like former President Donald Trump was mixed up in it all. ‘Trump said, “The vaccine is here because of me.” And I was like, do I really want it if he’s behind it?’ Maggin said. ‘But people feel that people who don’t get vaccinated are Trump supporters!’” The article goes on to ask, “What’s a frightened liberal to do?” I’ll tell you want to do: stop worrying about political parties, stop being bullied by biased blowhards, and think for your damn self! That could do wonders for your sense of autonomy.

I’m almost done, but I want to take a little more time to consider fairness, the F in the SCARF model. I think people often do make fairness a priority; as Dr. Rock points out, it “may be part of the explanation as to why people experience internal rewards for doing volunteer work to improve their community; it is a sense of decreasing the unfairness in the world.” Consider how many people, surely yourself included, blithely exceed the speed limit, but how few would illegally park in a handicapped spot. Freeway accidents are one of the leading causes of accidental death in America, but that risk is abstracted so most of us don’t think much about it. But we can easily imagine a person in a wheelchair being inconvenienced because we wrongly took her spot. What would be more embarrassing to you: being pulled over for speeding, or getting caught parking in a handicapped spot?

So to appeal to the anti-vaxxer’s built-in sense of fairness, it would be useful to stimulate his imagination a little. “So, Uncle Bruce,” you might say, “is this pandemic inconvenient for you? Kind of a pain?” You could draw him out on the indignities of endless Zoom calls, etc. Invite him to share a story about the most awful thing that’s ever happened to him at work. Then say, “Hey Uncle Bruce, do you ever chew out flight attendants when your flight is delayed?” He’d say of course not. Ask if he’s ever stiffed a waiter on his tip. “Hell no!” Uncle Bruce would declare. You then reply, “Of course not, you wouldn’t deliberately cause trouble for a working person, you always show them respect.” Then you go on to say, “You might be aware that ICUs at hospitals across the country are filling up with COVID patients. Did you know many of them are straining under the burden of two to three times the normal number of patients? Did you know almost all of these patients need to be intubated? Do you have a sense of how gnarly a procedure that is? Do you know how hard it is to bring a patient back from that? Did you know doctors are having more patients die than at any other time in their careers, and that many ICU docs have now treated more patients for COVID than for any other malady? Can you imagine how hard it is for them to tell the family members of their patient that he isn’t going to make it? Look, I know you didn’t sign up for boring Zoom calls when you took the job with TechCorp, but these doctors didn’t sign up for  a brutal, endless onslaught of their ICUs being inundated with mostly doomed patients either. I’m sure you’ve read how unvaccinated people like yourself are 29 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID … I just want to make sure you can kind of imagine how that pans out. Oh, don’t worry, these doctors would never shame anyone, though I talked to one who said he actually wished the fact of his patients’ non-vaccinated condition wasn’t in their charts because that just reminds him how huge a problem this is, and rubs it in how utterly avoidable all this would be if people just accepted the vaccine. And don’t get me wrong, when talking to the non-vaccinated family member of a terminal patient, a doctor would never say anything like, ‘This non-vaccination policy you have … how would you say that’s working out for your family?’ They have much more tact than that, they’re unfailingly polite despite being overworked and losing so many patients. And if you yourself did land in the ICU with COVID, and your doctor was telling me there’s not much more he can do, and I was begging him to do everything he can, he would never say anything like, ‘Would you say your Uncle Bruce did everything he could?’ Because doctors aren’t about shaming anybody. And I’m not either, believe me, I’m not trying to be a dick or anything, and I know you’re afraid of needles. But did you know that when an intubation goes sideways, a mixture of blood and saliva from the COVID patient’s throat can spray all over the doctor? I’m just sayin’. But hey, take your time deciding, it’s all good. It’s totally your choice, a deeply personal matter. And don’t worry, if you do end up dying of COVID, all of us family members who survive because we’re vaccinated will be very gracious at your funeral. Nobody will say, ‘It’s sure a shame about Uncle Bruce, though this could have been avoided if he hadn’t been such a selfish, stubborn old dumbass.’ We would never say that because that would be death shaming.”

More reading on the pandemic

• Shelter-in-Place FAQ
• E-Book Options During COVID-19 Lockdown
• Is Cycling Safe During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
• The Toilet Paper Hoarding Conundrum
• More COVID Chronicles – Baking in Place
• When Will the Pandemic End?
• What Are Hospitals Like During the Pandemic?
• How to Talk to Your Cat About COVID-19
• Teleworking During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Why Don’t The Dutch Wear COVID Masks?
• Travel Tips During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• COVID Wristbands

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.