Vaxxed lives matter!
29th April 2021
Lest we forget, it was less than a year ago that hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated people poured into the streets after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The protests lasted all summer long and caused something of a credibility crisis for public health officials, who largely refused to condemn the gatherings even as they continued to insist that other crowded outdoor events including church services, sporting events, funerals and even protests for other causes were too dangerous to be permitted. Thirteen-hundred public health experts signed a letter declaring their support for the Black Lives Matter protests and only the Black Lives Matter protests: ‘We do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission,’ they wrote.
Crucially, this was all happening at a moment when social-distance shaming had become America’s favorite pastime. Hey, it beats baseball. People freaked out on a weekly basis over photos purporting to show dangerously crowded parks, playgrounds, beaches, or pools. One July gathering at Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks was described in headlines (erroneously and without evidence) as ‘a star-spangled super-spreader event’. Government officials in New York vowed to pull people out of the water at Coney Island; a man dressed as the Grim Reaper shamed beachgoers in Florida to widespread acclaim.