I am so tired of these covidiots:
Hannah Lindeborg wanted to pull out all the stops for her daughter’s second birthday in July, especially after the pandemic derailed the family celebration for her first last year.
The second birthday would be the first big gathering with extended family since Covid-19 came into their lives, Ms. Lindeborg said, adding that she looked forward to hosting everybody over at her home in St. Paul, Minn.
When she learned some of her family members had chosen not to get vaccinated, “it was just kind of downhill from there,” she said.
From family gatherings to weddings to workplaces, vaccinated Americans are drawing new, sharper lines around who they choose to spend time with amid the rise of the highly-transmissible Delta variant. And the unvaccinated are growing testy over being excluded and feeling judged for exercising their right to make their own health choices. The divisions are straining relationships among families, neighbors and colleagues.
Ms. Lindeborg, 30 years old, is an attorney and mother of four, including a 5-year-old son with asthma. She and her husband tried to figure out how to host everyone while telling the unvaxxed ones to remain outside. They considered uninviting the unvaccinated. Ultimately, they canceled the party.
I hate how all these selfish pricks think they are the only ones who get to make choices. You chose to not get vaccinated, and others choose NOT TO BE AROUND YOU. If you want to die, fine, but you have no right to take me with you.
They really don’t want choices. They want to decide and then the rest of us has to deal with their decisions. That’s not how choices work, and you can just keep your selfish ass at home.
Chief Oshkosh
Sounds good to me. I’m writing more and more of them off. Life’s too short and I sure as fuck don’t owe them an explanation or, indeed, another thought. Fuck ’em.
Eljai
That’s it exactly. They want to do whatever they want and not face consequences. Not that long ago, the covidiots were telling us “if you don’t feel safe out in public without a mask, just stay home.”
Ken
Oh, good, a happy ending. I was sure it was going to be a report of a superspreader event, or that the two-year-old was on a ventilator.
Roger Moore
They want choices without consequences. Same as it ever was.
Wag
The anti-vaxxer‘s are working on destroying our country, and contributing to the evolution of more contagious variants, as shown by Delta. Delta is the real deal, much more contagious than previous strains. Today, doing virtual visits, I saw two fully vaccinated patients who tested positive for Covid.
I’m afraid that we’re fucked.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I like the drinking analogies. You can get drunk and stumble around your own house and sing Jeremiah Was a Bull Frog at teh top of your lungs. You can’t do it in a restaurant (trust me on this), you can’t do it on a bus, you can’t do it on a plane…. You can’t get behind the wheel like that.
rikyrah
They think people are supposed to sit around and let them infect them without complaint. Phuck that shyt ?
rikyrah
@Ken:
You are right
It was a happy ending
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I would’ve just told the un-vaxxed it was cancelled.
Spinning through my mental rolodex, I can think of one couple I very much like who I wouldn’t be surprised if they were un-vaxxed. They’re very nice people, they’d each give you their right arm if you asked, but they’re a little goofy. That’s the only relationship I would think twice about nuking in those circumastances.
Keith P.
I was at a get-together last weekend where a friend of mine starts blowing his nose on paper towels. Turns out, he’s feeling sick, but he’s a COVID denier, so he’s angrily telling us all that COVID is bullshit, that the last time he gave a bunch of them COVID (I missed that one), their positive tests were bad PCR tests (PCR tests, vaccines, and masks all don’t work in his mind). I was LIVID – regardless of whether it’s COVID or not, who the fuck shows up to a gathering of people knowing they are sick and then *tries* to get everyone else sick out of spite. Seriously, the sooner that high profile lawsuits start getting filed against people infecting others, the better.
Parfigliano
@Keith P.: “Stand your ground” says you can shoot the asshole dead. Perceived threat.
West of the Rockies
A reworking of a line from As Good As It Gets:
How do you end up with a Republican?
Start with a Democrat and remove all reason and accountability..
(Then add five parts racism, homophobia, misogyny, fear of education…)
gwangung
Because they think they have rights, and you have none. That’s the only way it makes sense.
Chetan Murthy
@Keith P.: Why are you still his friend, as opposed to, y’know, letting everybody in your/his shared contacts that he’s a Covidiot plague rat, and you want to make sure they all know?
dexwood
feeling judged
Fuck that, you ignorant, selfish assholes, you are being judged and it’s about damn time. How did that go? Oh, yeah, fuck your feelings.
West of the Rockies
@Keith P.:
Is he still a friend of yours?
Ken
@Keith P.: “He began choking, but none of us believe the Heimlich works…”
POLICE: “Didn’t you call 911?”
“He’d just told us he didn’t trust doctors.”
CaseyL
I’m not sure what I’d do if one of my friends turned out to be a covidiot. I’ve already pruned every Republican from my circle (not that there were many to start with), and I dropped all the “woo” people ages ago. I have a lot fewer, but better, friends.
I saw a map of how far and fast Delta has swamped the country. It’s horrifying. And it’s all due to the GQP encouraging and coddling anti-vaxxers and other covidiots for the sake of regaining power.
I would not at all mind seeing firing squads in their futures.
Princess
Evidently the wife of Rep Johansen, Cindy Johansen, also anti-vax anti-mask, died today. This is the original story about them getting sick:
https://bangordailynews.com/2021/07/23/news/aroostook/maine-lawmaker-who-opposed-coronavirus-restrictions-reportedly-has-covid-19/
Bill Arnold
THEY stole our freedom, by vigorously asserting their “right” to mass kill random people.
THEY will never be forgiven.
Ohio Mom
All of my family and friends, nearby and far away, are vaccinated, except for the three of them who are toddlers.
But all of us are out and about a lot more than we were before we were vaccinated, and even with masks, we are probably putting ourselves more at risk than we like to think about.
Bill Arnold
@Eljai:
House arrest for vaccine refusers (without a valid, validated medical excuse.).
(Make them explain why this would be bad!)
Capri
The people I talk to who are either unvaxxed or horribly resentful of having to wear a mask can’t seem to wrap their mind around the fact that it’s contageous. The reason we treat it differently from cancer, or smoking, or ANYTHING ELSE YOU CAN DO TO HARM YOURSELF is because you can spread it to others.
Tehanu
Thank you, John. I come here for a lot of reasons, but your common sense and straight talk — and your way of summing things up concisely — are major among them.
sdhays
@Capri: “What is this ‘others’ you speak of?”
//
scav
If there was a 1% chance their behavior would result in the death of an American Citizen, wouldn’t they agree we should go to war and take them out? Isn’t waterboarding justified under these circumstances? (ok, so it’s just a teeeeny little bit of water and maybe a few little messenger nonsense included . . . )
Chetan Murthy
@scav: White boys cannot, by definition, be terrorists.
Ruckus
@Chief Oshkosh:
Quoted for absolute agreement.
Mart
Planning on eating at a restaurant outside with another vaxxed couple but too damn hot. With Delta, I cannot go inside unless N95 masked, so cancelled dinner. Tired of it all.
ETA – Can’t wait for twelve days from now to see the numbers after 700,000 anti mask/vaxx biker Sturgis spread hits.
Kent
@Princess:
He’s getting a shitload of “thoughts and prayers” on his facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/chris.johansen.7967
Mallard Filmore
@gwangung:
I have rights.
You have responsibilities.
Ksmiami
@CaseyL: DeSantis and Abbott are first in line
Lyrebird
@Ken: same thought exactly! Phew!
scav
@Chetan Murthy: Umumum, oh yes.
“I don’t see color.”
(isn’t that the next move?)
Chetan Murthy
@scav: It’s either that, “All Lives Matter” or “stop resisting! stop resisting!” Lemme check my White Supremacy flash cards and get back to you.
Kattails
I’ve been reading about WWII and the blitz of London recently. Blackout was taken with absolute seriousness, and there were wardens who could get your ass in deep trouble if they saw so much as a sliver of light coming through your curtains. “I’m claustrophobic” was not an excuse. One screwup by a lazy/careless person could bring a bomb down on an entire neighborhood. I am continually flabbergasted that so many Americans can’t find an analogy in their own brain pans that brings home the reality of this, relative to the threat of the pandemic.
It’s like people saying, after some horrible murder, “oh it couldn’t happen here”. WTF not? There is a certain ratio of stupid people; of cranks; of psychopaths. The distribution is randomly interspersed throughout the population.
Elizabelle
@Kent: And a “womp womp” too.
Kattails
@Elizabelle: here a womp. there a womp, everywhere a womp-womp ee i ee i o.
Elizabelle
@Kent: She’s been nominated for a Herman Cain Award.
It is rather entertaining to scroll through that FB thread. Which will likely be marked private before too long.
Ken
@Elizabelle: Is that a new category of Darwin Award? For people who remove themselves from the gene pool for political reasons, perhaps?
JaneE
Lots of people are making these kinds of decisions. I am past caring about the feelings of the unvaxxed, but my stepchildren are all vaccinated and over 1,000 miles away so getting together isn’t an issue anyway. I have no doubt that if I attended an event with unvaccinated adults I would alienate people left and right.
Rocks
@Kent: What a cesspool.
CaseyL
@Kent: Too bad I’m no longer on FB; I’d enjoy reading those.
ETA: Or maybe not. I thought you were being snarky, but from Rocks’ comment, maybe they’re being sincere. Ugh.
James E Powell
Has any one of the many talented video compilation makers put together a “loud COVID denier, anti-mask, anti-vaxx people who have ended up in the hospital, lost family members, or died”? They will say it’s cruel, but TFB. It reminds me of all the pro-Iraq invasion people who became anti-war the day their own got killed or wounded.
Acting out one’s ignorance, hatred, and bigotry is all fun & games until somebody dies.
Kent
@CaseyL: Oh, they are being very very sincere.
I was just highly amused that it was like 350 comments that are nothing more than various versions of “thoughts and prayers”
JaneE
@Keith P.: Amen to that.
Even if the disease isn’t possibly lethal you should have enough consideration for others to not spread it around.
Elizabelle
A reddit thread about the deceased Cindy Johansen. Karma’s a bitch, Cindy. Maybe you figured that out at the end, maybe you did not.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/comments/p2oau5/update_antivaxanti_mask_wife_of_antivax_anti_mask/
Chetan Murthy
@JaneE:
Not a libertarian, I see.
RaflW
We just got home from an annual cabin (looong) weekend at a friend’s family lake place (OMG it was so nice to be in the woods, swimming and boating and just hanging out!). This is a group that has met every August for longer than I’ve been going (I got welcomed in via my BF in ’09).
One of the usuals was told in very clear terms, “nope, sorry, the rest of us are vaccinated and you can’t draft on our doing the right thing.” I guess he took it ok, but it seems like such a dumb choice.
He’s been saying that the mRNA vaccines have long-term unknowns. OK (not really, but for sake of speed/argument), well then get the J&J. It’s a little less effective against Delta, but still really darn good, and getting it shows that you understand herd immunity and that you respect your friends (and even though you’re being weird about this, we like you and want you to live). But apparently his mRNA argument was just bullshit, since so far he won’t get J&J either.
He has said that once a vax has ‘full’ approval from the FDA he’ll maybe then get the shot(s). I don’t think I believe him. Proof will have to be in the pudding.
We had a great time and it’s too bad he was uninvited, but that was his choice.
Sister Golden Bear
Narcissists forget that other people have agency too.
Chetan Murthy
@RaflW: A-fuckin’-men. You have excellent taste in the friends you’re keepin’.
StringOnAStick
I found out my RW Bircher dad is not vaccinated and has been lying about it. Delta gives me a solid good reason to not be going back to western CO to visit anytime soon. He can be a FOX blind idiot like my sister the retired nurse who checks up on him, but I’m not taking the risk to go visit someone who takes every possible opening to berate me for being an evil, evil D. He’s made his bed, plus Mesa County has a high Covid positivity level right now. No thanks.
matt the somewhat reasonable
Often diseased animals will be shot, to protect the others.
Chetan Murthy
Today I received a letter from my gym in SF: a wellness poll. Up to this point, they’ve not once sent out a letter polling the membership about covid mitigation practices. Instead, they started off (in May) with masking, then dropped masking (in mid-June) and then reinstated it (Aug 3). At no point did they do a *thing* about vaccine mandates. So I got sick of waiting. I sent letters twice to the general membership email address. Got back pabulum. Today, I responded to the person who sent the poll:
Their response was not …. responsive:
Which is bullshit: 100% bullshit. So I responded with receipts:
Which resulted in more evasion:
so this time I drove straight to motherfucking point:
Throughout, I should note, she insists that they’re following SF Department of Health recommendations, which they most certainly are not, as a quick read of that linked-to PDF would demonstrate incontrovertibly.
Gutless cowards. Gutless cowards.
We need to hold all these fuckers’ feet to the fire. People are going to die if we don’t.
Kent
@Elizabelle: From the reddit thread
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Parfigliano
@Elizabelle: Cindy Johansen. Dead dumbshit. Put it on her tombstone.
mrmoshpotato
These selfish shitstains have choices – 2 Moderna doses, 2 Pfizer doses, 1 J&J dose, or stay the fuck away from others (especially kids under 12!) and go fuck yourselves.
Punchy
@Chief Oshkosh: yup. So many aquaintances whom I thought were reasonable, only to find out theyre conspiritorial shitheads and anti-maskx/vaxers. Dropped like a bad habit. Lifes too short to befriend the clowns.
trollhattan
@Chetan Murthy:
Indicative of “If we pander to the crazies and keep their business then enough of the not-crazies stay members and we maximize our gross.”
Pretending to be obtuse only works a short while. This sounds like whileX4.
Chetan Murthy
@trollhattan: I’m sure that that’s the case. Gutless cowards. My gym is still my gym. But it’s no longer “the YMCA”, a place that I regard as more than a gym, as a place for the community. Now, it’s just a fucking gym.
WV Blondie
You guys make me feel better. I’ve been sitting here stewing about the stupidity of this mess, getting angrier and angrier. Now at least I know it’s a common feeling (since of course, living in WV, I’m very careful about going out or seeing anyone, so I don’t get a lot of interactions).
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Point of order: the Darwin Awards specifically disqualify people who kill or injure others, and a vaccine-denier with COVID, especially the Delta variant, easily falls into that exception.
Chetan Murthy
@WV Blondie:
How do they say? “You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!” I’m single and childless. I have a friend in Boston with 4 kids — young kids, all <12yo. He is *incandescent*. Because the gutless cowards that run his city have arranged things so that his children …. his children must run the risk of Delta covid to go to school soon. I am on fire partly on his behalf, but it’s nothing as to his level of concern and anger for what his children must endure.
Don’t feel alone: you are not alone at all.
And just to be clear: I’m not just angry at the Branch Covidians; I’m also angry at every gutless business/corporate or government enabler. Every last one.
namekarB
Ya know I agree with unvaccinated are clowns and us vaccinated are sane but . . . In our 70’s, 4 boys (middle age men now) and two of them are anti-vaxers. So, #1 son and DIL want to visit. Me: Ain’t happening until yer vaxed. #1 Son bites the bullet and got vaxed 10 days ago and has been down with Covid ever since. DIL thinks he may have had covid when they got vaxed (she got sick 2 days later). He is still not out of the woods at this point and DIL says if he gets worse will call 911.
So dear readers: Do I hate my own son or not?
Another Scott
I’d express it differently.
They want to live in a black and white world, where their leadership decides what’s good and bad and they don’t have to think about it and society doesn’t change.
A fairy tale 1950s America where we were the top of the world, every year cars were bigger and faster and more ridiculously styled. Where white men ruled the roost, white women were housewives, and minorities were laborers or maids or servants. The social order was fixed and “everyone” was happy.
Change is scary. Change is hard. They want society to stay fixed while they have choices of iPhone colors.
If their leadership is saying things consistent with 1950s America – Freedom solves everything!, then that’s what they want to believe. They don’t want to reexamine America’s sins. They don’t want exceptions for a pandemic – why if there’s an exception for a pandemic, then that means troops will be quartered in our bedrooms before we know it!!1 And if women make as much as men, then men will be emasculated!!1 And why can’t people just accept that they’re not as good as white men anyway??! My dad had a pretty good life without all these changes; why can’t I get ahead the way he did – why is everyone taking my promised future away from me!!1 It’s not fair!!111ONE
(sigh)
Life and society moves on. People have to adjust or they get left behind.
And white men need to realize that the USA is less than 5% of the world’s population. White American men number roughly 75M total in the USA. It’s unreasonable, undemocratic, and non-sensical to think that white men deserve special privileges’ here (or anywhere else). And we will all be better off when we/they realize that fact.
The GQP is trying to ride this fear of change into perpetual power. They (like Putin) want chaos so that they can claim that only their “firm leadership” can save the country. We have to do what is necessary to end the pandemic, show that government still works, and move on to a better future. The 1950’s gave us lots and lots of problems – we need to leave them behind.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@namekarB: If my child did something truly, colossaly stupid and self-harming, I wouldn’t hate them: I’d feel really sorry for them.
lgerard
Department of Unintended Consequences
Florida’s Death Toll Now Exceeds DeSantis’ Margin of Victory
Citizen Alan
@lgerard: Probably off topic, but dammit, I still think Gwen Graham would have beaten his dumb ass. But no, Floridian Dems had to go with the Bernie Bro choice, Andrew “Meth-fueled Gay Orge” Gillum.
Gretchen
@Chetan Murthy: good for you! My mother once said she’d dance on someone’s grave, and I was shocked at the ferocity of her anger. I am no longer shocked. I am that angry at people who are selfishly endangering my grandchildren. I am especially sick of that nod that we can’t create boundaries to underserved communities. The vaccine is free and widely available. Sure, work to get those communities vaccinated. Come on, someone with a gym membership has access to a CVS. Don’t use that as an excuse to bend to the ignorant loudmouths.
Gretchen
@Chetan Murthy: this is enraging. They don’t want to create additional boundaries by telling people who have access to a gym membership that they have to go to a local drugstore on the way to the gym, and that’s too much to ask of someone with a gym membership. Come on. If that’s too hard, have a vaccine event at the gym. But they know that’s not necessary. I have absolutely no grace left for people who prioritize their selfish desires over the safety of children.
Gretchen
@namekarB: No, you don’t hate your own son. You were right to insist he be vaxxed. Let’s hope getting the shot got his immune response revved up to fight this and he will be fine. My 37 year old son had a crisis recently, and I was beside myself with worry. I was sitting on the stairs telling my daughter about it, her three year old son next to me. She said, he’s an adult, it’s not your problem, and I wondered, looking at that sweet baby and remembering my sweet baby years ago, if she understood what she was saying. Good luck with your son.
Sloane Ranger
@Ken:
To my mind the happy ending here would have been to tell the unvaccinated to F— Off and hold the party for the socially responsible only . I understand why they didn’t, but their decision means that nobody gets any fun.
scottinnj
Just a continuation of what has been happening the last decade or so.
I think of it as a variant of Cleek’s law, it comes down to:
A**holes want to be A**holes but without being called an A**hole, updated daily.
Chris Johnson
@matt the somewhat reasonable: I don’t like this comment because it brings to mind the ultimate purpose of Russian interference: civil war.
If you don’t think the Russians would like to goad on the MAGAs to be covidiots while simultaneously goading us on to talk about literally attacking them in the hopes we’ll all kill each other to death, you’re not paying attention.
REMEMBER not all of this is organic. There’s been quite a bit of reporting by now on how the antivaxxers are sometimes directly hired by third parties with Russian connections. The BBC talked about some whistleblowing influencers who’d been contacted by shady folks offering a lot of money to push antivax messaging.
This is being DONE TO us, not all of it is organic.
Starfish
@Capri: Smoking did affect others. There were people who got lung cancer through secondhand smoke, and heart attacks went down after smoking bans went into effect. It really is that bad.
Starfish
I wrote something before I had sense enough to unwrite it.
wenchacha
@Ken:
@Chetan Murthy: Do they invite all members to the gym, regardless of illness? Can you visit with ringworm or scabies or TB?
Richard
@CaseyL:
The hardest people for me to drop was that “woo” couple i was close friends with. They are nice kind generous intelligent people. I have been friends with them for years. It was only in the past few years that they became more and more paranoid.
It started with the jetplane trails. I would go visit and that is all they would talk about. Then, when the trump time started, they just locked the door and threw away the key.
The last time i visited them they told me i don’t need a mask, it is all a hoax. I still see them around the town and we still say hello
I miss my friends
As far as these other idiots go, my life is a lot better without them.
I lost my sister and mom and dad to the trump troubles.