Dear Mayor of Tennyhill:
Last week, I found myself-a fully healthy 60-year-old-suffering from the effects of the COVID-19 Delta variant at a local hospital. A doctor friend urged me to perform an emergency CAT scan of my lungs. Within a few hours, I injected blood thinners intravenously to treat clots in my lungs, and also injected antibiotics to treat pneumonia. Thanks to some excellent local healthcare providers, I went home and I am getting better.
During my recovery, a friend sent me a link to your appearance on a national news program to talk about the spread of the virus in our common home, Oxford, Mississippi. Several times, you told the anchor that you were frustrated with your voters about the local COVID vaccination rate. Then there was communication, which revealed the ugly side.
Anchor: “I’m sure you will meet resistance, people say to you,’This is my choice, don’t tell me what to do.'”
ROBYN TANNEHILL: Of course we do. This is your choice, and we want people to make unselfish choices and help our community move forward. We are at a time when people choose unvaccinated beds. “
What you say is not just disgusting; it is personal. In my family of four—a family with access to excellent doctors—we came to different vaccination conclusions based on individual circumstances. My wife’s mother lives with us. She is in her 70s and has risk factors, so she quickly agreed to the vaccine. I am 60 years old, which is enough to move on. I got the first shot, but the reaction was very bad. After discussing with the doctor, I chose not to get the second injection. My wife, in good health, in her 40s, has had adverse reactions to drugs throughout her life. So she chose not to get vaccinated, and so did my 16-year-old daughter. Both of them were infected with the new crown virus. Neither of them was hospitalized.
The three of us are not selfish, Madam Mayor. We are good people and have conducted reasonable medical evaluations based on our personal needs and risk status. Shaming people to change their behavior for the greater good is not the best way to motivate voters. Arrogance is not particularly effective. In fact, your attitude-and the attitudes of many public policy types and experts-will only encourage those who are unwilling to be vaccinated to strengthen their position.
Also, when shame is used to get the results you want, it starts to feel less like science and more like religious dogma. In that interview, you sounded more like an angry clergyman than a humble civil servant trying to understand her voters. The fact is that vaccination-or any medication-is personal and should be driven by the needs of individual patients and the advice of doctors.
Photo by Spencer Pratt/Getty Images
When I thought more about your appearance on TV, I began to think, if you were the mayor of New York City at the height of the AIDS crisis, what would you tell the national anchor. Would you condemn the selfish behavior of AIDS patients who swarm into hospitals to devour precious public resources because of unsafe sex choices or needle choices? Some public leaders have done this. This is a shame.
Two years ago, when drug addicts flooded into our local hospitals for drug overdose—and hospitals across the United States during the fentanyl epidemic—does it make sense to humiliate them?
In the state with the highest obesity rate in the country, have you ever dreamed of calling those who suffer from obesity — type 2 diabetes is a serious illness — “selfish”? Or humiliate them? I hope not. Obesity is eroding our state and local budgets: 308,000 people in Mississippi (13.6 percent of the adult population) have been diagnosed with diabetes; and 75,000 people don’t know they have it. Another 814,000 people (35% of the adult population) suffer from prediabetes. The cost is staggering: in 2017 alone, there were US$2.4 billion, and there were also US$990 million in indirect costs. These resources could have been used to educate children—or rather—provide tax relief for the hard-working people in our state.
In addition, obesity is a key driver of COVID mortality.According to the most recent Forbes According to the story of a study including Johns Hopkins University and the World Health Organization, of the 2.5 million pandemic deaths worldwide, 2.2 million occurred in countries with high obesity rates.
“The report found that in countries where more than 50% of the population is overweight, the death rate is 10 times higher,” according to ForbesNear the top of the obesity list are the United Kingdom and the United States, both of which have high COVID mortality rates. On the other hand, Vietnam’s COVID-19 mortality rate is the lowest in the world. It also happens to have the second lowest obesity rate.
The report pointed out that “there is no international example of a country with a low obesity rate and a high mortality rate.”
Madam Mayor, please stop judging and start listening. Understand that many Americans have a healthy distrust of the government. It is not only integrated into our DNA, but also into our constitution, protecting us from the power of the central government through checks and balances. And ourselves.
Understand that many Americans are skeptical of vaccines introduced through the Food and Drug Administration (Food and Drug Administration) At an extremely fast rate (usually it takes ten years and billions of dollars to get life-saving cancer drugs through this process)-and they have not been longitudinally tested.As politicians push this push, whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe BidenNot only for the greater good, but also for their own political survival. And legacy.
In addition, the country’s large pharmaceutical companies are not only supporters of vaccines, but also large beneficiaries, which does not help.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through its non-profit foundation Pfizer, Biogen, and Merck-which reached US$79.6 million from 2014 to 2018 alone-increased suspicion.This does not include the $220 million in lobbying expenses that large pharmaceutical companies spend each year Congress, Is the highest among all industries in the United States.
In fact, the 2020 Axios poll confirmed the degree of suspicion Americans have about the influence of large pharmaceutical companies on our national regulatory agencies: “Less than one in ten Americans trust the Food and Drug Administration or pharmaceutical companies very much. Look for their interests.”
The US Food and Drug Administration announced the resignation of two senior vaccine officials last week, which did not help. A report by Politico stated that they were angry about the Biden administration’s plan to introduce an enhanced COVID-19 injection before officials had a chance to approve it. This news not only damages the credibility of the booster injection, but also damages the vaccine itself.
The fact is that vaccines have saved countless lives, especially the lives of those most likely to die from the virus: the elderly. In fact, our elderly population (accounting for more than 80% of all COIVD deaths) recently exceeded the country’s 90% vaccination rate. This is a shockingly positive result that deserves to be celebrated. And it is rational, because the elderly are always at the greatest risk of death. This is what most Americans worry about: dying from the new crown virus, not contracting the new crown virus.
Madam Mayor, if you continue your approach and start to join more and more choirs that promote vaccination of young people under the age of 18, you will encounter more resistance, driven by data and risk analysis, rather than stupidity.
“During the pandemic, 49,000 Americans under the age of 18 died from various causes,” David Wallace-Wells wrote in a recent article. In all places, New York Magazine. “Of these, only 331 people died of new coronary pneumonia.” In 2019, more than 2,000 American children and adolescents died in car accidents.
Wallace-Wells added that more than 600,000 Americans have died of COVID, but only 0.05% of them are under the age of 18. This population accounts for more than 20% of the country’s total population.
With all due respect, you are our mayor, not our doctor. You are chosen to serve us, not to judge us. Madam Mayor, know that Oxonians and fellow Americans who don’t follow your wishes are not Luddites or anti-vaccine. Life is more complicated than this, and so is this disease. Millions of Americans weigh what they know and what they don’t know about the long-term effects of multiple vaccines, not one or two doses, and the possibility of their children dying or developing dangerous diseases due to COVID Weighing it, you may choose to reject your future requests to “move the community forward.”
Because, in the end, COVID causes death and other extreme consequences, many Americans are trying to avoid it instead of living without it.
wish all the best,
Lee Habi
