My mom and I attended a fall craft fair in rural Northern Illinois this weekend. This is a good idea in the midst of a pandemic. It isn't, but organizers made it mandatory. The event was also outside, which my mom wanted. So I went.
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We left 15 minutes later after I decided that double masking was the best option. There were thousands of people at the county fairgrounds, 99% of them unmasked. They slept in tents in the 85-degree heat with no air circulation. Unmasked deputy sheriffs slept in a golf cart outside. The sign requiring masks at every tent's entrance was largely ignored.
After leaving the craft fair, my thoughts were: We're never going to get out of this pandemic.
This is because I brought it up because there is still a large portion of America dedicated to asking questions that science has answered for decades, and sometimes hundreds of years.
Unfortunately, the Brooklyn Nets Kyrie Irving is part of this group.
It was not cute that Kyrie went on a little adventure to question whether the earth is flat. This was especially evident when American school children began arguing about the matter with their teachers, citing Kyrie for the source. It was not funny, it was not thoughtful, and it certainly wasn't intelligent. It was a clear indication that Kyrie is extremely gullible to anything he finds on the internet.
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We find ourselves back in familiar territory. The Brooklyn Nets announced today that Irving won't practice or play with them until he has been vaccinated per New York City's vaccination mandate.
My job is to make the best decisions and best choices for the organization as a whole. Nets GM Sean Marks stated today. These are not always decisions that will be welcomed with open arms and a thumbs up. These are difficult decisions. It was not easy for Kyrie to make the decision to be away from his teammates.
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This is where the tragedy lies: Irving has once again fallen for online propaganda at the cost of his career as well as the success of his team. Let's be clear, vaccines aren't harmful. The average life expectancy has increased by two-thirds in the past 200 years. This is largely due to public health initiatives like getting everyone vaccinated for diseases that were once unaffected. You may be wondering why the average life expectancy of people is falling. COVID is the right answer.
Heck, even if we had begun the anti-vaxx movement sooner, smallpox would not have been eradicated.
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I know Kyrie loves his image of himself as someone who thinks outside of the box and questions everything. But unless you have studied epidemiology and medicine thoroughly, it is not possible to make the same claim about public health issues. Its irresponsible to do so. It is irresponsible to question the effectiveness and necessity of vaccines. Joe Rogan's galaxy-brain bullshit. Stop asking the question. You don't even have enough knowledge to decide what question to ask. The rest of us, who haven't spent years learning science, don't know enough to ask the right questions.
Today, the US has lost 716,000. souls to COVID. If you are willing to risk your life and put yourself out there, this is the time. Because being anti-vaxxer is a proud part of your identity, there is nothing you can do or say that will change your mind. If you've made it to 29 like Irving, think about how important it is that you weren't vaccinated in your childhood. Shout out to the scientists who made this possible, even the ones who beg you to get vaccinated.
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It's a great thing that the Nets did not allow Kyries' latest Reddit rabbithole to affect team rules for everyone's safety. It's a good thing NYC has such strict COVID rules. We would have been freed from this pandemic long ago if every entity had acted in the same manner.
