Two Natural Disasters, Ten Years Apart
This month marks ten years since Irene swept through Newfane, washing away roads, bridges and homes, downing power and phone lines, and leaving behind a mess. And in the face of this natural disaster, residents pulled together to help one another. We held nightly potlucks at Williamsville Hall, where we shared food and news and where we stockpiled donations of essentials for those who lost everything. We set up a phone line and WiFi so those without it could dial back in.
Irene brought us together in the face of disaster. People who lost homes and people who helped out repeated the same thing: If you have to live through a disaster, this is the place to do it. We were overwhelmed with community spirit.
We stockpiled so much social capital in the aftermath of Irene that for at least two years following the storm, we celebrated our community’s resilience with an anniversary parade. But after three or four years, we adjusted to the new landscape with Japanese knotweed, an invasive plant, obliterating not only our native species, but also our memory of them.
We are now in the midst of another natural disaster: Covid-19. This one doesn’t bother with property damage; it sickens and kills, and it’s not confined to Newfane, or even Vermont. It’s global and deadly.
People of Enormous Courage
As with any disaster, there have been people of enormous courage who have stepped up to help others, from grocery-store clerks to healthcare workers, and many unsung heroes in between. And there have been some extraordinary efforts to help neighbors stay safe and stay fed.
But a significant number of people have turned their backs on the community effort to end the pandemic. These are people who find mask mandates an infringement on their personal liberty, and people who won’t get vaccinated because they don’t want anyone – least of all the government – to tell them what to do. I get it. Our health is a private matter, and I don’t like legislators telling me what I can or can’t do with my body, either.
But a pandemic is both a public health event and a natural disaster; Covid-19 is one of the deadliest in our history. Yet Americans are not responding to the pandemic as the natural disaster it is. Instead, we’re falling back on American Exceptionalism, putting individual autonomy ahead of group safety exactly when sacrificing individualism is the only way to shorten the life – and growing death rate – of this pandemic.
People of Thoughtless Entitlement
I have a friend who is unvaccinated. I acknowledge her right to refuse vaccination and even admire her stated willingness to die rather than get the shot. But this friend regularly crosses state lines to visit her ninety year-old mother. She goes to work, shops in the local grocery, cares for her school-aged grandsons and she endangers every single person with whom she comes into contact, family member and stranger alike. So while this friend has a right to risk her own life, does she also have a right to risk ours?
What’s Legal versus What’s Right
This is not a legal question, but an ethical one. There is currently no law that says everyone who can be vaccinated must be; but there is an ethical argument in favor of putting community health ahead of individual autonomy. Ethics are the unwritten rules of societal expectations; they are the moral principles that distinguish right or wrong. Ethics require self-knowledge, compassion and a moral compass in order to negotiate the gray area between what’s legal and what’s right.
As we mark the tenth anniversary of Tropical Storm Irene, we’re also coming up on the eighteenth month of the pandemic and yet another spike in community transmission. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can make the health of our community our priority if we each, individually, do the right thing.
This column originally published in The Commons issue #627 (Wednesday, August 25, 2021). This story appeared on page D1.
I’m sorry, but I don’t acknowledge the right of anyone not to get vaccinated, and certainly don’t admire that person in any way. Vaccination is a must during a public health crisis, and shouldn’t be given a second thought. Otherwise, a person’s body can become a bioweapon.
I drive with my headlights on at night, and stop at stop signs rather than drive right through them. Both of these could be considered infringements on my right to do anything that I want, but society has established these “infringements” so that we can all safely exist.
For those who say that a vaccination infringes on their constitutional rights, I direct them to read Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, a Supreme Court ruling that has been frequently cited and has never been overturned. This ruling about a law requiring a smallpox vaccination, stated, in summary, that individual liberty is not absolute if it interferes with that of someone else, particularly in the case of public health.
No need to apologize for your strong feelings.
Bravo. You put it all so well.
The sad part is, when your friend or people like her end up in a medical facility and stressing out the staff and resources there. It is just plain selfish.
You are so right! The more people who say that, the better. My family has friends who are convinced the vaccine is “made of baby parts.” Husband and wife, both with asthma or other lung problem, have a disabled daughter to support, and now Covid infection. We respect their right-to-life position. We don’t support abortion for birth control (or the death penalty which they probably do support), but I am furious with the influencers who peddle distorted information and outright lies to people without the background for understanding the science behind the vaccines. Our friends also perceive science as an enemy of faith, where I find no conflict. It’s frustrating, and it doesn’t have to be–should not be, but is–this way.
Reading “Science as an enemy of faith” takes my breath away. I’m trying to find compassion in all this – and it’s hard.
Your feelings reflect mine regarding the getting the Covid shots.
We too have friends who absolutely refuse to get the shots. With the
variant now seeming to run rampant I find myself distancing myself
from them. These feelings intensified when our son. who has had
two Covid vaccine shots, became infected with Covid.
So sorry to hear about your son. I hope he is recovering.
keep it up girl, we can only hope that they get the message soon.
I was told about this post by a friend. I was disappointed to read it and the comments and discover that my neighbors are believing this false division that is being promoted between people who take the vaccine (good) and people who don’t (evil).
I was happy to wear a mask in order to protect my neighbors, and argued with friends who didn’t want to wear masks. I was looking forward to taking a vaccine as soon as one would become available. So, naturally I was very surprised to find out that I have a conscientious objection to the method of delivery of the Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson and Johnson vaccines and cannot take the vaccine! Those vaccines all issue instructions to your cells to produce the spike protein. I am opposed to humans telling my body’s cells what to do. For me, this is a deeply ethical limit.
I also understand your ethical perspective. As the delta variant intensifies, I am possibly putting people at risk of infection, including my mother, who I help take care of, and who has diabetes. This is weighing heavily on me.
Family members who are exposed to the news tend to think that I am ignorant or even evil because I refuse to take the vaccine, not seeming to understand that I would happily take a vaccine TODAY that does not compromise my values. These vaccines exist: Coronavac (China) or Covaxin (India) are traditional inactivated virus vaccines, and Novavax (U.S.) instructs the cells of moths to produce the spike protein. I am not crazy about using that technology on other organisms, but the ethical line for me seems to be what occurs within my own body, and so I could take a Novavax vaccine. I have written letters to every Vermont politician, talked to my doctor, written to the Sinovac, maker of Coronavac, and even tried to start a petition on MoveOn.org in an effort to get access to a vaccine I could take.
I am not anti-vaccine, in fact I am very pro-vaccine, but I am definitely against allowing humans to tell my cells what to do. I was under the impression that the mRNA vaccines were a stopgap measure because they were quick to produce until the other vaccines could be developed and approved.
Do you remember how Vermont went out on a limb to pass legislation requiring GMO food labeling? I wonder why more people have not taken exception to the technology of the mRNA vaccine. If we had all banded together to request the development of a traditional inactivated virus vaccine, perhaps we would have one available now. But in America, we no longer listen to each other. We prefer to rant at each other from opposite sides of an imaginary divide that just doesn’t exist.
This is a very small community, and I think I know the woman of whom you wrote. Even if I hadn’t, I would have been able to surmise from what you wrote that she is a caring person and dedicated employee and that she has ethical reasons of her own for not wanting to take the vaccine. I would want to be her friend.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the vaccine in such a thoughtful and respectful way.