Nobody should have to say this, but if you get the chance to take the COVID vaccine, do it.
I have a sister who joined other retired healthcare workers to help fight the pandemic. They would pay her, but she's volunteering. A nephew is on the front lines as a physician at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
And then there's an old friend of mine, in his 70s, with children and grandchildren, an active person and avid softball player. People his age can now get the vaccine in Indiana, and I told him that it was good to know he could get the shot.
But no.
"I'm not into taking shots I don't need," he wrote me, adding one of his trademark baseball references:
"If God is ready to call me up to the Parent Club, I'm not going to work to stay down here in the Minor Leagues."
This is where we've arrived in 2021: Death by lying. The enemies of truth insisted that COVID was a hoax, that it would disappear, that precautions weren't necessary. They knitted this with other threads of fabrication about the media, elections, and truth itself.
And so across the country, as we fight to get the lifesaving vaccine into the arms of the most vulnerable, there will be holdouts. It's OK to be cautious, of course. But people who refuse to protect themselves risk not only their own health, but will strain an overburdened healthcare system if they get sick.
You're a patriot, I told my friend. Do it for your country, your community. Do it so you don't catch this virus and spread it to others.
Yes, the Good Lord will call you when it's time - but he gave us the smarts to create life-saving medicine. That's part of the plan. We need you, my friend. Please think about being there for us.
(Photo: Health.gov)
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