When Covid-19 crossed the seas and landed on American soil, there was largely a sense of unity among the population, much like when a hurricane wreaks devastation throughout a community. We didn't know exactly what it was, or what it was capable of, but we prepared for the worst.
Flash forward to current times and we see clearly the damages that Covid and the surrounding mandates wrought in its wake. People died, people got sick, people suffered mental illness from isolation, businesses were lost, the global economy was shattered, and much more.
One thing we have suffered from, is something that is not typically covered in the damage report. We are turning the unvaccinated into pariahs; enemies and outcasts like the lepers of yesteryear.
First, the solution to the pandemic was face coverings-- and anyone caught not wearing one would be dubbed as public enemy number one. Then, the vaccines were released, free of charge, to most of the American public. And this awoken a more sinister "Monsters of Maple Street."
Face coverings, while uncomfortable, are not as intrusive and permanent as an injection of a substance into the body. Although the mask mandates should have never been, most people complied with the order. The vaccines would be a harder sell.
Though some employers, private entities and local governments have implemented policy requiring proof of vaccination to maintain employment or be granted access to certain establishments, the vaccine is mostly still optional. To date roughly half of the American population are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
The media and the government pedaling the vaccine as the cure-all created a largely unreported but not unforeseen outcome; many of the vaccinated are turning their frustration and anger towards the unvaccinated, blaming them for the failure to control and extinguish Covid-19.
Before we turn our spears to the unvaccinated, we have to remember one thing; that much of the devastation wrought by Covid-19 was not caused by the virus itself--it was caused by governments around the globe attempting to eradicate it (something that may or may not be possible) with stringent mandates.
While to some, the punishment of Covid-19 may have been the loss of a loved one, or suffering the illness themselves. To others, the punishment is merely the inability to return to normal life.
"If they just do what they're told and get the damn vaccine, this will all be over," one man cries over social media, "just do it so we can get back to normal life!"
But it is not Covid-19 that is preventing the return of "normal life", it's the government. It is not the unvaccinated who are the enemy; it's the overreaching government who has imposed unnecessary mandates on the population, causing life as we knew it to be upended.
There is no need to demonize the unvaccinated and turn them into second-class citizens, stripped of their dignity and worth, treating them as sick until proven healthy. This is more dangerous than any virus. Your enemy is not the unvaccinated, it's the government.
