{"id":34387,"date":"2021-05-02T08:57:34","date_gmt":"2021-05-02T12:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=34387"},"modified":"2021-05-02T08:57:42","modified_gmt":"2021-05-02T12:57:42","slug":"a-tale-of-two-countries-tells-us-the-vaccine-works-get-your-shot-if-you-havent-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=34387","title":{"rendered":"A tale of two countries tells us the vaccine works; get your shot if you haven’t yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em> @mikemcgannpa<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s May and flowers (and pollen, achoo) are blooming everywhere in Chester County.<\/p>\n

You know what else is blooming: optimism that the worst of the COVID-19 is over in our area and we are working our way past this pandemic. If you want a shot, you pretty much can walk up in a number of locations and get one. About 65% of the adult population of the county has gotten at least one shot and we\u2019re seeing the resulting drop in new case numbers.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re hesitant, let me offer a bit of comfort: these vaccines work \u2014 they are crazy effective both in preventing getting the virus and spreading it to others. Additionally, there have been few side-effects from the more than 200 million shots administered to date.<\/p>\n

In short, the vaccine is safe, effective and helping to contain the virus.<\/p>\n

Now, I know some folks want to make it about politics and not about science\u2014but it’s the science that matters.<\/p>\n

Two countries, Israel and India, are turning out to polar opposite examples of why science must trump politics.<\/p>\n

Israel \u2014 the mostly highly vaccinated country in the world (as long as your don’t count the Palestinian territories) \u2014 averaged over a seven-day period just 86 new COVID cases a day for the entire country. Just three and a half months ago, Israel peaked at more than 8,000 cases a day. Interestingly, about 60% of population of Israel has had at least one shot. Fun fact: Chester County is doing even better, which is why we\u2019re one of the counties seeing big drops in COVID cases.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s India, which like Brazil, seemed to follow the concept of The Great Barrington Declaration (open everything, let everyone get sick and get herd immunity). The virus is out of control in India, with the vast number of cases allowing for mutations. This, by the way, was exactly the plan some folks in this county \u2014 those more interested in protecting corporate profits than the people of this county \u2014 advocated for last year.<\/p>\n

Right now, we\u2019re seeing three outcomes: drops in cases where there is a robust vaccination program, moderately high cases in low vaccine areas that are largely shut down (much of Europe and Canada) and runaway growth in virus where neither is being done.<\/p>\n

Before the vaccine, some level of shut down was literally the only way to slow the spread of the virus, as we\u2019re seeing north of the border. Unfortunately, the Canadian government and the European Union has been sluggish in getting and rolling out vaccine, leaving them with little choice but being aggressive on new rounds of shut downs.<\/p>\n

The reality is that \u2014 due to mutations \u2014 we will likely have pop ups of COVID-19 on a regional basis and need to be able to react to them quickly. Already, you can see the case number difference in areas \u2014 as was the case with masking \u2014 where the vaccine isn\u2019t getting in arms at a high number. Those who scream about having the freedom not to wear masks (one wonders how they feel about the pants\/skirts mandate for shopping) now won\u2019t get shots, apparently to \u201cown the libs.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Pennsylvania is far from unique in having science deniers, COVID probably won\u2019t be wiped out any time soon.<\/p>\n

That means we will likely have limited, regional emergencies from time to time.<\/p>\n

So, as you can imagine, should a Pennsylvania Constitutional Amendment pass in May that would limit a governor’s power to declare emergencies, that could really go badly.<\/p>\n

The angry toddler caucus in the state legislature \u2014 when not literally sponsoring insurrection \u2014 jammed through a proposed amendment limiting the governor\u2019s emergency powers, which would instead move them largely to the state legislature.<\/p>\n

Now, based on the last decade, I wouldn\u2019t trust the legislature to get a lunch order right, let alone react quickly and intelligently to an emergency. Without continuing emergency declarations, Pennsylvania will lose federal assistance when it needs it \u2014 not to mention the great likelihood that legislators will play politics with emergencies.<\/p>\n

So in a world of bad ideas, this stands out as a Really Bad Idea™. Imagine how bad things would have been here in Pennsylvania if Gov. Tom Wolf didn\u2019t have the power to keep things under reasonable control. No, not everything Wolf did was perfect \u2014 but a number of the measures he mandated saved thousands of lives.<\/p>\n

It would have been, so to speak, a disaster.<\/p>\n

And what happens when a hurricane hits the southeast portion of the state and the knuckleheads from the middle of the state in the legislature vote against continuing an emergency. Think it can\u2019t happen? Think about all of the clowns in Congress who voted against aid following Superstorm Sandy.<\/p>\n

This is a terrible, terrible idea. You need to vote on May 18 to make this epic level of stupidity is not imposed on Pennsylvania. Vote No.<\/p>\n

And if you haven\u2019t yet, get your shot. Walk-up locations are now available in multiple areas in the county. It\u2019s easy, it\u2019s free and it can save lives \u2014 maybe yours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times @mikemcgannpa It\u2019s May and flowers (and pollen, achoo) are blooming everywhere in Chester County. You know what else is blooming: optimism that the worst of the COVID-19 is over in our area and we are working our way past this pandemic. If you want a shot, you pretty much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13152,12210,6269,13151,13150,12388,13153,464,1517],"class_list":["post-34387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-constitutional-amendment","tag-covid-19","tag-featured","tag-great-barrington","tag-india","tag-israel","tag-may-18-election","tag-pennsylvania","tag-vaccine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34388,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34387\/revisions\/34388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}