Opinion: ‘You do you’ time’s over: Get the shot

Amid another surge, I came to this: I’m done with “you do you.” You’re doing us in.

If you’re not jibing with the jab for legitimate health reasons (discussed with your doctor, not based on an email forward from your cousin’s girlfriend’s brother), I am not talking to you. If you are fearful, that’s a conversation for another day. But if you’re in the nah-nah-you-can’t-make-me camp, may I gently implore you: Pitch in.

We have a tool to beat this virus, or at least keep it at bay. When the vaccine rollout commenced, I swear I heard church bells. I guess they were only in my head. A medical miracle feels like it should be an automatic thumbs-up. But we’re Americans, and we argue about whether water is wet.

In my home state, the rate of fully vaccinated Georgians is a meager 45 percent. Meanwhile, the delta variant is wreaking havoc — here and across the country. Our knee-jerk reaction to this turn of events is not compassion. Instead, we’re flexing our well-toned argument muscles.

On one side are the vaccine holdouts, who have new reasons to revisit old territory: spouting off about the evils of the shot, or the evils of the entities urging them to get the shot.

Nobody seems to be talking about sacrificial love. Love trumps individual liberty, especially during a public health crisis. Don’t get me wrong, I cherish freedom. But with freedom comes responsibility. And the shot is our best chance at a return to freedom — the freedom to live our lives unfettered.

To boot, we’re even bickering over the return of the dreaded mask. (Nobody wears these things for sport. I sure don’t. But at this point in the pandemic, I’m wearing a mask for you, the unvaccinated.)

For a while, we had an honor system — no masks for the vaccinated, the signs said. If you’re unvaccinated, please cover your face. But you waltzed right in. You justified the fib by saying the rules weren’t right. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t.

The honor system was a flop.

Those who forfeited their integrity to go mask-free were glad when guidelines loosened in May. Finally it was “safe”— as in no one would stop you — to bargain-hunt or buy burritos with a bare face. The world began to inch toward normalcy.

You’re welcome.

I know it’s too simple to entirely blame the un-jabbed for the mess we’re in. Problems — and pandemics — are complex. Still, when I hear of overflowing emergency rooms; exhausted and emotionally spent healthcare workers; the threat of school closings; not to mention more sickness and death, I can’t help but think of you, the holdouts. And honestly, I’m sick of thinking about you.

I have a friend who is a secret shot-receiver. She was, at first, wary of the vaccine and its newness — and she’s besieged by you-can’t-make-me friends and family. But she quietly got the J&J back in the spring because, as she told me, she “couldn’t live with the daily lie” of identifying as vaccinated in public if she wasn’t, in reality, vaccinated. She also wanted to do the right thing, to greatly reduce the chance that she’d pass the virus to the vulnerable, the infirm, the elderly. She wanted to be — honorable. As fictional TV coach Ted Lasso puts it, “Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing.”

Holdouts, you can do this. You can do your part for the common good, for your family, friends and fellow Americans. Heck, you might even save your own life. Get going on getting the vaccine, 2021′s version of planting a victory garden. Even if you dislike dirt under your fingernails— get sowing.

Laura Boggs is a freelance writer and editor. She lives in Milton with her husband and special-needs daughter; they queued up the first day they were eligible for the vaccine.