The world has been challenged this past year by a virus, a zombie organism that attacks parts of the human body, fatally in some cases, others delibilitating. So far, about 4,550,000 humans have died as a result of Covid-19.

Rapidly three effective vaccines have been developed using “mRNA” chemistry which reverses the processes by which the novel coronavirus attaches itself to human cells — respiratory cells chiefly. The vaccines have proven to be — so the data have shown — 90 to 95 percent effective against the virus and over 99 percent effective against hospitalization. Few if any vaccines have ever mounted such a success rate. A big win for humans.

The world is vaccinating rapidly, as it should. Yet in the United States, and almost only in the United States, a significant number of people reject, even oppose, being vaccinated. Why ? I really have no idea; the reasons given make no sense, are mostly irrelevant, are pure willfulness, stubborn, deadly. I have nothing further to say to those who profess such death vibes and whose pig-headed morbidity endangers the rest of us who have the misfortune to be their neighbors.

Instead, I want merely to talk of my own vaccination.

On February 8th I received my first shot of the Pfizer vaccine, by most accounts the most effective. My second dose arrived in my shoulder on March 5th. I will be getting a booster shot as soon as I am allowed. These shots were not my first. I’m vaccinated against measles, the flu, pneumonia, chicken pox, mumps.

My Dad was a Doctor, a “G P” or house doctor. I saw him diagnose and treat patients every day. I listened to him describe to me the way the human body works — muscles, glands, blood vessels, nerves, the brain. He described to me the symptoms of several diseases and what these symptoms entail. I watched as he sewed up wounded patients in the emergency room. I read his anatomy book, his treatise of endocrinology (endocrine glands are those which secrete a serum; the testicles are endocrines, as is the pancreas, etc.), his books on nervous disorders like multiple sclerosis, ALS, and dystrophy, appendicitis, gastroenterological diseases (ulcers, hernia, etc.), urinary infections. He loved to remind me that the human body is like my car (I was a hot rod car nut as a kid): it is made up of parts, and you must maintain those parts diligently or they will break down.

These were not Dad’s speculations. They were physical facts that I could see, feel, touch, observe. I am told, by vaccine deniers, that science is speculative and really, who knows ? But the human body is not a matter of speculation. it is not quantum mechanics, gravity, subatomic particle physics, archaeology, or evolution. You can see it being itself.

Why and for what possible reason would a person refuse to protect his bodily parts against a viral invader ? What sense does it make to die, or be incapacitated, by a virus which is so readily disabled by a chemical remedy administered to the shoulder the way oil is inserted into a car’s engine or brake fluid into into an hydraulic pump ? Yet we see people dying, or becoming seriously sick, by exactly such a refusal to care for their bodily car. They would more surely change their car’s oil, or check out its radiator, or make sure of its brakes, than they will do of their own body, the car of their life. Why ?

We can’t all be lucky enough to have a Doctor a sour Dad or Mom, but we can darn well act as if our Doctor were our parent and thus LISTEN to him or her and WATCH him or her as he or she treats the bodies of our fellow humans. Maybe if we were to do that, we’d get vaccinated and thereby save our bodies and thus our lives and protect the bodies of our fellows.

—- Mike Freedberg / here and Sphere