I think you can say it’s official.  With so many hospitals once again overflowing with covid patients, you can reasonably say we, the species that has evolved into the masters of the planet, have been outsmarted by a brainless, micron-sized blob.  We were so close to getting back to normal.  We have the antidote to the scurge at hand- a 95% effective vaccine.  But herd immjunity is out of reach because 30% of the adult population in the U.S. is not willing to get a shot.  Why is that?  Why would a superior, sophisticated species capable of reason let something so micoscopic and inferior in every possible way rule its domain, when all that needs to be done to regain control is to utilize  an extremely effective tool that was painstakingly developed by that superior species?

Viruses are about as simple as it gets in functionality.  They don’t eat or expend energy.  They’re baically not even living organisms. Microscopic zombies. All they do is reproduce, and in that task they are usually very efficient, but it would seem their method to be extremely boring.  There is no romantic music involved.  No smoking afterwards.  Like most of us are aware, viruses need a host in order to do what they do, and of course in the case of covid the host is a cell that dwells inside of our complicated human bodies.

In the process of reproduction, viruses unfortunatly have one thing in common with cell based life.  They are equiped with nucleic acid genomes based on the same genetic code that is used in human cells.  The really important thing to realize about this is-  viruses have genetic variation and can evolve.

And because of that feature, we could be in a world of shit.  The original alpha covid strain did what it is always inclined to do- evolve, into a more transmissible delta variant, and it is possibly a more deadly one as well.  It is only a matter of time before it mutates into a varient that is resistant to the vaccine.

Some of the public’s vaccination hesitancy is fortunatley starting to crack a bit.  When the stock market sputtered in recent weeks because the Wall Street Journal all of a sudden voiced concern, Sean Hannity did an about face and started encouraging people to get vaccinated.  A pat on the back to capitalism. But when I see a United States congressman Rep. Chip Roy goes Ape Shit  go on a weapons grade tyrant over vaccines and masking, I can almost hear the guffaws of billions of covid capsids.  If thinking were something they could do, I imagine they would be unable to believe their immense good fortune  knowing a person in a position of pubic leadership had blown off his high school biology class.  Instead of making a glaring spectacle of his ignorance by trolling for deep red-dyed attention, he could have very well made a significant impact on the vaccine hesitant in his district by explaining that it is the job of health care professionals to adjust mitigating tactics whenever there is data suggesting a pathogen has detrimentally adapted.

The reason masking is a reemerging policy is because a huge portion of our population won’t get vaccinated.  Because of that hesitancy,  the alpha strain has had time to do what it does best- mutate to delta, which as it turns out is more contageous. What is also new is it  can be transmitted by vaccinated people. That was not likely with the previous strains.  The vaccine remains amazingly protective of those who are vaccinated, but critically they are now another vector that can infect the unvaccinated.  Thus, to save those who are refusing vaccinations from severe sickness and death, and to try and stop the varients from progessing through the entire Greek alphabet all the way to an omega Xtreme Exterminator Super bug, the logical thing to do is to go back to masking up. Any unvaccinated person whining about abridgment of individual freedom should step back and realize a responsible democratic society also believes in collective freedom, which in this case is a freedom, for everyone, to carry on like we were able to do before this oportunistic contagion took over our lives.

There is also something else the unvaccinted should realize.  The inoculated at some point will tire of doing all the heavy lifting. Their patience  will wear thin if trying to save the unvaccinated from themselves contines to be an exercise in fultility.  The stick will replace the carrot in the form of vaccine mandates of some sort or other.  Being refused entrance to a concert or restaurant might not register much alarm for some, but loss of access to a job or college campus might be more signifacant.  The ultimate solution to convert the hesitant could very well arrive this fall.  Tell someone they will not be allowed into a football stadium without proof of vaccination and I believe vaccine hesitancy will come to a screaching halt. Superiority hurts sometimes, but usually its best to just let it play out.

A Grouping of Viruses                                                              A Grouping of American Homo Sapiens