After Rob and I got our initial Pfizer vaccines, we started returning to our local gym but a little at a time. When he went and I didn’t, I always asked how many were wearing masks. The percentage varied according to the day of the week.
Once I started going back, I met a 58 year-old blond in the leg machine area. She was getting in shape for her 40th high school reunion. I learned that her daughter in law was a paralegal for a large law firm in West Palm Beach and was pregnant. Once vaccines became mandated for companies employing more than a hundred people, I got blow by blows about how her daughter-in-law was going to lose her job because she didn’t want to get vaccinated while she was pregnant.
I thought about this issue a lot. Would I, when pregnant, have gotten Pfizer or Moderna or J&J? I started researching.
According to website Everyday Health, “More than 125,000 pregnant women have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began.” These stats are from the CDC. So far, more than 22,000 of these women have been hospitalized and 161 have died.
“COVID-19 patients who are pregnant are twice as likely to require admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) and 70 percent more likely to die than individuals who aren’t pregnant, according to the CDC. As reported by the CDC in September 2021, a record number of pregnant women — 22 — died of COVID-19 in August.
Just 31 percent of pregnant women in the United States have been fully vaccinated, the CDC reported. And vaccination rates are even lower for pregnant women of color, at 25 percent for Hispanic mothers and 16 percent among Black mothers.
The CDC says that nearly all the Covid-19 cases among pregnant women to date have been among unvaccinated individuals.
So, if I were pregnant, would I get the vaccine?
Yes.
My blonde gym friend tells me that her daughter in law refuses the vaccine and is going to lose her job in November because of it. And with that job loss, there goes her health insurance.
“That really makes the case for universal health care, doesn’t it?” I asked her.
She looked surprised, as if she hadn’t connected the two, then nodded. “Yeah, it sure does.”
But…It’s there in her voice.
The blonde is fully vaccinated, no longer wears a mask, thinks our governor (now known as DeathDeSantis) is doing a great job. No vaccine mandates in this state, no mask mandates, no mandates of any kind in Florida. No siree. That’s why he has sued school districts over mask mandates, sued cruises ships leaving from Florida that demand proof of vaccines. He panders to the trump base and yes, has presidential aspirations.
This mindset is also why Florida has lost more than 58,000 people since the beginning of the pandemic, a consistent third behind California and Texas for the most cases, the most deaths. And even these numbers for Florida are suspected to be higher.
But I don’t say any of this. I acknowledge her spiel, and tell her why I think DeSantis is a jerk. Our minds aren’t changed. But we temporarily feel better.
Rob and I got our boosters and haven’t yet grown extra limbs, an extra head, alien bodies. But if we do, here’s a promise: If we do become aliens, then we’ll take over the planet!
