No, we aren’t shaming you and making fun of you because you aren’t vaccinated. You are, I assume, one of the very few people with health conditions that prevent you from taking the vaccine. Which is a good illustration, by the way, of why it is so important that the rest of us become vaccinated, so we can help protect vulnerable populations, like yours, who are unable to protect themselves.
If we are shaming you and making fun of you it is because of two other things.
The first is the reason why you refuse to be vaccinated, if you are not one of those very few people with a genuine medical reason preventing vaccination. We all realize that you might have anxiety because you don’t understand what vaccines are or how they work. If that’s the case, there’s plenty of good information from legitimate health resources online, or you could simply ask your doctor to explain it to you.
However, if you think the government is putting nanobots into the vaccine to track your movements, if you believe the pandemic is just a hoax to achieve some sort of political purpose, if you think taking arbitrary veterinary medicines is the better option because some radio host told you it is, if you think the entire global health care and life sciences community which includes the worldwide specialists in epidemiology are either all in on some vast conspiracy to harm you or have no idea what they are talking about even though they are actually the experts, then you are a foolish and gullible dope who probably can’t be trusted to safely make yourself breakfast in the morning, and deserve the derision we are sending your way.
The second (and more important) reason we are shaming you and making fun of you is that even though you refuse to be vaccinated – and knowing what kind of person you are that means you are likely to refuse to wear a mask as well – you think your life should go on as it was with no penalties for that refusal. But here’s the thing, your refusal to be vaccinated makes you a health hazard for yourself, your family, your friends, and your community. Your employer wants to stay open for business and is committed to protecting both employees and customers, and your unvaccinated self is a safety threat, so you are not welcome to work there any longer. Restaurants and entertainment venues barely survived the pandemic closures and need to stay open for themselves and their staff, so if you aren’t vaccinated you need to stay home because you present a huge risk.
No one is going door-to-door forcing you to take the vaccine; you are free to refuse to take it. With that freedom come consequence and responsibility. Losing your job and banishment from many establishments where people gather are among the consequences, as are the greatly increased chance of illness and death for you and your family. It then becomes your responsibility to understand and acknowledge that you are a health risk, accept the costs, and do what you can to protect other people (especially the very young and those with health issues) by isolating yourself almost entirely, taking yourself out of normal life.
Despite our shaming of you and laughing at you, we realize losing your job and being shut out of many large and small businesses places tremendous financial and emotional stress upon you. But, of course, that is entirely on you, because you are the one who has refused to vaccinate despite the pandemic killing over 700,000 Americans and nearly 5 million people worldwide. It was your call to make, and you made it. You could go back to work, and eat in restaurants, if you would simply become vaccinated. And you would be safeguarding yourself, your family, and your community if you did so. But you won’t. So those of us on this side of the sanity gap will continue to view you as rather foolish and sad, but we will also work hard to keep you at a distance, because you are a health hazard. We can’t protect you from yourself, but we can protect ourselves from you.