World War C

The Overlook

By Tom Clavin

“The Overlook” appears every Thursday at tomclavin.substack.com. An overlook is usually a place from which one can see in many if not all directions, including where one has been and where one is going. If you enjoy the column, please "like" it and let me know what you think by commenting (check out previous ones while you're at it).  Likes, comments, and shares help with author discoverability on Substack.com, and all support is appreciated. Don't forget to hit the ‘Subscribe’ button – it’s free!

          Last month, a column of mine published in the Express New Group newspapers garnered a good bit of attention. Enough, in fact, that I want to use this platform for an updated and (slightly) expanded version. Another reason is that since that column appeared, the milestone of 700,000 Covid deaths in the U.S. has been “achieved.”

          It seems just plain wrong that I’ve worn a mask more in the past month than I did during the spring. Did any of us really envision when 2021 began that 10 months later the U.S. would still be flirting with – and sometimes passing -- a thousand people a day dying from Covid-19? Any reasonable person would be especially shocked at this knowing that vaccines to immunize people or at least reduce the severity of symptoms have been available since the year began.

          Let me reassure my conservative friends about a few things. One, I’ve never liked wearing a mask and it’s not any more enjoyable to do so now than it was a year ago. Two, I don’t agree with mask mandates because they divide people more than get us to pull together, and except maybe in small settings, they are unenforceable. Three, I don’t agree with vaccine mandates for the same reasons.

Now, I’m going to equivocate a bit: There should be an exception and it is that teachers and other school personnel who interact with children should be required to be vaccinated. Children under 12 do not (yet) have the vaccine option and thus must be protected. When they do have a vaccine available, being vaccinated should be a requirement for attending school.  Unless things changed when I wasn’t looking, for decades children have been required to have certain shots in order to be in school. Today, just like with other shots to prevent communicable, potentially fatal diseases, a Covid-19 shot should be part of that regimen. If as a parent you disagree, if you think your child and the children he/she will be in close quarters with for five to seven hours five days a week do not need this protection or you have a religious opposition, by all means make alternate arrangements for educating him/her. This is not a civil liberties issue. Your child’s civil liberties end when he/she exposes my child to a deadly disease. In the “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” clause, “life” comes first.

What I’ve been puzzled by since Covid-19 first grabbed us by the throat is how it has been how attempts to defeat it have been misunderstood and politicized. Let’s look at a few of the objections to masks and vaccines.

·        “Being forced to wear a mask violates my rights as an American.” Probably true. But let me offer two considerations. About objecting to a mask, is this the hill you want to (literally) die on? I completely object to the law that requires me to wear a seat belt. Wearing one is a very good practice, but whether I do so or not has no bearing on protecting others. I have every right to be propelled through my windshield in a collision. But do I want to spend time and money fighting the seat belt law? No. Plus, while I disagree with it, I acknowledge that it has saved thousands upon thousands of lives over the years. The other consideration: I can bend my individual rights a bit to protect my friends, neighbors, and even strangers. I am generally healthy and to my knowledge have no serious underlying health issues and I’m vaccinated. I don’t wear a mask to protect myself as much as to reduce the risk of communicating a potentially fatal virus to people with compromised immune systems.

·        “Masks/vaccines don’t really work.” True, they are not 100 percent effective in preventing the transmission of Covid-19. However, because I’m not a scientist, I use the “duck” line of reasoning: If it walks and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. It is not coincidence that the states with a higher resistance to mask-wearing and vaccines have higher rates of virus infections, hospitalizations, and deaths than states with a lower resistance. According to a Centers for Disease Control report released last month, based on studying 600,000 infections in 13 states, compared to vaccinated people the unvaccinated are 4.5 times more likely to be infected, 10 times more likely to be hospitalized, and 11 times more likely to die. To me, that’s a duck.

·        “Vaccines are killing people.” According to the CDC, more than 390 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the U.S. from December 14, 2020 through September 27, 2021. During this time, there were 8164 reports of death (0.0021%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. Some vaccine opponents are misusing this information to claim that 8164 people died because of the vaccine. That is not true. Those people died despite having been vaccinated. The truth here, and it is still a sad one, is that over 8000 people died from “breakthrough” Covid-19 infections. Another angle: With almost 400 million vaccines administered, only .002% died. I’ll take those odds any day, and especially now.

·        “A mask/vaccine is part of a larger government or deep state effort to control Americans.” At first blush, my reaction is there is no reasoning with such people. Actually, at second and third blush too.

·        “The vaccines have not been sufficiently tested.” Even though I went ahead and was vaccinated last March, I had some misgivings because the vaccine seemed to have been created and okayed rather swiftly.  Now, however, with FDA approval, misgivings are gone and I’m going to get a booster shot too. I think an historical perspective helps here too: Name one instance in our history when a major inoculation program caused widespread mental, physical, or spiritual damage to the population. There are a lot of things to blame our government for, but I don’t believe trying to poison large swaths of us is one of them.

·        “Even vaccinated, you can contract Covid-19.” There is no denying we have seen an alarming number of the “breakthrough” infections referenced above. But to refuse to be vaccinated for that reason is like not wearing a seat belt because I might die in an accident anyway, so why bother. A few results of recent studies: The rate of Covid-19 among unvaccinated people was 315 per 100,000 compared to 63 per 100,000, the rate of hospitalization was 29 per 100K compared to 1 per 100K, and an unvaccinated person is 11 times more likely to die. A very related factor is vaccinated people are much more likely to be asymptomatic or have mild symptoms and thus are more likely to survive a breakthrough infection than someone without such enhanced protection.

This past week, coronavirus cases in the U.S. fell 17% compared to the week before. This did not happen because of luck, God, we deserve it, the Cyber Ninjas recount in Arizona, Trump demanded the decline, or drinking some animal disease-related concoction. The steady decline – it was over 20% the previous week – is because more people are taking the readily available vaccine that greatly reduces (but yes, does not eliminate) the number of hospitalizations and deaths. Mandates, good or bad, are having an impact, but perhaps having a much greater effect is more people who had been on the fence are opting to protect themselves, especially after the FDA approval and seeing enough stories in the media of Covid vaccine opponents who have wound up in hospitals and morgues.

Because of a couple of writing projects, I’ve spent a lot of time the past couple of years researching the World War II era. And as it happens, in the last couple of weeks I’ve heard a handful of pundits state, “This is our World War II.” I don’t think this is hyperbole. Covid-19 has been a crisis of historic significance. A big difference is that during that war our homeland was mostly unscathed, but as of last week there have been well over 40 million cases of coronavirus in the U.S. and more than 700,000 deaths. The number of American combat deaths in World War II was 291,557. Covid-19 has hit us where we live and across every demographic, especially our most vulnerable. It is our 2020s version of Hitler.

During those World War II years Americans were asked – and in some cases forced – to make many sacrifices. The Axis represented a common enemy to be defeated, and to do so there was gas and food rationing, blood drives, war bonds, nighttime blackouts, restrictions on travel, and much more. Say you live in a Los Angeles apartment building in 1942 and are required to keep your lights off after a certain time at night. Quite possibly, being forced to turn your lights off infringes on your civil liberties. How does that weigh against the risk of an enemy attack that destroys your building and kills dozens of residents? Are you a “sheeple” for complying? Is dictatorship next?

Americans did what had to be done and then returned to normal, everyday life. That is what sensible, truly patriotic Americans are trying to do now.  

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 18 books, including the forthcoming Lightning Down: A World War II Story of Survival, to be published by St. Martin’s Press on November 2. To pre-order, please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, or BN.com.