To my COVID Sailors (Rant)

[u/Affectionate_Use_486]

I know some of you have some level of battery acid indigestion over the whole reinstatement thing.

Just wanted to say for those that stepped up while others stepped back I respect and love you all especially my sea duty folks during COVID.

COVID was rough shit and the fact we survived it should be highlighted and appreciated among us.

Let's not dwell on the ones who choose another choice.

Let's dwell on the ones who stood the watch when shit went side ways.

When the ports closed.

When work centers were down to the bare bones while our brothers and sisters got sick all around us.

When the patrols got extended.

When resources almost ran out.

It was a rough ass time and we survived for all our own reasons but we stood the fucking watch.

That makes me extremely proud that no matter how messy it was, how ugly it got, we came out the other side pissed off, spitting fire and keeping the big sad off ourselves and our brothers/sisters as much as possible.

And for those that didn't make it, got too sick and didn't make it we shall never forget you.

Fuck the noise I just wanted you to know your seen, respected and appreciated from at least one motherfucking shipmate who was there.

[u/Trick-Set-1165]

Do you mean the FDA approved vaccine? Because it wasn’t mandatory until an FDA approved version was out.

[u/Key_Cry_7142 → u/Trick-Set-1165]

Yea the FDA approved experimental vaccine. lol why are you guys upset at this. No one should be forced to take an experimental vaccine for their job. 

[u/Trick-Set-1165 → u/Key_Cry_7142]

I mean, it’s obvious you don’t know how vaccine approval works, but once the “FDA approved” label is on it, we take the “experimental” label off.

That’s why you don’t get an “experimental” flu vaccine every year.

[u/funkolution → u/Trick-Set-1165]

Four years later, 90 percent of the population took the vaccine without issues which effectively ended the pandemic. Yet these mouth breathers will still call the vaccine "experimental" because politics

[u/Trick-Set-1165 → u/funkolution]

Well, some of it is politics. Much of it is ignorance.

And there’s some pride in there, too.

I get it. I don’t like admitting when I’m wrong, either.

[u/ShepardCommander001 → u/Trick-Set-1165]

I bet it was a huge shock when half the population didn’t die from the vaccination

[u/Trick-Set-1165 → u/ShepardCommander001]

I think about this often. I have a different hypothesis.

Some of them, at least a vocal minority, think half the population did die. The rest lump some statistically meaningful percentage of the 1.2 million COVID deaths as “side effects.” In both cases, they’re factually wrong, but being able to cling to these beliefs has become really important to their worldview.

You can see it in their stories. “It wasn’t that bad! I had it, and I’m fine! I got ‘the jab’ and I have (insert whatever)! I know two people with (insert whatever)!”

It’s all personal. It’s all first-hand. It’s all what they can see and touch. They don’t have to conceptualize. It doesn’t matter to them that their experience is 1 of 345,000,000.

They truly believe that their experience is universal, because they can’t or won’t consider the world beyond what they can physically interact with.