The county where almost everyone is stupid as ****

Covid-19 is crushing this corner of rural America. Getting the vaccine can still feel like an act of treason

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(CNN)It felt like Covid-19 was closing in around us during the five days in August this CNN crew spent in Carter County, Missouri. In Van Buren, the county's biggest town, we were sitting next to a 16-year-old when she got a text that masks would be mandated at school because about 20 kids had tested positive after just two days of class. One person we'd wanted to interview had to go to the hospital with a breakthrough infection. Another person found out the night before our interview she'd been exposed to coronavirus by a sick kid at church. People were gossiping about who had it and where they got it and whether there was someone in town who knew they had it but refused to isolate. "Everybody's scared. Everybody's coming down with it. And it's almost like a plague," Brandon Helvey said. Helvey had had Covid-19 three weeks earlier, but he didn't want to get the vaccine yet, he said. He thought it was still unproven.

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"If you have it, everybody knows it. And they're talking about you," Tara Chitwood said. She was working behind the register at a souvenir shop, subbing in for her mom, who'd gotten sick a few days earlier. It was "more than likely" Covid-19, Chitwood said, because one of her mom's friends tested positive. But her mom probably wouldn't get tested, she said. It was scary, Chitwood said. Her own little girl had to quarantine. But there was "no way" she'd get the vaccine. Her mom had gotten vaccinated, she said, and got sick anyway. "I've survived this long," Chitwood said, and then expressed a fatalism we heard a lot: She was going to die of something, eventually.

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"They want to hide the fact that they're sick so they can work," Debbie Turley said. "You don't get vaccinated. You don't get tested. You hide your symptoms if you're able to. And you just go out in the community and spread the virus."

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Last fall, (Wayland) Bland spent seven days in the hospital with Covid-19. He'd had a kidney transplant, and knew he was high-risk. Last year, Rodebush said, "Me and him and Ruth sat here and talked about it, and they both said, 'If we get it, we'll die from it.'" But Bland lived. "What'd you tell 'em, that I'm the toughest bastard there ever was?" Bland said. It was exactly what his friend had said. "I was on everything they had -- steroids, full drip, plasma from people that'd had Covid, drugs that they gave my President, (Donald) Trump. And they finally burned it out of me," Bland said. But he would not get the vaccine. "I ain't taking that sh*t. I ain't taking it!" Bland said. He didn't want to detail why until he was pushed to explain why he'd trust drugs like Regeneron's antibody cocktail but not the vaccine. He turned to Rodebush and asked, "Am I going to have to tell her?" Rodebush laughed and shrugged. "They shafted my President," Bland said. He thought the vaccine was delayed intentionally to hurt Trump, a baseless claim. "They wouldn't give it to him because they know damn good and well he'd be reelected, and there'd be nothing nobody could do. So, they had to swindle around and scheme around and keep it from him, and just as soon as the election was over, Bam! There we got it." "I'm so bullheaded. You shafted me out of my President. I ain't taking your medicine," he said. "I'll take what they gave him, but I'm not taking yours."

You can repeat this in hundreds of counties all across the country. This sheer bull-headed stupidity is why the U.S. will never be rid of Covid. Like flu, it will always be with us, but far worse.

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/2X5c8ab