As someone who resides in Orlando, I feel obliged to offer a somewhat different perspective:
(a)
"The good news is people here are going about their lives pretty normally, if they choose, and most are." Unfortunately, the bad news is that those around here who are exercising their "personal freedom" to dispense with the recommended precautionary behaviors, such as getting vaccinated, using face coverings when indoors among others, maintaining social distancing, and avoiding crowded places, have now succeeded in driving the dreaded COVID numbers -- infections, positivity rates, and hospitalizations -- back up to levels nearly equal to pandemic highs. Here are a few excerpts from today's news reports in Orlando:
Orange County leaders said recently that everyone should wear masks indoors now due to the recent spike in positive cases.
A recent report from the health department said that Orange County is in roughly the 14% range when it comes to the COVID-19 positivity rate.
In Seminole County, officials said the positivity rate went from 14% to 18%. They say that over the last two weeks, there has been a slight increase in people getting vaccinated there.
Related: More than 73,000 new COVID-19 cases reported in Florida, positivity rate increases
During a news briefing on Monday, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said one month ago, the COVID-19 positivity rate was at 4.28% in Orange County, and now, as of Saturday, it was at 13.96%.
https://www.wesh.com/article/now-is-...-rise/37127669
AdventHealth is further limiting its elective non-time-sensitive outpatient surgeries as the hospital system continues to deal with “significant and swift” increases in COVID-19 cases in Central Florida.
Hospital officials said Monday that they have 862 people hospitalized with COVID-19. That nears the peak of about 900 the health system saw in January.
They said the daily positivity rate at AdventHealth Centra Care also remains at near all-time highs.
At Orange County’s COVID-19 briefing on Monday, Dr. Victor Herrera with AdventHealth said capacity is being stretched to its limits, causing the hospital system to move its status to level red.
Dr. Victor Herrera with AdventHealth said in-patient numbers of COVID-19 cases is reaching an all-time high. He said capacity is being stretched to its limits. He said AdventHealth has moved its status to level red.
— Christy Turner (@CTurnerWFTV) July 26, 2021
https://www.wftv.com/news/local/oran...MIR37KRGOXC74/
During the noon news report today, WFTV ran a segment showing several patients currently in the hospital suffering from COVID -- one 52-year-old man's wife was crying as he struggled to breathe in the bed beside her, telling the reporter that they didn't take the virus seriously, but were now praying that he could recover so that he could get the vaccine; another 45-year-old man was able to speak through his oxygen mask to say, "Please, this is real, get the shot"; and finally, a middle-aged man told the reporter from his bed, "You can't imagine how bad this is. If you want to feel really awful, just get COVID and see for yourself."
(b)
"Floridians are facing the virus and it’s dangerous effects with the calm determination of soldiers going into battle." Ironic that you should use the "going into battle" analogy. Because as reflected by the surging number of hospitalizations, people around here are starting to fall again like soldiers in combat; and unfortunately, not all of those who end up "wounded" ever volunteered for action. Frankly, while I feel enormous sympathy for the innocent bystanders who are made to suffer through no fault of their own, I no longer care about the consequences for those people who could get vaccinated but obstinately refuse to do so, whether as a selfish display of their "personal freedom" or based on a professed apprehension of a medication that literally hundreds of millions of people have received without significant adverse effects.
Here's the way I view the pandemic now: All of the physical, financial, and emotional suffering caused by COVID from January 2020 through April 2021, I blame on the virus; but the adverse effects of COVID that have occurred and continue to occur since the vaccine became available -- at least in those areas where it has been made widely available to the public without charge -- I consider to be primarily the fault of the Refuseniks.
(c)
Personal freedom grants you the right to be wrong. I find it difficult to believe that you've thoroughly considered the implications of that statement. I would equate the "personal freedom" to reject the vaccine with the "personal freedom" to drive while intoxicated: You might get lucky and not hurt anyone, or you might only hurt yourself. But you might also unintentionally kill or severely injure innocent people, destroying not only their lives, but permanently derailing the future of their families. Do you honestly believe that "personal freedom" grants anyone the "right" to do such wrongs?
There's an old saying: Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. No freedoms are absolute; they are properly subject to limitations based on the demands of the common welfare. In this case, the common welfare demands that every citizen has a responsibility to protect themselves and their neighbors from exposure to a contagious virus that we know is capable of causing death or long-term debilitating injury.
The simple truth is that those who refuse to get vaccinated are now infringing on the fundamental freedoms of the rest of the people. I want to exercise my personal freedom to travel again, to eat in restaurants again, to go to movies and concerts and sporting events again. But here we are, still wearing masks and living in a safety bubble, all because of the Refuseniks. We were THIS CLOSE to getting out of that dark tunnel; but the jackasses held us back. And now they've got us mired in this crap again. Eff 'em all.
If individual conscience and basic concern for their fellow humans is not sufficient motivation, and it ultimately takes enactment and enforcement of a law to compel compliance, consider mine a favorable vote.