Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that many who post in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table and hope to make some new friends as well.
We are a country divided…and it makes no sense that public health measures should be a major fissure. No sense at all.
But some remain unvaccinated for other reasons…some cultural, and some, despite all efforts to reach everybody, for lack of access.
America Is Getting Unvaccinated People All Wrong
They’re not all anti-vaxxers, and treating them as such is making things worse.
Yong: I’m glad you raised the issue of access. Everyone age 12 and up is now eligible for vaccines, and President Biden promised that 90 percent of people would have a vaccination site within five miles of their home. I’ve heard many people doubt that vaccine access is still an issue and, by extension, that anyone who is still unvaccinated must be hesitant or resistant. Do you disagree?
Boyd: Availability and access aren’t the same thing. If you have to walk the five miles, you’re going to rethink getting vaccinated, especially if you’re elderly, or you have chronic disease, or the round trip is interfering with other things like work. [Much of] our paid workforce doesn’t have flexibility about hours, or couldn’t take a day off if they wanted to. And if you don’t have paid sick leave to deal with the vaccine or the potential side effects of the second dose, you’ll skip it because feeding your family is more important right now.
Child care is also an enormous issue. If you don’t have someone to watch your children, then what do you do? Many of these things the Biden administration has tried to address. They have programs involving Uber and Lyft. Child-care organizations have signed on to help with vaccine appointments. There are tax breaks for companies that offer paid sick leave. These are incredible, but they may not filter down to your area. We need to think about local interventions to help stretch them.
We have to do better because we are in a race with Delta — and Delta moves very fast. Remember, there’s a lag time between the first jab and full immunity.
For that reason and others, masks are still an important protection, too.
Discussion of mandates isn’t going away. We have to do something. But we aren’t all in major league football.
I weep for the Red States — and even the Red parts of Blue States like my own. I worry for the exhausted healthcare workers. Delta will be like a wildfire. And it all surely sucks because what is to come was preventable.
The weekend is here. Come in, be comfortable, and share your day, your weekend plans, your menus! This is an open thread.