Tag: refusal

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Health

The Delta Variant Is the Symptom of a Larger Menace: Vaccine Refusal

The Delta Variant Is the Symptom of a Bigger Threat: Vaccine Refusal

Of the 39 percent of unvaccinated adults, around half say they are not vaccinated at all. But even within this group, some say they would do it if asked to.

Understand the state of vaccine mandates in the United States

Some are hesitant and may come with the right conviction from people they trust, while still others plan to get vaccinated but say they just didn’t stand a chance.

Politics is only a driver for some of these people, noted Dr. Richard Besser, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In New Jersey, where he lives, rates fluctuate dramatically due to socio-economic factors. In the predominantly white Princeton, 75 percent of adults are vaccinated, compared to 45 percent in Trenton, only 22 kilometers away, which is very black and Latin American.

“Both are strong democratic areas so it’s really important to break things down and address the issues that are hindering vaccination progress in every segment of the unvaccinated population,” said Dr. Better.

However, there is no doubt that the political divide is playing a role in the rising infection rates. From the start, vaccinations in counties that voted for Donald J. Trump have lagged behind those in counties that voted for Joseph R. Biden, and the gap has only widened – from two percentage points in April to now almost 12 points, according to a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

According to another poll nationwide, 86 percent of Democrats got at least one shot, compared with 52 percent of Republicans. Even the national goal of getting 70 percent of adults vaccinated by July 4th somehow became “Biden’s goal,” said Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research at Boston University.

“Suddenly, even getting out of the pandemic became a left-versus-right problem.”

As of May, fewer than half of Republicans in the House of Representatives are vaccinated, compared with 100 percent of Democrats in Congress. For months, several Republican lawmakers, including Senators Ron Johnson from Wisconsin and Rand Paul from Kentucky, as well as conservative news commentators like Tucker Carlson, have voiced their skepticism about vaccines.

Categories
Health

How White Evangelicals’ Vaccine Refusal Might Lengthen the Pandemic

How White Evangelicals’ Vaccine Refusal Could Prolong the Pandemic

These are questions that secular public health institutions are not equipped to answer, he said. “The deeper problem is that the white evangelicals are not even on their screen.”

Mr. Chang said he recently spoke to a colleague in Uganda whose hospital had received 5,000 doses of vaccine but was only able to give about 400 due to the reluctance of the strongly evangelical population.

“The way American evangelicals think, write, and feel about issues is quickly repeating around the world,” he said.

At this critical moment, even pastors have difficulty knowing how to reach their flocks. Joel Rainey, director of Covenant Church in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, said several colleagues were evicted from their churches after promoting health and vaccination guidelines.

Politics have increasingly shaped the faith among white evangelicals and not the other way around, he said. The pastors’ influence on their churches is diminishing. “They get their people for an hour and Sean Hannity gets them for the next 20,” he said.

Mr. Rainey helped his own Southern Baptist ward spread false information by publicly interviewing medical experts – a retired colonel who specializes in infectious diseases, a Church member, a logistics management analyst for Walter Reed, and an elder the Church, the nurse for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

On the worship stage in front of the worship band’s drums, he asked them “all the questions a follower of Jesus might have,” he said later.

“It is necessary that pastors instruct their people that we don’t always have to be opponents of the culture around us,” he said. “We believe that Jesus died for these people. Then why in the world should we see them as opponents?”

Categories
Politics

Michigan Rep. Mitchell quits GOP for refusal to just accept Trump loss to Biden

Michigan Rep. Mitchell quits GOP for refusal to accept Trump loss to Biden

Michigan MP Paul Mitchell resigned from the Republican Party on Monday because the GOP refused to admit that President Donald Trump lost the election to President-elect Joe Biden.

Mitchell wrote in a damning letter to GOP leaders that Trump’s unsubstantiated claims alleging widespread electoral fraud and the Republican Party’s tolerance of these claims threatened “long-term damage to our democracy.”

“It is unacceptable for political candidates to treat our electoral system as if we were a Third World nation and create suspicion of something as fundamental as the sanctity of our voting,” Mitchell wrote to Ronna McDaniel, Chair of the Republican National Committee Minority Chairperson Kevin McCarthy of California.

“Also, it is unacceptable for the President to attack the United States Supreme Court because its Liberal and Conservative justices failed with his side or because ‘the Court has failed him,'” wrote Mitchell, whose letter was first reported from CNN.

Mitchell will retire from Congress when the current session ends early next year.

Trump has claimed he lost Michigan and several other battlefield states whose votes gave Biden his margin on the electoral college for illegally suppressing votes for him and artificially inflating Biden’s ballot.

The electoral college will meet on Monday, and California’s votes have pushed Biden over the 270-vote threshold required to win the White House by 5:30 p.m. ET.

Mitchell wrote, “If Republican leaders sit back together and tolerate unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and” stop “the rallies without advocating our electoral process, which the Department of Homeland Security has called” the safest in American history, “our nation will be do corrupt. “

“I have spoken out clearly and firmly against these messages,” he wrote.

“However, since the leadership of the Republican Party and our Republican Conference in the House of Representatives actively participate in at least some of these efforts, I fear long-term damage to our democracy.”

Mitchell, who represents Michigan’s 10th Ward, said last year he would not seek a third term in Congress and complained that the “rhetoric and vitriol” he saw in Washington overwhelmed the real work of policy making.

Mitchell said that with more than 155 million eligible voters, “both administrative errors and even fraudulent votes are likely to have occurred”.

But he also said Trump “didn’t lose Michigan to Wayne County,” a Democratic stronghold that the president claims has counted fraudulent ballots.

“Rather, it lost to dwindling support in areas like Kent and Oakland Counties, both of which were former Republican strongholds,” the congressman wrote.

Mitchell said in his letter that he voted for Trump “for about four more years under his leadership despite some reservations.”

But he also wrote: “The stability and strength of our democracy is a constant concern of mine.”

“I expressed great concern about the president’s reaction to Charlottesville, the rhetoric against immigrants they are sending back, and even the racist comments made by my own colleagues in the House.”

Even after Mitchell left the GOP, the president and his deputies continued to struggle to undermine public confidence in Biden’s victory, arguing that on January 6, Congress would have the final say in the selection of the next president.

This is the day that Congress is due to confirm the electoral college vote.

Trump, his campaign and his allies have lost or withdrawn any suit that questioned the validity of Biden’s ballot papers. On Friday, the US Supreme Court denied a motion from Texas to file a lawsuit against the voting processes in Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Before the Supreme Court responded to the request, Trump had described the Texas case as “the big one” that would undo Biden’s victory.