After many months apart, my family all convened to celebrate Thanksgiving and the beginning of the holiday season. It was a joyful occasion, made all the more special by our long separation.
We brought a few toys and books for the kids, including some small bottles of bubbles with wands, which turned out to be a big hit. Our toddler grandson was completely captivated with chasing his bubblesย and our 4-year-old granddaughter announced that bubbles were like rainbows and unicorns floating by. To her, they were a โrealโ present, as opposed to books, which apparently were not.
The image of bubbles has come back to me repeatedly since our return. Contrary to the magic and evanescence of the bubbles wafting across the playroom a couple of weeks ago, the bubbles Iโve been seeing recently seem to be shatterproofย and impervious to either a careful presentation of evidence or gentle persuasion, much less to a sterner mandate based in science.
These bubbles completely encase individuals and groups alike. Inside what is more like warrior spacesuits than beautiful bubbles, a disheartening number of people appear to live in an echo chamber of misinformation and paranoia. Their would-be leaders have doled out misleading or outright false information which is, in turn, amplified by their chosen media platforms. Maybe it shouldnโt be surprising they now bristle with fear and anger within those spaces. Itโs clear, though, that their warrior spacesuits make it so they can no longer hear the truth.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the controversies surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. Clear evidence shows that this time a year ago, masks and social distancing helped blunt rising infections. This was to a degree that we in New Hampshire are only now starting to appreciate, as cases soar once again after those measures have been relaxed.
Clear evidence also shows that we now have effective vaccines, decades in the making. They have been used for a full year now and have a proven track record of preventing severe illness and death. Not only do they work, but their side effect profile is far better than the disease they are designed to combat.
Yet some people still fiercely resist these basic measures. They claim their internet and word-of-mouth sources tell them that these effective public health measures are at best ineffectiveย and at worst downright dangerous. Preposterously, they believe that vaccines are part of a government plot to take over their minds and bodies. They engage in magical thinking and declare that their right to refuse a vaccine is a basic civil liberty. What they donโt acknowledge or canโt see outside their bubble is that their personal liberty ends where their actions harm others.
The anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers among us inhabit the same space the rest of us do. Their refusal to try to peer beyond the angry little world in which they float has implications for us all. When they fall ill, get hospitalizedย or die, which they do at alarming rates, we all suffer.
Everyone wants to be done with the pandemic. Our hospitals are inundated. Our healthcare providers are exhausted. Weโre all weary, largely because of the unvaccinated. In the face of this, the virus is growing ever more contagious, as it continues to mutate in the reservoirs created largely by those who refuse to believe the truth about its dangers and about ways to prevent it.
Part of me wants to run around like my toddler grandson, trying to pop all the bubbles before they self-destruct when they hit a wall or fall to the floor. If that were a viable strategy, I would do it.
Another part of me wants to wave a wand like my four-year-old granddaughter and see rainbows and unicorns in the air. But my real hope is that clear, scientific evidence, thoughtful logic and goodwill towards self and others will win out before the virus does.
(Millie LaFontaine lives in Concord.)