Dying in the Name of Vaccine Freedom :: WRAL.com – WRAL.com

In Arkansas, many are choosing personal liberty over vaccination at a heavy cost.

It's hard to watch the pandemic drag on as americans refuse the vaccine in the name of freedom you're talking about an unproven untested vaccine. That doesn't even seem to really protect people because people have gotten the vaccine are getting sick. I went to one of the places with the worst vaccination rate. I don't want to poison forced into me. I'm tired of Ultron controllers. One of the best things we have is our own God given natural antibodies. It also has one of the worst covid case rates in the country. The Ozarks. I don't take the flu shot. I don't take the pneumonia shot. I don't take any of them. I wanted to find out why residents here aren't getting vaccinated. You're trying to mask these kids up. It's detrimental to their health. And what if anything could convince them otherwise. Okay, Mr Green, it's dr martin here. How are you? I heard you had a kind of a rough night last night. Christopher Green is 53 years old and fighting for his life Like 90% of the patients in this pact hospital. He's unvaccinated. He's just walking a very thin tight rope right now. And to be honest, I don't expect him to get out of this without being on a ventilator and if he has to be on a ventilator. I don't expect him to survive. I immediately asked Christopher why hadn't he gotten the vaccine? Perry and I don't like being told What I have to do is still not completely 100% sold on the inoculation. It was eerie to hear Christopher insists on his individual freedoms even as he struggled to breathe. You think other people, I mean, I think that's everybody's individual rights. A choice to do what they want to. So I'm not wanting to dictate or make somebody feel guilty because they don't. Christopher represents a genuine challenge. Do the american values of individual choice have to take priority over public health by the time they're here, What can you do? You know? And it's when somebody's in a room really, really sick and can't breathe and suffering. I mean, it's just not a good time for a lecture. But the results in a place like mountain home is a 36% vaccination rate and people are dying. Let every live their own life. I heard this over and over freedom. Choice don't do it because somebody is pressuring you to do it. Everyone has the right to choose. Almost everyone I met in Mountain Home told me they knew someone who died from covid. Most people are undoubtedly concerned about the pandemic here. It didn't feel to me like a Q. And A. On convention misinformation certainly exists here. But a powerful force behind the hesitancy is this fundamental idea of personal freedom. But in a community where individual rights are taking precedence over everything else. You get endless individual reasons not to get vaccinated. Like believing the vaccine doesn't work. Have two parents in their seventies both had the the vaccine and both got covered. A preference for hearsay. He had heard that the people that were spreading the virus or people that had already had the vaccine and that that they were carriers straight up here. Just people having reactions. Even among those who overcame their hesitancy, there's a lack of urgency. I don't really have any reasons to be out in circulation with the rest of the public. I just enjoy my dogs and work out on the farm and raise my koi fish with all these reasons not to get vaccinated floating around. It makes it hard for those who actually do want it. I have a parent who does not necessarily support vaccinations. It was hard because she asked me where I was going and I was like I want to get vaccinated and she was not very happy with that. What struck me was that mary Beth had the courage to go against the grain. People should be more concerned about the well being of those around them because I feel like not enough people are thinking about other people when they make the decision not to get the vaccine. There's an irony and someone rebelling against a culture of individualism for the good of their community. But voices like mary Beth so are drowned out by leaders who are contradicting public health officials know the state is not gonna be requiring and mandating vaccinations and I don't believe anyone should be forced to take the vaccine. It should be your personal choice. These vaccines are always voluntary and never force. We don't have to accept the mandates lockdowns and harmful policies of the petty tyrants of bureaucrats. We can either have a free society or we can have a biomedical security state. Yeah. There's no better place to see the impact of this political rhetoric than in the hospital. Only about 50% of the staff are vaccinated. None of the unvaccinated staffers were willing to talk. There are just a lot of people that you cannot convince to get vaccinated patients, employees. It's very frustrating. It's sad. It's I don't know, it's disappointing. Just a few months ago, the staff was planning a cookout to celebrate the end of Covid. But instead of barbecuing there now battling another surge. It's exhausting. We're all exhausted. We don't have staff. We don't have beds. One obvious way out is to mandate the vaccine. But in april the governor signed a law banning government mask mandates and vaccine passports. That shifts the responsibility mostly to private entities, vaccine requirements. As part of employment, attending school or participating in sports are reluctantly motivating some to overcome their hesitancy. It seems to me that the only other thing that actually sways people here is being in the hospital. And I really, I'm upset it myself because I did not get vaccinated. I just I've never hurt like I hurt. It's made a believer out of me. This is what freedom looks like in America today. It's always been complicated. But political leaders should remember that this country was also founded on the idea that government should protect us after all, in a pandemic, one person's freedom can be another person's death. Probably should have had a little healthier fear that it will need to be taken more seriously. Oh, I mean, I don't know how close I am to be in a lot worse. I really don't know. Christopher. Green died nine days after this interview. He was 53 years old. Mhm. Mhm.

Continued here:

Dying in the Name of Vaccine Freedom :: WRAL.com - WRAL.com