It may be a little soon to start thinking about the holidays, but according to one writer at Slate, it’s not too soon to start cutting unvaccinated family out of your life. That’s right, no turkey for your unvaccinated uncle and no Christmas presents for your vaccine-hesitant mother.
OK, so maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. But this writer does suggest, seriously, that it’s a matter of health and safety not to invite your unvaccinated family to Thanksgiving dinner.
“Your unvaccinated relatives should not be invited to Thanksgiving,” writes Abdullah Shihipar. “It’s time to start making those phone calls and texts telling your guests to get their official vaccine cards or verification apps ready because they’ll have to show proof at the door.”
Yes, a very normal thing to do at holiday gatherings: Hire a bouncer to stand at the threshold and kick your grandmother out if she doesn’t have the right documents.
The author assures readers not to worry about how your family members’ feelings might be hurt after you cut up their place cards at the table. After all, this “is a matter of infection control.”
It doesn’t seem like the author has much faith in the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines, though, as he suggests that you may try to persuade your family to vaccinate before the holidays “while masked or distanced and outdoors.”
The article recalls the hand-wringing advice last year that urged people who had already been cooped up in their homes for almost a year not to travel to visit family for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
If liberal journalists are personally worried about the delta variant or breakthrough infections, they don’t have to spend time with their unvaccinated family members, whom they may not care to see anyway. (It’s unclear whether the author has any unvaccinated members of his family or whether he informed them they’d be uninvited to festivities this year before writing this article.)
In the end, this issue isn’t really about unvaccinated people. It’s about the fear that if the risk from COVID-19 isn’t zero, then normal life isn’t safe. The article notes that one epidemiologist “suggested holding events outdoors, getting a rapid test at a drugstore before the event, masking, and opening windows” — even if the gathering is for vaccinated guests only.
Spreading this type of paranoia isn’t helping anyone, especially not those who question the benefits of the vaccine. Most people are likely not inclined to take Shihipar’s advice anyway, which means no one will be hiring any bouncers.
