This is what makes me think opposition to vaccination is a mental illness: if someone said, your gas tank is leaking, your house could blow up, you need to get that fixed, you’d say, OH! Thanks! And you’d run out to fix it, and save the neighborhood and unknown lives.

So the mentally healthy response to a pandemic, you’d think would be, THANKS for letting me know! And start wearing mask, read research from experts like the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Children’s Hospital, the CDC, the WHO, the state departments of health, and sure, compare it to other more wacko or politically biased websites, but the ill thing is when people block ears and eyes to any of the legitimate professionals who understand actual facts.

Paranoia is understandable. Who can we trust? Who looks authentic? And I’m here to say, I’m not an asshole. I would never harm a hair on any head. I try to be helpful. I give stuff away, like peaches and duck eggs, I babysit, I spend time hanging out with lonely people.

You might piss me off, but honestly, I don’t hate you. I’m not selling you anything. I don’t want you or anyone else to get sick or hospitalized, disabled or dead when there are vaccines that can protect all of us.

“Live and let live,” is my motto. Keep your guns, wear your kilt or waders, vote Republican or Democrat, be who you are. I’m not trying to tell you what to do, I’m trying to warn you that your propane tank is leaking!

We stopped Ebola and Plague and Rabies and polio and meningitis and other diseases with vaccines. We know how to stop this pandemic. We just need everyone to row together, and we’ll get it done.