Thread by @malinablue

I'm incensed by anti-vaxxers & anti-maskers. We could be over this shit if they had a modicum of common sense & civic responsibility.

My daughter lost her senior year of high school, graduation ceremony, prom, first year of college. My son is now in online high school.

We were virtual hermits for a year. We still can't eat at indoor restaurants without concern. We don't go to movies or events. We're vaccinated, but I'm immunocompromised so we don't know how much protection I have even with a booster.

Their grandmother lives with us so she's another vulnerable person who may not be fully protected

They still barely see friends. My son's social anxiety was improving, but isolation for a year set him back. He's behind in online school because we weren't good on time management

Plus, it's not like having even asymptomatic or "mild" Covid is harmless. Young people esp. are having cognitive issues, heart issues, clotting issues, strokes - & who knows what else - even if they were never seriously ill. No one knows if that is permanent.

Even the moderate "long-haul" symptoms like brain fog, memory issues, shortness of breath, headaches, fatigue are enough to disable people & - again - no one knows if that is permanent. We could have an entire generation of people disabled with chronic illness.

One study found that Covid patients who continue to have neurological symptoms are suffering cognitive deficits & memory issues similar to stroke victims. And no one knows if that is permanent.

And around the corner is the next variant which vaccines may not prevent & which may be deadlier, scarier, more harmful.

We've lost 600,000+ Americans & when you add in the "excess" deaths likely also due to Covid, we've lost more than a million. And counting. Counting faster.

If you'd told me we could lose a million Americans & 1/3 of the country would sabotage efforts to stop a pandemic, I'd have thought you were crazy. But here we are. We have to pull our kids out of public schools & homeschool them just to keep them safe because GOP refuse masks.

Women are leaving jobs or reducing hours in order to be able to either afford private schools or online schools, or to homeschool. I know GOP are thrilled with that. It's killing two of their favorite birds with one stone - send women back to the kitchen & kill public education.

At this rate, we will never stop wearing masks. And if a deadlier variant comes along, we're screwed. Millions of us will be infected & re-infected, incurring physical harm we won't understand for years. This is no minor "flu" that goes away & you're fine.

Thanks, assholes.