Thread by @phtevenstrong

I remember last holiday season my brother-in-law, a warm-hearted Cornell-educated man, told me the unvaccinated shouldn't be allowed to use hospitals.

I'll never forget that.

Him, looking me in the eyes and telling me my family was undeserving of emergency healthcare services.

Two years ago, I was fired for requesting exemption for the vaccine.

I agreed to test twice weekly, wear a mask, & eat in my office.

Note: This boarding school allowed unvaccinated students to live, dine, & take trips to NYC together.

Text from my dept. head 👇

I learned governments, administrators, co-workers, & even family and friends could quickly be taught to see me as threat.

By many, my family was deemed unworthy of healthcare, employment, travel, & education.

Some countries even made it illegal to be unvaccinated.

Still today, patients -- even children -- are denied healthcare due to their vaccination status.

Many reading this tweet will see no problem with this.

In fact, there's still a large portion of the population who believe the unvaccinated shouldn't have healthcare rights at all.

So, on #HumanRightsDay, I remember that rights are for the compliant.

And at any moment they can be taken away.

Your bank accounts can be frozen.

You can be denied emergency care.

You can be fined into destitution.

You can lose your job.

You can be denied travel.

And I'm not anti-vax.

I don't advocate against vaccines.

They just didn't fit our risk / reward:

My family had Covid & fared fine.

There was emerging data on breakthrough cases.

Myocarditis data was indeterminate.

We had no pre-existing conditions.

And we masked sensibly.

But I digress.

Thank God for DeFi.

It helped my family survive my unemployment.

It provided me with a career.

It taught me how to protect my family's finances from undue seizure.

And it enabled me to provide food, water, medicine, and housing to people without means.