Head Tale

Have to admit Shea and I both had tears in our eyes watching the first two healthcare workers be vaccinated this evening in Regina (in the very hospital Shea works in and has worked in all year without a break) after what has been a long, strange, stressful year.

There are a lot of reasons I feel frustration with the small but vocal strain of idiotic anti-maskers:

* their lack of knowledge of everything from science to law to basic hygiene
* their innate selfishness
* the unnecessary risk they’re creating, especially for the elderly and at risk
* their smugness 
* the way they bleat all over social media

…but more than anything, it’s their outright hostility towards healthcare workers that I take *very* personally.  I remember a thread in a local group dedicated to Costco of all things where a small minority of anti-maskers were making their “free speech” arguments about their “rights” when a nurse posted simply about how tired she was.

The group’s admins had already said that it was a private group and they would ban anyone who posted anti-mask sentiments.  But some fucking idiot couldn’t help himself and posted the laughing emoji in reaction to this nurse’s comment.

Step back from that for a second – a healthcare worker who shares how tired she is after what is likely the craziest year of her working life and that sad sack of jelly’s first reaction is to laugh at her?

At that point, this isn’t about differences of opinion anymore (though it many ways, it never was – it’s about facts, not opinions), it’s about a sickness of a different sort that doesn’t seem to have a vaccine unfortunately.