In the words of the late, great, Hall of Famer, Yogi Berra, “It’s déjà vu all over again” as once more COVID-19 cases are on the rise and baseball games and other aspects of life are being rescheduled or cancelled.

The July 28, 2021 game between the Washington Nationals and the Philadelphia Phillies was postponed less than two hours before first pitch “to allow for continued testing and contact tracing involving members of the Nationals organization,” according to a statement by Major League Baseball.

The latest outbreak marks the third time this season that the Nationals have had to place multiple players on the COVID list.

The Nats began the season with nine players and four coaches impacted by an outbreak on the team plane.

Then in May, starting pitcher Erick Fedde tested positive and reliever Tanner Rainey was forced to quarantine for being a close contact.

In response to rising cases of the Delta COVID-19 variant, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued revised guidance for a return to wearing masks indoors for both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals after an internal document showed that the variant is far more infectious than previously thought.

Additionally, on July 29, 2021 President Joe Biden mandated that all federal employees and contractors either be vaccinated or submit to regular testing as a condition of their employment.

Yes, Yogi, indeed it is déjà vu all over again as cases rise and some people still refuse to wear masks or get vaccinated.

To quote another Yogism, “you can observe a lot by watching.”

Watching the number of cases climbing, one can observe that instead of saying mission accomplished and getting on with our lives as they were in the before times, we are heading backwards in the battle to rid our shores of COVID-19.

In many ways the return of a world where mask mandates and potential shutdowns are being talked about boils down to the fact that more people did not get vaccinated back in May when vaccines were plentiful and the Delta variant was barely gaining strength.

In hindsight, lifting mask guidance in May and trusting that the unvaccinated would continue to wear masks was a lesson in foolishness since many in the anti-mask and anti-vaccine crowd will never wear a mask even if their lives and the lives of their children depended on it. Which it does, but more on that in a bit.

But instead of looking back at the mistakes of May, one must look at the present and decide how to move forward with the current conditions.

I get that people can have concerns about getting vaccinated and understand that some people require more data before they are willing to let someone stick a needle in their arm.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could likely put a lot of minds at ease by lifting the Emergency Use Authorization of the COVID-19 vaccines and stating that they are safe and effective for every day use and fully vetted and approved.

Educational outreach is critical to reaching the unvaccinated and showing them that the risks of dying from COVID-19 far outweigh any potential side effects from a vaccine.

But while people are parsing through the data to achieve a comfort level to get the vaccine, they should be wearing a mask at the very least to protect those around them from getting sick.

The politics of being anti-mask and anti-vaccine is another thing I don’t understand. While many politicians are touting the need to get educated on masks and vaccines, too many others are having their “let them eat cake moments.”

Instead of being at the forefront of encouraging their constituents to mask up and vax up, several politicians seem willing to let people die from a largely preventable disease just so they can score political points among a small minority of the country as part of a pandemic of stupidity.

I am all for adults having the freedom to educate themselves on the vaccines, but I am not for putting children at risk in the process. Currently all children under 12-years-old are not eligible to get vaccinated.

Those too young to get vaccinated must rely on those who are old enough to provide a bubble of protection around them to keep them healthy until a vaccine is approved for their age group.

That is the thing I do not understand, many people are so anti-mask and anti-vaccine that they are willing to risk their own children getting sick, or dying, just to make a point and to stay “on brand.”

Children’s hospitals are filling up with patients who are too young to get vaccinated and became infected through contact with someone who most likely was old enough to get vaccinated but didn’t.

In 1985, musician Sting told his band mates of the Police to not stand so close to him as he ventured off on a solo career.

His first solo album, Dream of the Blue Turtles featured a song called Russians.  While the song, Russians, was written in response to Cold War tensions between the then U.S.S.R and the United States, one can see parallels in the lyrics to the current standoff related to the vaccinated and unvaccinated in the battle against COVID-19.

Russians opens with the lines, “In Europe and America there’s a growing feeling of hysteria. Conditioned to respond to all the threats. In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets.”

Fast forward to 2021 and one could say that the rhetorical speeches of some governors who are anti-mask mandates in school are fueling the rising tensions.

Turn on the local news in many southern states and one is likely to see angry parents berating local school districts who are trying to keep their kids safe by telling them to mask up.

Unfortunately, those anti-mask, anti-vaccine parents have governors willing to back them in their anti-science rants.

In keeping with our Russians theme other lyrics state, “I don’t subscribe to this point of view. It’d be such an ignorant thing to do. If the Russians (or in our case unvaccinated) love their children too.”

Masks and vaccines have become so politicized that people are talking past each other instead of to each other.

Going back to the Russians well once more, “There is no monopoly on common sense. On either side of the political fence. We share the same biology, regardless of ideology.”

As noted many times over the past year and a half, COVID-19 does not care if you are a democrat or a republican. It does not care if you think it is “Fake News” or just a flu.

People are still getting sick, and even if they don’t die, many will have long term health effects.

Having to cancel, and/or postpone baseball games, or other sporting events due to COVID-19 is one thing.

Being willing to risk that a child may never get to play sports at all due to long haul COVID because their lungs got trashed when they were at a summer camp full of unvaccinated counselors is another thing.

But what might save us, me and you is if the unvaccinated love their children too.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I am off to dust off some Sting CDs and party like it is 1985.

Copyright 2021 R. Anderson