"Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda"-cautionary tales from Survivors

Thank you!

Thanks for trying. Didn't work. There's a new technology out there that SHUTS DOWN non-subscriber access very smartly unfortunately.

It was created by and is marketed by Lee Enterprises Media Services.

@so deep Well shit. They encourage us to fucking share articles and then put a cap on how to share them? that's ridiculous.

Quoting an entire article is a violation of copyright laws, and I imagine Mr. Vaxman doesn't want to take on the NYT. However, fair use permits citing small sections for illustration of a point, commentary, critique, or satire, so here is a small section of that article describing his ordeal.

Sergeant Talarico’s ordeal began Christmas Eve, as Omicron infections were soaring across the country, inundating hospitals and stretching staffing levels nearly past breaking points.

Before it was over, the patrol officer who was less than a year away from retirement after 24 years on the job was hospitalized twice. After being rushed to the hospital the second time, he had a foot-long blood clot removed from his lung, a procedure that prevented certain death but caused his heart to nearly stop beating. He was placed on advanced life-support while still on the operating table. For two days a machine did the work of his heart and lungs. It wasn’t long before his kidneys began to fail, requiring dialysis. One of the many hard moments was the day his daughter, a 19-year-old college freshman, visited him for what they both feared could be a final goodbye. Conscious but hooked to a ventilator, Sergeant Talarico was unable to speak. “He would try and mouth words around the breathing tube,” said Jackie Whitby, a cardiac care nurse who was also in the room. “He had tears in his eyes. She had tears in her eyes.” (more at the NYT)

The only vaccine PSA's I've seen on TV simply state that the vaccines are safe. That's not likely to sway many anti-vaxxers. I think PSA's should show graphic images of people suffering from severe covid infections to show what happens to people who don't get vaccinated. The main thing that motivated me to get vaccinated as soon as possible was that I did not want my lungs to be ravaged by a covid infection!

@perlinator That reminds me--way back in the 60's Mr. Ailstock's 9th grade biology class. He passed around two jars--one with a sample of healthy human lung tissue and the other with a slice of cancerous human lung!! Most of us gasped and almost vomited! That sight of a cancer-filled lung did it for me--I never touched a cigarette, cigar, or even a joint in my entire life after that. I still have that image of what a damaged lung looks like in my mind. When I learned that this virus turns lung tissue brittle, hardened tissue, like shattered glass, I was the first one in line (almost) on the first day the vaccine became available! I'll be getting my 3rd booster in about a month before I visit vulnerable relatives (elderly and toddlers).

@perlinator YEP! A picture is worth a thousand words. Like those poor men and women cancer victims who were smokers with holes in their throats and missing half of their faces and lungs warning viewers to not smoke.. If a PSA could show normal healthy people playing tennis, jogging, dancing, hiking in beautiful places and then switch to people hooked up to machines, gasping, crying, comatose, dying with their loved ones crying around their hospital beds or worse staring through a glass window--it just MIGHT change a few minds and a few just MIGHT get vaccinated at Walgreens, CVS, clinics etc. Just show the images--no lecturing. I suggest both 30 second or 60 second PSAs.