I was under the mistaken impression that when it comes to Covid-19 vaccines, the population could effectively be divided into three categories: Those who’ve taken advantage of the free, safe, and effective vaccines, those who’ve refused, and those who want the shots but can’t get them for health reasons.
What didn’t occur to me is that there might be a fourth category: People who’ve been vaccinated, but who then pursue misguided efforts to undo it.
NBC News reported noted a TikTok video — which has garnered hundreds of thousands of views — in which someone created a process through which people could bathe in a concoction in order to “detox the vaxx.”
Not surprisingly, the concoction doesn’t work. It doesn’t even make any sense. But what is surprising is the fact that such instructional efforts exist for people who want to de-vaccinated themselves after having gotten the shots. From the NBC News piece:
The video is one of several methods anti-vaccine influencers and communities on social media have in recent weeks suggested to their many followers who have capitulated and received the Covid shot. Anti-vaccine message boards are now littered with users caving to societal pressure or work mandates and receiving a coronavirus vaccination.
That last point was of particular interest, because it explains the motivations behind these strange instructions. There are apparently significant groups of Americans who, for whatever reason, didn’t want to be vaccinated, but they grudgingly did the right thing anyway in order to keep their jobs.
In related news, vaccine requirements continue to be effective.
But some of these same folks, who apparently don’t want the potentially lifesaving protections the vaccines make possible, believe the process can be undone.
Putting aside the fact that no one should want to de-vaccinate themselves, it’s also true that these efforts don’t work.
Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and adjunct professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, told NBC News, “Once you’re injected, the lifesaving vaccination process has already begun. You can’t unring a bell. It’s just not physically possible.”
She added, “The transaction process for the mRNA vaccine is fairly quick. Basically, by the time you get out to your car, sorry, the magic has already started.”
If the doctor had to add “sorry” to her comments that would be an unfortunate sign of the times. I am assured by a Canadian friend that north of the border it ironically meant “too bad.”
