The Catch

Orange County Deputy District Attorney Kelly Ernby, who opposed mandating vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 was infected by the virus, became seriously ill, and died.

And this is national news why, precisely? I mean, I live in King County, Washington. That's nearly 1,200 miles away. It's not like a funeral procession of unvaccinated California Republicans is going to walk past my home or anything.

This smells of the news micro-genre that might be described as "The COVID Gotcha." The basic story is a simple one: Random person X, who opposed some, another or all anti-COVID measures, dies of the disease. Cue the schadenfreude.

But... so what? There's an assumption (okay, likely several assumptions) built into these short takes, and like many assumptions, since it's never stated, it can be neither examined nor refuted. And that assumption is basically that Deputy District Attorney Ernby either died regretting her foolishness or was even more foolish not to.

And okay, so Deputy District Attorney Ernby was on the record saying that "There's nothing that matters more than our freedoms right now," to a small anti-mandate rally in Irvine, California. That doesn't tell us what would actually be somewhat important, and enlightening, in a story like this: Did Deputy District Attorney Ernby oppose a vaccine mandate because she didn't understand the risks, because she felt that people should be allowed to take the risks, some combination of those or for a different reason (or reasons) entirely?

People oppose being prevented from doing things that have risks all the time. I, for instance, like to drive. I'll take a road trip at the drop of a hat, making the drive from the Seattle suburbs down to Tacoma for no better reason than to go to a bookstore or see friends on a whim. And I am fully aware of the fact that the more time I spend on the road, the greater my cumulative chance of dying in a traffic accident. And it's not like I have to drive - it's possible (although somewhat slow) to make the trip down to Tacoma on various forms of public transportation and be more or less assured that I won't be killed in a highway accident. But if someone were to seek to mandate using public transit, you could be sure that I'd sign the petition against it. Even though I'm fully aware of the risk that I'm taking every time I get in the car. And I understand that it's an unnecessary risk. I can shop bookstores and have things ordered in for delivery, after all. And I've already mentioned the availability of public transportation; which would also likely result in me obtaining more exercise than I do. But it would require me to adjust my life and give up something that I enjoy. And something that, perhaps more importantly, I consider worth risks involved. And okay, perhaps that risk isn't as high as the risk of dying from SARS-CoV-2 if unvaccinated. If the cost-benefit analysis is a personal one, however, people are free to come to their own determinations.

It's legitimate to believe that the freedom to determine whether or not to take a specific vaccine isn't worth dying for. And so an article making that case would itself be legitimate. But that's not what "The COVID Gotcha" is about. It simply posits a (partisan, in the United States) worldview that there's some newsworthy lesson to be taken from the simple fact that someone who chose to opposed forcing people to use a specific protection from the risk of SARS-CoV-2 succumbed to that same risk. But the idea that it wasn't worth the risk, or that the dead person would now agree with that sentiment, should be supported, rather than being an unstated assumption.