 I've long maintained that vaccine hesitancy is one of the most serious issues in the United States because if we don't actually reach herd immunity in the United States, then who knows how long this pandemic is going to go on. And it's only a matter of time before a new mutation emerges that renders our existing vaccines useless. I would very much like to return to normal. So if you haven't gotten vaccinated, please get vaccinated. Now the silver lining about the Delta variant ravaging counties across the country is that it is leading to a little bit of an uptick in vaccinations, thankfully. Now we are a little bit late on our goal. Biden did say that he wanted at least 70% of Americans partially vaccinated by July 4th. That didn't happen, although at least four weeks later, we passed 70% of the country being partially vaccinated. But unfortunately, there are going to be areas of the country that are just more vaccine hesitant than other areas. And this is going to get worse in those areas. And it's really sad to see. I don't want people to have to learn the hard way as this family did. So I want to share this story with you because this should serve as a wake-up call if you haven't already recognized the seriousness of this virus that don't wait until it's too late. Take your health seriously, get vaccinated. So as Nina Golgowski of HuffPost reports, a Nevada woman is sharing her family's heart break after her fiancé expressed regret about not getting the COVID-19 vaccine shortly before dying from the disease. He was only 39. Our babies now don't have a dad, Jessica Dupriese, told Las Vegas Station KVVU. You can't say I'm young and it won't affect me because it will. Dupriese said she and her fiancé, Michael Freedy, wanted to wait until the vaccine had been available for a year to see how it might affect people. There was never any intention to not get it, she said. Shortly after the couple traveled to San Diego for vacation with their five kids, ages one to seventeen, Dupriese said Freedy fell ill from a bad sunburn and had to be admitted to an ER. There, he tested positive for COVID-19 and his health went downhill. He's panicking, saying how he doesn't want to die and he doesn't want to leave his babies without a dad, Dupriese told USA Today. Scanne showed that he contracted pneumonia in both of his lungs. He eventually had to be placed on a ventilator and, against his wishes, forcefully sedated Dupriese said in a GoFundMe post. She told KVVU that his last text message to her was, I should have gotten the damn vaccine. Since Freedy's diagnosis, Dupriese said she has gotten vaccinated, as has her oldest child. She is now encouraging anyone who is on the fence about getting the vaccine purely because of side-effect concerns to get it. Everybody can have a bad reaction to any vaccine throughout history, but I would take a bad reaction to a vaccine over having to bury my husband, she told CNN. I just, I don't understand why folks are more afraid of a vaccine that 100 and what, 60 million Americans by now have taken, myself included, and they're more afraid of that than this virus that has killed more than 600,000 Americans. That's not counting people around the globe. That's 600,000 people in our country. I just, I don't know how you can possibly think that the virus is less scary than the vaccine, but unfortunately there's a lot of people who don't want to take the vaccine, not necessarily because they're vaccine hesitant or anti-vaxxers, but also because the pandemic unfortunately has been politicized and every single issue in our society is politicized due to polarization in the United States and this is basically the Republican party. It's all on them. They're the ones who politicized the pandemic and now they're dealing with their base basically dying off and it's, it's shocking to see how inhumane they are, how callous so many Republicans are in the face of widespread death and devastation. I just, I don't get it. Now when it comes to stubborn people, I think it's worthwhile to try to convince them even if they're not going to be receptive to our messages. Some people you're just, you're not going to reach, you're not going to convince them, but some people I think that we should do whatever we can to try to get them to do what's in their own best interest and also in our interests collectively as a society as well as it relates to public health. But one sociologist from Dartmouth College believes that since the pandemic has been politicized, you might actually be able to use negative partisanship to basically quote trick people into getting the vaccine if they think that they're owning the libs. And I just want you to really think about this, that this is even being talked about, because this is the sad state of affairs in the United States of America in order to convince people to get a vaccine that is overwhelmingly effective and safe. We have to try to trick people into thinking that they're owning the libs so they get vaccinated so they don't die from this virus. It's just, this is the saddest state of affairs. We are in the darkest timeline for sure. And this is why I think it's important for Democrats to do everything in their power to enforce vaccine passports. If your kids are going to return to the school, vaccines should be meditory for people in that household. There should be temporary measures so that way if you want to go to a movie theater, then yeah, you should have to show your vaccinated status. I think that businesses are within their rights to do that. And you might say, well, Mike, that sounds really authoritarian. What about freedom? Well, what about my freedom? As Vosh said in his debate with Charlie Kirk, we talk about the freedom of people to not get the vaccine, but what about the freedom of all of us who don't want to live in this perpetual state of disease, who don't want to live with a permanent pandemic? What about our freedom? The unvaccinated, they specifically are the ones keeping the rest of us from reaching herd immunity. They are the individuals who are prolonging the duration of this pandemic. So what about the freedom of the rest of society? What about people who want to actually get back to normal and aren't just pretending as if everything is normal because we actually care about others? What about our freedom? You know, it's just this whole situation is really depressing and it's made me lose faith in not just humanity, but especially in the United States, like any shred of hope that I had that the United States could come together in any capacity. It's been demolished because of this pandemic when it's not only politicized, but there are opportunists who go out of their way to score political points by convincing people to do something or not do something that's in their best interest. It's just it's sickening. It's gross, but this is the reality that we live in. So we have to do everything in our power to fight and change what's in front of us because this is this is unsustainable. I don't want the vaccine that I took to be rendered useless by a new mutation that is bound to pop up at some point. So for the love of God, get vaccinated. If not for anyone else, for yourself. So you don't regret it as this dad did who now has five children who are going to grow up without a father because he chose to wait. Don't wait. Get vaccinated.