There's always something else
By Will Collette
Well, plenty. Our embarrassment of a state representative Blake "Flip" Filippi, re-tweeted a post about the travails of fellow Trumplican Mike Chippendale (R-Coventry, Foster, Gloucester, No School) in getting the COVID treatment of his choice.
Chippendale has flown his wingnut flag high, rejecting masking whether mandated or not as well as being vaccinated. Predictably, he caught a very bad case of COVID in December.
Chippendale told right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting Channel 10 News: "I had a 104 fever, and my oxygen was in the high 70s, low 80s." Oxygen levels should be in the mid to high 90s.
Chippendale wanted to be treated with monoclonal antibodies, one of the few not-crazy treatment choices of many anti-vaxxers. But his treatment was delayed because of short supplies of the desired drugs. He was lucky to find a supplier who had some and pulled through.
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| The maskless guy with the beard who is looking lovingly at Filippi is Mike Chippendale (Boston Globe) |
If he had gotten the safe, effective and free vaccine, he would probably have been spared this ordeal. But, you know, freedom.
Trumplican Sue Stenhouse, whose tweet Filippi re-tweeted, complained that the federal and state leaders need to get more COVID treatment drugs out there. Well, maybe.
Yes, I am all in favor of proven COVID treatment for those who are sick through no fault of their own. But anti-vaxxers? They can wait in the back of the line and wash some invermectin down with bleach while they wait.
Not surprisingly, Chippendale had nothing to say to Channel 10 about his choice to refuse to get vaccinated. No remorse, no regrets. He may have gotten the treatment he needed for his COVID before it killed him, but unfortunately, there is no cure for stupid.
Filippi too has taken a hardline against mandates and to railing against the Governor retaining any emergency powers even though we could see another surge once everyone stops masking and many remain unvaccinated.
Flip has been adamant about refusing to reveal his vaccination status which, to me, is the equivalent of admitting he isn't.
Even though the mandates are gone, COVID isn't. In many of my COVID stories, I have noted that Rhode Island's COVID transmission rate was down to 14 per 100,000 on the Fourth of July when many of us thought the pandemic was over.
Now, after a huge spike, Rhode Island's are back down and, as of March 2, our transmission rate is 125 per 100,000. That's good news compared to the scale of infection during the Omicron surge (3,000+), but is almost one hundred times higher than it was last Fourth of July.
Personally, I am not changing my anti-COVID routine even though gutless Gov. Dan McGee has once again sounded an "all clear." I plan to continue to mask up and stay away from crowds and venues where COVID is still spreading.