How to react when dinner guests show up un-vaccinated?
Recently, I’d invited a few friends to brunch. One of the couples asked if another couple could join us. “Sure,” I said without giving it a second thought. It wasn’t until the other couple arrived (carrying a big sea bass they’d cooked) and asked if they should wear masks that I learned they weren’t vaccinated.
My first reaction was a tsunami of anger. I was boiling. I am sick and tired of wearing masks. I not only hate to wear them — although my state still has a mask mandate so I do wear them inside any business — but I also hate to see others wear them. Especially in my home.
For ten minutes, I had to sit outside the house, just to try and cool myself down. The couple who’d invited their friends to join us, said, “We didn’t know. We thought they’d gotten vaccinated,” And they added, “Maybe we should ask them to leave.”
Leave? Carry their platter of big sea bass home with them? That seemed counter to every concept of hospitality I’d ever learned. (Though I must say, my mother once greeted a guest wearing a T-shirt to one of her parties by saying, “You can do better.” And he turned around, went home and put on a coat and tie.)
The brunch guests had some feeble excuse for coming to our party without alerting us of their condition: “We thought the event might be out of doors.” Except the invitation was for a brunch, not a barbecue. They also had a feeble excuse for why they weren’t vaccinated. “Well, we’re waiting to see…”
That morning I neither wanted to start wearing a mask nor to require them to wear a mask — so we ended up with no one wearing a mask for the entire get-tother. This was probably counter to CDC guidelines and, God knows, I hope none of us gets sick as a result.
Still, it was extremely uncomfortable for the first 30 minutes or so.I suppressed my anger and ultimately it more or less subsided. However, later I realized that I wished that I’d exploded and told them what I really think. I wished I’d said to them:
From the outset, the Covid Virus has been a missed opportunity. It was a missed opportunity for the world to join forces to address a global disaster. Communities, cities, countries, the entire world should have confronted this issue as one people, the human race. Just as we should address climate change, refugees and other gigantic challenges that face us all.
The fact that the response to the COVID pandemic became politicized in the US is tragic. The fact that countries felt compelled to vie with one another for medical equipment, oxygen supplies and vaccines is horrifying. The fact that Israel ran one of the most efficient vaccine programs in the world and hasn’t rushed to assist its Palestinian neighbors — not because they have to because of some archaic legal guidelines — but because they want to and because it’s the most humane way to behave — is very, very sad. These are all missed opportunities to draw the world together in peace, harmony, fellowship, good will, whatever you want to call it. But the spirit we need most on the globe.
The global pandemic gave the world the opportunity to transcend national, ethnic, religious, racial, tribal borders in its response and we failed, almost universally. There are exceptions, however, there are many communities that reached out or are reaching out to help one another. I live in a state close to the Navajo Reservation which, in the early days of the pandemic, was very hard-hit. There were many local calls for providing assistance and many people in our community reached out to the Navajo community with aid.
I also read in the news of young people, better equipped to negotiate the internet, who secured vaccination appointments for elderly people — people they’d never met nor would ever meet — but to whom they provided significant help. Nowadays while India battling COVID, Indian doctors in the US are participating in a network and are doing everything they can to assist people across the globe in their homeland. These are all wonderful, isolated examples of what humans can do for other humans. So inspiring, so uplifting. And I’m sure there many other great examples.
But nationally and internationally and even within cities and small towns, it was a missed opportunity. Frankly I have zero patience for people, like our guests, who are not getting vaccinated. Maybe there are a minute number who have a good reason not to. But the others are just stubborn, scared, ideologically fixated, whatever. They’re refusing to join the huge and important push our country is making toward herd immunity. I’m not exactly sure what herd immunity is — but I know it’s good.
I was among the first tier of young children vaccinated for polio. Were there kids in my class who refused vaccination? If so, I didn’t notice because, with my last name, I was the final child in a long, long line and I wanted to hurry up and get it over with. As a result, polio has not been the scourge it was for past generations of families. We were not afraid to go to parks or swimming pools or movie theaters in the summer months. We were not afraid of one another. This was such a blessing to our childhood.
Regarding COVID, it could be irradicated like polio. But it probably won’t be due to the hold-outs. Please don’t be one of them. Do it for the world, do it for your town or city, do it for your community, for your neighborhood, for your neighbor, your family, yourself. Just do it!
