This phrase people keep using here, there and everywhere by people who refuse to get vaccinated is just getting old but also encapsulates something else that probably goes against many with this philosophy.

I am a vaccinated disabled veteran who just had a VA-authorized major surgery at Providence. I had 1/4 of my skull cut open to fix three aneurysms in my head. I received top-notch care by my doctor and all the nurses there. But there was also a problem that was not caused by anyone at Providence. It was caused by the “personal freedom” people who kept piling in and took up every ICU bed, of which I was to go to ICU for at least one day immediately after my surgery. The ICU was full of non-vaccinated people with COVID. So were six other people in same boat as myself. All of us had to stay in the recovery area and the hospital had to move nurses (not ICU nurses) down there to take care of us.

This all could have been prevented. And here is what is going to happen come fall, when COVID continues to rage on the unvaccinated and flu season starts. Everything is going to go backwards. Elective surgeries will shut down, everything will shut down again and masks will be mandated once again.

So don’t start complaining because you still have your “personal freedom” to catch the virus and get really sick or die and/or infect others.

Jason Ernsting

Nine Mile Falls