Dear Other Dad,
Help! I’m caring for my father, who’s disabled. He has previously had serious reactions to vaccinations, so his primary care physician won’t clear him for the COVID-19 vaccine. Now, the Biden administration and the entire Democratic party are denying my father his right to take part in society. You see, going to the museum during the week is the only joy and social activity he has been able to enjoy. How can I keep my father from drifting into depression when he is being excluded from life?
Determined Daughter
There’s so much to unpack here. If the previous vaccines were mRNA vaccines or contain ingredients found in the Covid-19 vaccines, your dad has the unfortunate distinction of being one of a very small percentage of the population for whom the risks posed by the vaccine are greater than the benefits. It should be noted that it is possible that there is no overlap between those vaccines and this one, so it might be worth talking to your dad’s doctor about it; for instance, the common flu vaccine reactions are to eggs, latex, or preservatives, ingredients not found in the Pfizer or Moderna shots. But assuming that the doctor has already considered this, we need to operate on the assumption that your dad cannot get the vaccine.
This is hard news for so many reasons, not least of which is that the now-prevailing Delta variant is so easily spread and more likely to cause hospitalization in unvaccinated patients. Your dad has managed to safely evade Covid-19 this far and I’m sure you want him to remain healthy as this more dangerous strain works its way through the population, but it is also painful for you to watch him feel isolated and constrained.
In this particular case, he is not able to go to a museum, which has been his social outlet. Despite what you may have heard, there is no federal or statewide vaccine mandate on indoor spaces, which means your dad may not actually be prohibited from museum-going. Your dad must live in San Francisco or New York, the only cities with this requirement (unlike New Orleans, which will accept a negative Covid test in lieu of vaccination). If that’s the case, you can start by checking out the outdoor museums, which will scratch his art itch but also allow him to be around other people. Remaining outdoors is currently the safest option for an unvaccinated person who leaves their house.
Of course, that doesn’t solve the problem of what to do when the weather doesn’t allow for this. And the number of outdoor museums within reach of your dad must be finite. However, there are many museums you can visit online (not to mention digital access to everything from zoos to amusement parks). Those outlets can address his love of art, but if socialization is key to your dad’s mental health, you need to seek opportunities that for connection that he can access right from home.
The good news is that there are online communities for seniors, where he can interact with his peers; check out Senior Net or Virtual Senior Center for chat/discussion rooms, social networking, or group classes. There are now also timed virtual experiences available online which would allow your dad to do things like explore a city, take a cooking class, or learn history in real time with a live guide and other participants. If your dad is not yet computer savvy, helping get him up to speed could be a good activity and learning a new skill could be intellectually stimulating for him.
Whatever you can do to help your dad feel connected to the world will be beneficial to mental state. What will not help is feeding the idea that he is being punished by a left-wing cabal. The political divisions over Covid-19 are real but it will only increase your dad’s stress to focus on the notion that his treatment is unfair. Because of the rise of the Delta variant, vaccine mandates for indoor spaces have started appearing all over the world, from Saudi Arabia to Turkmenistan, and it has nothing to do with Joe Biden or liberal politics. It has everything to do with the desire to fend off the global surge in infections.
Vaccine mandates do two things: they limit the number of unvaccinated people in enclosed spaces, where Covid transmission is more likely, and they encourage more unvaccinated people to get the vaccine. Both things help decrease the number of fatalities while also lessening the strain on hospitals, which are once again running low on ICU beds and delaying surgeries, even as many other services are impacted by the depleted staff.
It’s hard on your dad and, in other ways, hard on all of us. But the truth of the pandemic is that personal happiness can’t trump the social good; we have a responsibility to factor in how our actions may affect others. It’s not the vaccine mandate that is constraining your dad but COVID itself, and until we’re on the other side of it, there will be no way to replicate his old life.
Even if you feel hamstrung by the rules in place where your dad lives, it is a good thing you are watching out for his well-being. He will never be truly alone as long as he has you.
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Previously Published on Medium
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