Sometimes in threads like this, I can't figure out who's talking to whom. So, I'll just leave that part alone.

I'm living with two anti-vaxxers. My 31-year-old stepson is more vehement. He thinks this whole COVID thing is a government plot, so he takes no precautions and certainly won't get a vaccination. He's taken several cross-country flights in the last year, so he has had the opportunity to import germs from all over. I really was worried about catching something from him, so I've made an effort to stay away from him. He's kind of a recluse and stays in his room much of the time, so it's not that hard to stay away. He went after me with that anti-vaxxer propaganda when he was about 12. He had one of those author-published books that is full of factoids about the horrors of vaccines, and he had almost memorized that damn book - at the age of 12. I firmly stated that I listened only to medical doctors on medical issues, and I had no desire to argue with him.

Now he's 31 and has two-year degrees in computer science and statistics, and a bachelor's in Physics....and he still thinks he knows everything about medical science. Back in about March, he went on a long tirade about how Dr. Fauci and the epidemiologists were all wrong and he had developed a spreadsheet to prove it. I had no interest in his spreadsheet, and told him I wouldn't talk with him about epidemiology unless he's an epidemiologist with a medical degree. He got kinda scary, and yelled and slammed his door so hard I thought it would fall down. Since then, I have mostly avoided him except for making occasional remarks in his hearing about our "asshole President Trump." He has settled down a bit since the inauguration, but not much.

My wife is a chiropractor, now retired. She's very good at healing orthopedic issues, but I can't agree with her on medical stuff. She spent $2500 on a homemade machine connected to crystals in test tubes that the patient was supposed to hold in his/her hands. Then she hooked up with a guy who took blood samples from people who came to gatherings at our house that were like Tupperware parties, and then he'd give flaky analyses of their entire medical condition after a quick look at their blood through a microscope. He had no credentials of his own, so he was taking advantage of my wife's chiropractic license to add an illusion of credibility. I called him the "blood jerk." During one session, I blew up and told him before the group how full of shit he was. Then I demanded that my wife have nothing to do with him. She was making less than $900 a month, less than I was paying in taxes, and she had no liability insurance. I told her that she and the blood jerk had no assets, and I didn't want to expose my assets to that sort of quackery. So, she agreed not to host the guy anymore, but it was a difficult moment. I felt bad being a husband bossing his wife around like that, but I just couldn't expose myself to that sort of liability unless she could find a legal way to insulate me from that.

She has been relatively cautious about COVID, and I'm grateful for that. She takes more chances than I would, but she generally adheres to the guidelines for masks and distancing. I thought she was going to get the vaccine when it became available, but she told me last month, that she thought she'd pass it up and leave it to more deserving people.

This week, I had a conference about COVID with a group of Latinas and the county health officer, who is an acquaintance of mine. He's well-qualified as a public health physician, and he knows his stuff. He answered all the questions the ladies had, and it was a very good session. So, I was talking about this with my wife today, and she started asking all sorts of technical questions from her pseudo-scientific point of reckoning. I finally said I didn't want to talk about the matter and I didn't want to spend time researching it. I said I believe a lot of information because of the credibility of the sources, and I think Dr. Fauci and most of the professional epidemiologists have established themselves as more credible than self-anointed "experts" who can't even find a conventional publisher for their books.

So, it stands there. At least I have my COCID shots. It's difficult to live peacefully with people who are convinced of theories that are outside the conventional realm of truth. My wife and I simply don't talk about certain things.

-Joe-