Off to Missouri!

Onward to Springfield, the country's Delta variant hotspot, naturally.

By the time you read this, I should be in the air on my way to Springfield, Mo., which is about 70 miles from my hometown. I’ll cover that last portion by covered wagon.

I’m kidding. I’ll drive a crappy rental car, which these days cost more than an airline ticket. I’ve held off traveling but I need to see my family, and I figured I’d waited long enough. I bought my ticket and settled in to a happy state of giggly anticipation.

And then three days ago, I started to see my home state in the headlines.

In the part of the state where I grew up — southwest Missouri, Hillbilly Land — intensive care beds are full, deaths are rising, and the counties in my corner of the state lead the country in daily new cases per capita. Of the people who died of COVID recently in one Springfield hospital, 99% were unvaccinated — but then, that’s true everywhere. The positivity rate in the last week has risen to nearly 8%. Right now, Missouri — particularly southwest Missouri — is the hotspot for B.1.617.2 , the coronavirus Delta variant, according to CNN and other news outlets.

This is what happens when you refuse to listen to science. A virus doesn’t just go away. It must be starved to death, by people who refuse to serve as its host.

That is not happening in Missouri. Vaccinations have slowed nationwide, but they are barely creeping along in the Show-Me State, whose natives tend to lean toward the skeptical and conservative side.

It would be hard to argue that COVID-19 is a hoax — as some argued early on — and it would be hard to pretend the coronavirus is just a bad cold, as some still argue. Vaccinated Missourians (people who can read) say they feel like canaries in the coal mine because of their unvaccinated fellows. Vaccines work against the variants, but circulating variants also means pandemic protocols need to remain in place.

Missouri officials are trying literally everything to make vaccinations as accessible as possible. But that needle isn’t moving.

I am nearly packed, as I write this. I blast off at Buttcrack:30, and have laid out my “Trust Science, Not Morons” mask for my Hartford to Chicago, Chicago to Springfield flights. I will, per the recommendation of the World Health Organization, be wearing the thing the entire damn time I’m there. I will not be in crowds. I will flash my vaccination card if asked (I’ve been fully vaccinated since early April.) I will maintain the protocols that got me through the darkest days of the pandemic in Connecticut.

I love my home state. I am proud to be a Missouri hillbilly. But JFC, brothers and sisters.