Two Cardinals cross the line, if not the border

Arenado and Goldschmidt are, at best, misinformed as they refuse to get vaxxed.

There are three wild-card spots in each league this season, and the St. Louis Cardinals have a trembling hand on the third one. Losers of 11 of 19 games in July, they lead Philadelphia by one game at the moment, and on Tuesday and Wednesday they play at Toronto.

They will cross the border without the midseason National League MVP and without the best all-around third baseman in the game. Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado will stay home because they aren’t vaccinated for COVID-19. To get into Canada, you need to be.

Arenado has said that he’s concerned about the way the vaccine might affect his plans for starting a family with his wife Laura. He also said that if he were forced to take the vaccine to play in a possible World Series game in Toronto, he probably would. Goldschmidt has offered no such caveats. He has said that he has read the opinions of several experts — “done his own research,” as they say — and has ruled out the vaccine the same way Kansas City’s Whit Merrifield did last week.

The Centers for Disease Control says unequivocally that the vaccines are “safe, effective and beneficial for the mother and the baby.” They are not associated with risks of miscarriages or birth defects. The CDC would also remind Goldschmidt’s experts that 599 million doses have been administered in the U.S. between Dec. 14, 2020 and this July 13. The percentage of recipients who died as a result of the vaccine was 0.0026. Neither does the vaccine install microchips — that’s actually in the CDC report, much to some researcher’s amusement — or alter one’s DNA.

No one should doubt the good faith of Arenado or Goldschmidt, who, unlike Kyrie Irving, knows that you don’t fall off the earth if you sail 20 miles west of L.A. Novak Djokovic, who is trying to amass the most Grand Slam titles of any tennis player in history, refuses to be vaccinated. At the moment, that rules him out of the U.S. Open next month in New York.

But, at best, Arenado and Goldschmidt are committing a selfish and ignorant error that undermines the credibility of the vaccines in some eyes. It also puts their team’s chances at risk. Granted, the Cardinals could win both games in Toronto and this whole flap will evaporate. But it’s an unnecessary, unscientific gamble.

Those who aren’t vaccinated are five times more likely to get COVID-19, or one of its variants, than those who aren’t, and are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized. With two-thirds of Americans vaccinated, and with more antiviral medicines available, a case of COVID-19 is often just a tiring inconvenience. That’s all the more reason to get the shots. Who needs flu symptoms at any time, particularly when you’re flying on major league airplanes and preparing in major league clubhouses?

The Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that the vaccines have prevented 58 percent of expected COVID-19 deaths as of Sept. 30 of last year, and 235,000 deaths among vaccinated persons 18 years or older.

Yet vaccine resistance is all around us, from the news channels to the halls of Congress to the Green Bay Packers’ quarterback room.

The kids that the Arenados hope to bring into the world will need several vaccines in order to go to school. One of those is the IPV, or Inactivated Poliovirus Vaccine. For those of a certain age, polio was as terrifying as the voice of Vincent Price, thanks to the images of children trapped in iron lungs, the 50s version of the ventilator.

Actually there was an average of 35,000 polio-induced paralysis cases in the late 1940s. In 1952 more than 3,000 U.S. children died. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was incapacitated by polio. In Alberta, Roberta Joan Anderson was incapacitated by polio at age nine, and began singing to pass the time. You might know her as Joni Mitchell.

Dr. Jonas Salk, working at the University of Pittsburgh, brought the first vaccine into the world in 1955. Dr. Albert Sabin followed with a rival vaccine. It wasn’t an easy transition. Cutter Laboratories sent out a faulty version of the vaccine that infected 220,000 Americans and killed ten. Walter Winchell, the gossip columnist with an enormous following, called the vaccines “killer drugs” and, indeed, who could argue? In 1956, the vax rate for American teenagers was 0.6 percent.

Clearly it was time for a superhero. In October of 1956, Elvis Presley agreed to get a polio shot (pictured) and have it telecast and photographed, backstage at the Ed Sullivan Show. In six months the vaccination rate was 80 percent. By 1957, polio cases had declined by 92 percent. By 1963 there were no new cases in New York. By 1979 the disease had disappeared entirely from the U.S., and by 2022 there were only 181 recorded in the entire world.

So it was a little upsetting to hear that a polio case had materialized in Rockland County, N.Y. last week, and residents were in line to get shots. One of them told the New York Times that it ‘hurt like hell,” which means some things never change.

Today’s COVID-19 shot is almost imperceptible, and the procedure lasts less than a minute. But Elvis has left our building, unfortunately. Dr. Salk was a national hero; Dr. Anthony Fauci, a medical advisor to the past seven Presidents, gets death threats. The fact that one-third of Americans are unvaccinated, or approximately 110 million, is perhaps the best illustration of a shattered society. If we can’t unite against a pandemic, where is our gathering place?

Arenado and Goldschmidt aren’t supposed to be responsible for this civic disconnect. It would help if they wouldn’t enable it.