Choices have consequences. And if a third of the country won’t get vaccinated, then the rest of us are left with our own set of choices. Do we want vaccine passports, workplace vaccine mandates, and masking requirements for fully grown adults—or kids on ventilators? (Warning: the last link is traumatic, albeit not nearly as traumatic for the boy, or his family who suffered through such torment.)…

So who should we have compassion for? The people who wind up in the ER after refusing to get vaccinated? Or the healthcare workers working around the clock to save their lives? For the hurt feelings of the anti-vaxxers who feel looked down upon? Or the children being hospitalized because a preventable pandemic is raging out of control again?

In a perfect world, we’d feel compassion for all of them. Every life is precious. But it’s been a long 18 months with a lot of tragedy and we’re only human. We’re at the point—passed it, really—where compassion is becoming a finite resource.

Eventually, we’re all going to get fatigued and the compassion will run out. I say this not in celebration, but lament. Because this, too, was a preventable tragedy.