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When Emily Brimmer's family dentist sent out an email that they were administering vaccines, she jumped at the opportunity. Brimmer is certainly entitled to get one: though only 36 years old, she has type 1 diabetes, lives with family and helps to take care of her 101-year-old aunt. But once inoculated, Brimmer wasn't prepared for one of the unexpected side effects: guilt.
<p>"When you say, 'I got a shot,' there's automatically this kind of perceived feeling of judgment that is like 'Why did you get a shot, and how did you get a shot?'" Brimmer told Salon. "There's just this need to justify the entire thing."</p><p>Technically, as a type-1 diabetic, Brimmer is in the "high risk" category. Her primary care doctor wrote her a note affirming this, which she used to get her vaccine. The caveat was that she had to travel from New York, where she lives, to Pennsylvania.</p><p>"So that kind of made me feel guilty," Brimmer said in reference to having to cross state borders. "But it's not like I cut any lines, or dressed up like grandmothers and tried to sneak in. . . everything I did was by the book, and on paper I shouldn't feel guilty."</p><p>But Brimmer does. And far from being an isolated anxiety, vaccine guilt is actually quite common. Psychotherapist <a href="https://mailtrack.io/trace/link/531340e247a022e3ede37112c5ffdf959b25cfda?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbermancenteratl.com%2Fteam%2Falyza-berman-lcsw-rrt-p%2F&userId=6233590&signature=24bdc03fbf19ea89" target="_blank">Alyza Berman</a>, founder and clinical director of <a href="https://mailtrack.io/trace/link/4a06a60d1498145eb44bd32038a65c48b9f30d1c?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbermancenteratl.com%2F&userId=6233590&signature=9de80c00c0213656" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Berman Center</a>, told Salon via email that such feelings emerge from a variety of factors: situational comparison, survivor's guilt, and fear of criticism or retribution. And certainly the piecemeal vaccine rollout, and arcane tiered system of eligibility, factor into that guilt when patients appear to sidestep the rules — even if they aren't actually doing so.</p><p>"Given the severity of this pandemic and continued rising death toll, people feel guilty when they qualify to be vaccinated before others who've already suffered great losses during the pandemic, or could stand to lose even more as COVID goes on," <a href="https://mailtrack.io/trace/link/531340e247a022e3ede37112c5ffdf959b25cfda?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbermancenteratl.com%2Fteam%2Falyza-berman-lcsw-rrt-p%2F&userId=6233590&signature=24bdc03fbf19ea89" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Berman</a> said. "As human beings, we have an intrinsic nature to want to quantify and compare ourselves to others, whether for good or bad reasons."</p><p>Berman said that this can create "an enormous mental toll on people and weigh heavily on someone's psyche when they're trying to evaluate if they're doing the right thing."</p><p>Hence, feelings of guilt.</p><p>Berman said the phenomenon is "more common than you'd think" and that it's "affecting many people in very similar ways." In other words, something is happening sociologically.</p><p>Rick Patterson told Salon via email that he and his wife were able to receive their vaccines "substantially early." She was volunteering at one of the vaccination sites, which <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/17/volunteers-help-out-at-covid-19-vaccine-centers-in-exchange-for-an-early-vaccine/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">often</a> is a way for volunteers to get a vaccine early.</p><p>"It was complete luck we were able to obtain our vaccinations when we did, and I feel that there are so many people who need this more than we do right now," Patterson said. He added that it was an "overwhelming thought," that there were "still so many who have not and might not be able to get it anywhere in the near future." Indeed, the inequity troubled him.</p><p>Patterson said he feels that his wife, as a <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/17/volunteers-help-out-at-covid-19-vaccine-centers-in-exchange-for-an-early-vaccine/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">vaccination site volunteer</a>, deserved the shot more than him.</p><p>"But as her husband, what really gave me the obligation to have one too?" he asked.</p><p>Many bioethicists and mental health professionals agree that feeling guilty isn't beneficial to anyone. If you're offered a vaccine, you shouldn't feel guilty. But if you are committing fraud to get a shot early — say, dressing up like an elderly person — then that is something to feel guilty about.</p><p>"There is a difference between accepting and even taking advantage of unfairness that exists, and creating unfairness," Dr. <a href="https://www.cuanschutz.edu/centers/bioethicshumanities/facultystaff/matthew-wynia" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Matthew Wynia</a>, director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado, told Denver-based Magazine <a href="https://www.5280.com/2021/02/vaccine-guilt-is-real-heres-how-to-deal-according-to-local-ethicists/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">5280</a>. "We all have an obligation to try not to create unfairness."</p><p>So what are the guilty to do?</p><p>"The main advice I can give someone suffering from vaccine guilt is to give yourself a break," Berman said. "We've been put through an impossible situation over the past year, the likes of which no one has ever seen before." That's inarguably true. <br/></p>
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New reporting may shed some light on the thinking of federal agents investigating the fatal January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
"A member of the far-right nationalist Proud Boys was in communication with a person associated with the White House in the days just before the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. Location, cellular and call record data revealed a call tying a Proud Boys member to the Trump White House, the official said. The F.B.I. has not determined what they discussed, and the official would not reveal the names of either party," The New York Times reported Friday evening.
<p>Attorney Luppe B. Luppen, the author of the popular @nycsouthpaw account on Twitter, was reminded by the story of a tweet sent by CNN's Jim Acosta on the day of the insurrection.</p><p>"A source close to the White House who is in touch with some of the rioters at the Capitol said it's the goal of those involved to stay inside the Capitol through the night," Acosta tweeted.</p>
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<div style="margin:1em 0">NYT says the FBI has now found phone contacts between the Trump WH and the Proud Boys, similar to this never-furthe… https://t.co/hZbeSCseKm</div> — southpaw (@southpaw)
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Sen. Joe Manchin (R-WV) surprised many with a major power play in the U.S. Senate on Friday.
"Manchin's outsized influence has cast its shadow over the Senate since the day the Democrats captured their scant 50-50 majority. He's already derailed a Cabinet nominee and led the opposition to a federal $15 minimum wage even as his party's leaders pushed for it. But Friday was Manchin's most quintessential moment: The centrist Democrat paralyzed the entire Senate for more than 10 hours and threatened to side with Republicans seeking to cut weeks of unemployment benefits," Politico reported Friday.
<p>"In the end, it took a direct call from President Biden, a meeting with Schumer and significant concessions to get Manchin on board. He trimmed several weeks of unemployment benefits off of Sen. Tom Carper's (D-Del.) compromise amendment from earlier in the day and added a $150,000 cap to the proposal's tax deduction for up to $10,000 in unemployment benefits," Politico explained. "The episode perplexed Democrats, who said Manchin threatened what they understood to be a universally acceptable compromise extending unemployment payments through September and making those benefits nontaxable. That earlier deal also trimmed the weekly benefit from $400 to $300, as Manchin had sought."</p><p>Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) was surprised by Manchin's move as West Virginia's GOP governor had urged Congress to go bigger on relief.</p><p>"I have no idea what he's doing, to be quite frank," she said. "Maybe you can tell me."</p>
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