On Friday, writing for Al.com, Alabama columnist Frances Coleman proclaimed she was "mad as hell" at anti-vaxxers — and tried to financially quantify the damage they've done to America that they should be made to pay back to society.
"The Kaiser Family Foundation recently studied three months of data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and concluded that 'preventable Covid-19 hospitalizations' have cost the health care system an estimated $5.7 billion. The foundation defines preventable hospitalization as 'hospitalizations of unvaccinated adults,'" wrote Coleman. "The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the nation's current population at 331,449,281, give or take a few folks."
Doing the math, she wrote, anti-vaxxers have cost the average American $17.19.
"I want my money — all $17.19 of it, give or take some change," wrote Coleman. "And I want it now, extracted from the hide of each and every American who has refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19. I don't care where they get the money; they can have a coast-to-coast bake sale for all I care."
Alabama has been especially impacted by the latest wave of COVID-19 infections. According to WSFA, hospitalizations have actually begun to fall in Alabama in large part because so few of the hospitalized patients in recent weeks survived.