Public health authorities have finally found a way to convince a subset of men to overcome their COVID-19 vaccine skepticism: promising them a return to harassing women on the streets once everyone is healthy enough to end mask requirements.
“We’ve tried for months without luck to give this demographic a reason to embrace vaccination,” said Dr. Chris Stallworth, the director of health outreach at the CDC. “They wouldn’t do it to protect themselves or loved-ones, or out of patriotic duty. However, we realized we were ignoring the obvious solution: giving them the chance to be obnoxious jerks to random women again.”
The pandemic, with its heavy emphasis on face masks, has made it very difficult for men to react to the perceived attractiveness of women on the street or weigh in on whether those women should be smiling more. The opportunity to regain those experiences looks to be a major motivator for this subset of men to overcome their other concerns with the vaccination effort.
“I’m not one of these ‘sheeple’ who gives up their constitutional rights for no good reason, but I guess I’d be willing to get a Bill Gates tracking implant to get things back to normal,” said Brad Bowman. “I just want to go back to making obnoxious kissy noises at girls, or doing that cool thing with my tongue. And I can’t do that with this stupid mask requirement.”
Female doctors involved in this vaccine rollout strategy have mixed feelings about the new approach. “While I want this pandemic to end as soon as possible, I have enjoyed walking around in a mask with my natural resting facial expression without having to worry about lewd gestures from some random dude,” said Dr. Beth Owens, Vice President of Community Relations at CVS. “I’ll miss getting to take my personal autonomy for granted on a daily basis, but apparently these are the sacrifices women must make to ensure the continued existence of humans as a species.”
So far, the new strategy seems to be working. On Saturday morning, a line of 50 middle-aged men stretched out of a temporary vaccine clinic at a golf driving range in Tampa. “This city is full of pretty girls waiting to either be intimidated into performative friendliness or be called wet blanket lesbians if they’re not into me,” said Cal Gates after receiving his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. “And in five short weeks, I’ll be all over them again.”
