Amish reaction to vaccine has been echoing that of the community's rural neighbors
ELIZABETHTOWN — In Plain community newspapers, the obituaries for Amish and Old Order Mennonites rose during the pandemic, just as they did in other communities.
That’s how Steven Nolt identified COVID-19′s impact on the Plain communities across Pennsylvania because, beyond that, there are no reliable methods for measuring how many people in those communities contracted the virus or received the vaccination.
“We don’t have data because Amish folks were, generally speaking, not interested in being tested, for a number of reasons,” said Nolt, interim director of Elizabethtown College’s Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies.
“In some cases, they would say things like: ‘I knew I was sick. I didn’t have to go and tell someone I was sick.’ Or another concern of: ‘Well, if it turns out I’m sick, I’m going to be told to do this and this that I don’t want to do.’”
Read more: https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-pa-exchange-virus-outbreak-amish-20210605-i42ebx6e6bd7bbs3rcdabf2lka-story.html
(Allentown Morning Call)
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For several years he was working with Amish people, even though my friend isn't Amish himself. But he's gotten to know them pretty well, in a superficial way.
My friend says every Amish person he knows is a right-wing ChumpHumper, if they have any political opinions at all. My friend says they refuse to wear masks and they think the pandemic is a "hoax" even though their own family members are dying of it. If someone gets sick and dies, "It's God's will."
Last year my friend had to quit his job once he realized that it was actually dangerous for him to be among them. He was a driver taking Amish guys to and from their construction worksites, because Amish for the most part refuse to get drivers' licenses. A small number of the younger guys do drive, but most don't. So it's common for company employees to travel in groups and hire a non-Amish driver.
During the lockdown in Pennsylvania last year, a lot of people lost their jobs or temporarily laid-off, but the Amish companies - especially the construction companies - kept right on working. A lot of us weren't aware that the Amish companies were given a huge pass that others didn't get.
