With more and more states expanding vaccine eligibility to encompass all living adults, the time has come to begin vaccinating the nation’s undead.
For too long, we have ignored the very real threat that COVID-19 can survive in and be spread through ectoplasm, a substance which spirit photography indicates is everywhere: spewed all over tombstones, creepy porcelain dolls, empty wheelchairs sitting in abandoned mental hospitals—ghosts will shoot their spectral spunk anywhere and everywhere. Ectoplasm’s potential to spread COVID-19 compounds the virus’s nature as an invisible and omnipresent threat, and it cannot be ignored.
Getting this vaccine to as many people as possible is the key to ending the pandemic, whether they’re living or in their post-life experience.
Of course, vaccinating the nation’s spiritual residents will have its challenges.
The greatest stumbling block ultimately comes down to the issue of incorporeality. How do you inject a vaccine into a non-physical entity? There are a couple of ways of doing it, but they both have their downsides—a conundrum that epidemonologists call the “Ghost-or-Ghost Dad problem.”
The first method is to have the ghost possess a willing medium and then vaccinate that person while they’re possessed, which will hopefully transfer some protection to the possessing entity, but this comes with a host of complications: first, you need to find an actual psychic—most of whom have very busy schedules as dog walkers—and it’s very difficult to arrange the appointment for the second shot due to the movement of astral bodies. Some planetary alignments that are conducive to occult practices occur at times well outside of the range of the suggested waiting period between shots.
The second way is to have the ghost manifest in the physical realm, which requires an enormous amount of effort on the part of the ghost, and many of them can’t even muster up the energy to do it.
Like in Ghost Dad.
Further complicating the situation is the likelihood that the “anti-vax” movement extends beyond the grave. Vaccine distribution sites will have to prepare their workers to encounter unquiet spirits. Noise-canceling headphones should help with manifestations of constantly shrieking skulls, and protective padding will have to be provided to those who pose a high risk of attracting poltergeist activity. Workers should also expect to see shadowy figures doing that thing where their heads shake really fast, and prepare accordingly.
The logistics of distribution could also be affected: vaccine manufacturers will need to compensate for the eventuality that significant amounts of the vaccine will be spoiled through transubstantiation into human blood.
Even with these challenges, the effort will be worth it. States must take charge and expand vaccine eligibility to the corporeally challenged. We won’t be able to go back to the old normal or paranormal, but to get to the other side of this, we will need the cooperation of everyone, both the quick and the dead.
Until more states open vaccine eligibility to the deceased, you may be wondering how to protect yourself from otherworldly illness.
- Take sensible precautions.
- Don’t visit family members at cemeteries.
- Don’t stay in haunted hotels.
- Don’t travel on ghost ships or phantom trains where you will be in close quarters with the souls of the damned for prolonged periods of time.
- Wash your hands regularly with holy water.
- Wear a mask at all times so that the ghost cannot identify you and follow you home, to enter therein and oppress you with its ageless and insatiate enmity.
Above all else, study after study has shown that the best way to protect yourself from ghost-borne disease is to take a handful of grave dirt, mix it with the blood of a black cockerel, and anoint yourself with the mixture while standing naked in the light of the full moon.
Listen to the science.