You know Tom Scocca, even if you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Scocca is a progressive. An aggressive progressive. He thinks all the right (left) thinks, and he thinks them on social media with an edge. He hates Donald Trump, but he also hates his liberal cousins who\u00a0don\u2019t hate Donald Trump enough<\/a>.<\/p>\n Naturally, Scocca was a Covid hysteric from the get-go. He used the phrase\u00a0\u201csuperspreader event<\/a>\u201d unironically. He wanted schools closed\u00a0– in 2022<\/a>. He called anyone who disagreed with him a \u201cghoul.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n And naturally Scocca loved the mRNA Covid vaccines. He got his first jab\u00a0on March 29, 2021<\/a>, pretty much the first day he could. Then he announced his joy.<\/p>\n Scocca got his second shot on schedule,\u00a0too<\/a>. (Though, as he wrote in April 2021, he planned to\u00a0\u201ckeep my mask on outdoors\u201d<\/a>\u00a0even after two jabs. Profiles in courage!)<\/p>\n Through 2021 and 2022, Scocca also\u00a0mocked people who refused the jabs<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0supported vaccine mandates<\/a>\u00a0– even after the Supreme Court had struck them down.<\/p>\n How many mRNA jabs did Scocca get himself?<\/p>\n Likely at least four, as into the fall of 2022 he\u00a0publicly complained<\/a>\u00a0the United States had not done enough to encourage people to receive the so-called \u201cbivalent\u201d booster – the second mRNA booster.<\/p>\n Like other mRNA fanatics, Scocca built his life around avoiding Covid long after everyone else had stopped worrying. He succeeded well into 2023. No Covid for him.<\/p>\n Yet something strange happened to Scocca in 2023. As he explained in detail in a\u00a0New York<\/em>\u00a0magazine essay<\/a>\u00a0earlier this week, his health began to fail. He suffered from swelling, muscle weakness, and other oddities:<\/p>\n The folder of referrals and results I carried to appointments got thicker. My blood tested positive for signs of general inflammation\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n