POTUS in September when he announced the mandate:
“We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us," Biden said, his tone hardening toward Americans who still refuse to receive a vaccine despite ample evidence of their safety and full approval of one -- the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine -- from the US Food and Drug Administration. What more is there to wait for? What more do you need to see?" he said.
"We've made vaccinations free, safe and convenient. The vaccine has FDA approval. Over 200 million Americans have gotten at least one shot. We've been patient. But our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us. So please, do the right thing." By September, Delta had run roughshod through the South for 3-4 months, again Alpha was irrelevant. Do his advisors trot him out there and let him vomit factually wrong information intentionally (rhetorical) or did he go off-script? He implicitly implied the spread was from the unvaccinated only, specifically in an era when Delta was the dominant strain. So POTIS is one of the “they” who keep implying it has a cataclysmic effect on reducing transmission.
Regarding your parents, are they active 35 year olds or a child under 18? If not, then their specific encounter with Covid has no statistical bearing on my household and the outcomes we could expect from Covid (or the overwhelming majority of 35 yr olds and kids for that matter). Also, did they hunker down and hide for the time before their infection or did they take their chances by living? If it’s the latter, then they obviously accepted any and all risk that came their way and it’s not my duty to “protect” them had we met in public. I