In East Tennessee, many rural dwellers aren't signing up for COVID-19 vaccination appointments. But it’s not because they’re afraid. It’s because they’re too far away from the places giving the shots. All over the state, one that was already a childcare desert before the pandemic shuttered many daycare centers, mothers who were laid off can’t return to work because they have no place to care for their children. Those are only a few of the real problems faced by Tennesseans. Problems that plagued them before a real plague, COVID-19, deepened them. Yet when the Republican-dominated Tennessee Assembly adjourned recently, lawmakers had poured too little energy into laws to combat those conundrums, and too much into laws to stoke fears and prejudices.