I have no words that can convey my horror at what I see in the USA, covid is a killer worldwide but there are ways that it can be limited at least. To look at the figure of those that have died and then try to imagine the number of people hurt by each death is unbearable to imagine. To fear that the peak has yet to be reached is a fear that is hard to cope with. I only hope and pray that, for whatever reason, that there is a better future than the one appears to likely. I hope those that have ignored the truth of the virus and who have either actively or passively allowed it to reach this level can live with themselves if it takes someone close to them.
Yeah... That it’s been allowed to come to this is unconscionable.
The most simple and effective preventive measure being turned into a “controversial topic“ is insane and immoral.
Back a few months ago I likened masks to mosquito nets helping to prevent malaria...
Will the nets eliminate malaria?
No, of course not... they don’t protect you from it when you are out walking, they can have a hole or be improperly set up and a mosquito might get in... But they do increase your odds of
NOT getting it.
And that’s the same point about masks... you want to decrease your odds of getting it, because it’s infinitely stupid to increase your odds of dying from it or spreading it because the preventative measure is inconvenient or makes you look weak.
I didn’t bring it up when it happened, but back in January my father-in-law died of a respiratory illness...
My wife’s parents live with us in a separate addition they built onto our house, we all live together and they have been a wonderful influence on my children lives... on all our lives.
I was very close to my father-in-law, he was a wonderful person full of wisdom and logic and my wife and kids adored him...
But a few weeks before the pandemic officially began, at a point where some believe the pandemic already had arrived here, my father-in-law went for a routine doctor visit and noted how many people there were coughing and very ill...
Within a few days he was ill himself and within a few more he was taken off life support.
At that point there was probably no way of actually knowing if the virus was responsible, but in my life I’ve been to emergency rooms many, many times and I’ve never ever seen so many people with respiratory illness coughing as badly as that night in the ER... it was like a scene from a zombie movie where the ER is flooded with sick people, but nobody realizes there is a contagion...
It was alarming enough that I made sure we kept away from everyone there, trying our best to stay in a corner area.
I felt something was definitely up, even though the virus wasn’t “a thing” yet.
Regardless, my father-in-law’s death was devastating to everyone and given the timeframe, probably unavoidable...
It still caused everyone here and in my wife’s family, unimaginable pain and sorrow.
Yet, here in this country and many other places we see so many people arguing and fighting for their ability to visit this grief upon others for absolutely no reason other than common selfishness and arrogance.
They can dress the argument up any way they like it, but that is the underlying source... selfishness and arrogance.
If you want to dance on the rim of a volcano, raise murder hornets in your pants or bathe with hungry piranhas, then by all means go for it...
I’d prefer you don’t, but if someone is stubborn and unreasonable, you usually can’t stop them or convince them otherwise.
But if you want to risk dragging others along with you because you don’t care, then no, you don’t get to make that call for others.
Its like arguing you have the right to drive a school bus full of kids while completely intoxicated, because you don’t like being sober.
Screw that.
I look at the pain my family experienced and think of the families of the 200,000 plus people here in the U.S. that died*... the dead don’t suffer once they are gone, but those left behind do... for some those scars will never heal.
Many, if not most never got a chance to say goodbye or hold the hands of their loved ones.
I feel fortunate that at least because of when it occurred, we did.
How cruel and heartless is it to allow others, not just to lose their loved ones, but to know they won’t be able to hold their hands or say goodbye.
For no good reason.
None.
Even if one thinks they are immune or the chances are slim of them spreading it, it’s still selfish and to risk others, to risk lives to risk bringing misery and sorrow to others, all so you can feel a sense of having owned that argument or to have flipped someone else the bird in defiance.
My team won... yeah, we rule!... So what if families are ripped apart or others have to live with permanent illness... We showed those weakling!
For so many the results, the outcome could have been so much better, had some who stood in places where their words could save lives, not decided to turn a virtually effortless/painless and logical decision into a raging dumpster fire of division and vitriol.
Words could never fully express my contempt for that reasoning, for that behavior and lack of conscience.
After 9-11, I was truly proud of how so many people expressed support with us New Yorkers... the nation saw a threat and showed solidarity, the nation saw pain and destruction and gave support... it wasn’t an attack on a few people it was an attack on everyone...
Yet when a foe emerged that threatened everyone, that threatened all mankind... some instead saw an opportunity to turn a crisis for all into a chance to define sides.
Hopefully this will turn around soon, but even that I worry about because of how deep some decided to inflict division upon this nation and how this was turned into something it should never have been about.
I think of something my mother told me about when she was talking about the horrors she saw as a young girl during the bombardment of her city in WW2...
”If you are lucky, you can forget the carnage, the pain and destruction you witnessed... you have to do so to move on, to live... if you are even more lucky, you can still remember those you lost.
But never, never let yourself forget the path that lead to these horrors... if not for yourself, for those that were lost... so others may never again face that same kind of world.”
Sadly for her the choices others made set in motion events that would lead to a nightmare she could never forget, that which haunted her to her last days.
I hope that one day people will learn from the heartless mistakes and arrogant decisions made during this pandemic and when confronted by an opportunity to repeat those mistakes, find it in their hearts to think not of how they can benefit from the situation, but how they can make the world a better place for everyone.
Sorry for the long post.
May you all stay safe and healthy.
*I‘m not forgetting the rest of the world, but at the moment I’m speaking of something particular to the U.S.
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