Knowing All the History of America
July 11, 2021
Remember What Your Elected Official Does
July 24, 2021Coronavirus Infections and Deaths Provide Vivid Examples
As the United States and places across the world struggle to get back to normal, the new surge of coronavirus infections and deaths provide vivid examples of what havoc and costs can occur from politicizing and spreading misinformation about a terrible pandemic.
It is becoming more and more difficult to understand why some leaders who have influence over large constituencies—who themselves have been vaccinated—continue to spew doubt about the need for others to protect themselves, their families, their communities, ultimately their country by getting vaccinated. These same vaccinated leaders are downplaying, even discouraging the need to wear masks as a precautionary measure. We continue to see how coronavirus infections and deaths provide vivid examples among those who are not doing either.
What is it going to take? Now that the surge of the Delta variant of the virus is primarily infecting and killing people of all ages who have not been vaccinated for one reason or the other, does it speak to you? The surge is occurring in states with the lowest vaccination rates. Sadly, those states are under Republican leadership that persists in tolerating, if not spreading, misinformation about the virus as well as effective methods to bring it under control. Since the beginning coronavirus infections and deaths provide vivid examples of the family suffering, and economic devastation that can result from politicizing a healthcare crisis.
Coronavirus Infections and Deaths Provide Vivid Examples.
Photo Credit: RomeoLu
Will it take more people becoming infecting and dying among the non-vaccinated? Must those who refuse to get vaccinated suffer the personal pain of losing a family member, a friend, a colleague or seeing them suffer with long-term health issues before they believe that this is a dangerous and deadly virus? The coronavirus infections and deaths provide vivid examples of what happens when we continue to ignore what is happening right around us.
Will political leaders, who are entrenched in their own partisan agenda, continue to deal with rising hospitalizations that overwhelm facility capacity and put overburden health care workers? Will they still be satisfied with watching their state’s economy struggle to recover? Will they continue to stand by and see their citizens denied the opportunity to resume a normal way of life? For the last eighteen months, and still today, coronavirus infections and deaths provide vivid examples of what happens when you choose to ignore facts, not heed the warnings, and do nothing.
Getting this virus under control is not a partisan political issue. It is not a conspiracy made of whole cloth—fictional, utterly false, or completed fabricated—as some would like their constituencies to believe. The hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans who have fallen ill and died is not a mirage. We are not in a dream from which we will awaken, and all will be well.
As the old saying goes, if you only “Believe half of what you see, and less of what you hear,” you will be better off rather than ignoring it all.
1 Comment
Perhaps the greatest societal lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic is how “normal” contributed to a disproportionate number of deaths for African Americans/Blacks, the American Indigenous population, and Hispanic/Latinx peoples… and for sure, our elderly. SHAME ON US! We learned the true value of our “essential” workers, and they are deserving of, at minimal, a living wage with health benefits… and decent housing. We learned how dangerous it is to politicize health matters and more the reason we need a universal health plan.
Long before this pandemic, health outcomes associated with racial discrimination were costly to all of America… the quality of life, decrease productivity, economic losses, and, yes, premature deaths in populations “marginalized” by systemic racism. We observed as this pandemic emerged and was racialized, a continuing norm by an incompetent, duplicitous, and bigoted leader… who obliged those aligning themselves with generational bigotry. A return to “NORMAL” should not be desired, nor an option. Instead, we must use “normal” as a springboard to become better humans and a decent nation rife with diversity, equity, and inclusion for all people.
What will “it” take to shift the morbidity paradigm of SARS-CoV2: Ridding healthcare of the politics and the resolve to rid our nation of willful ignorance and bigotry. A lofty challenge… but, one we must embrace.