(10-minute read) 4/3/2020
Oh very young…
People are expressing pretty cavalier attitudes about seniors dying. I read a post yet again today that we should concentrate on the fact that most people will make it.
My comments to those saying that this is a big to-do about nothing is that you must not know anyone in the 60 plus age bracket. Does somebody that you love or care about have to die first before you decide perhaps something serious is taking place?
My wife and I are in that age bracket where the 15 to 20% mortality rate kicks in if we catch it because we both have underlying illnesses. Otherwise we’d be in a lower percentage range. A good portion of the family oldsters that we have left falls into the high risk category and some of the younger ones that have compromised immune systems.
When media doesn’t post what’s taking place you get what happened during the 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic in Philadelphia. Media went along with the government cover-up. 675,000 people died in this country. That was a small percentage of the general population then too. Young people were hit the hardest. Somehow it’s sadder when the very young die.
It’s too late, baby…
Here’s the thing about all of those graphs and numbers that people are showing to diminish the threat. In this country we’ve done the least amount of testing of any of the major industrialized nations. New York, the largest city in the country, had one testing site as of 3/16/20 for a city with a population of over 8.5 million. Think their numbers are accurate? This was already deep into the pandemic.
Here’s a bit of information. The numbers anywhere in the nation aren’t accurate. As of today (4/3/20) testing still isn’t anywhere close to the scale that is needed for tracking and containment. And by containment I mean slowing the spread.
At this point we may never know the true numbers. People will have already had COVID-19, passed it on and recovered without ever knowing that they had it. That doesn’t even count the people that had it, passed it on and never even got sick. People have died from it without ever being diagnosed as having it. (I suppose they could start exhuming bodies after this is over.) That’s the beauty of not having testing done early on for this administration.
Story time
Last year I was saying to a pastor that our church with a small congregation of mostly oldsters was one bad flu season from going away. I had no idea that might be prophetic. The majority of our church falls in the high risk category and that’s true for a lot of small churches. Without a doubt some small congregation churches will go away from what happens during this pandemic. Economic losses alone will do some in.
How about it, my fellow Christians, is that much ado about nothing? Because we now have COVID-19 on top of the flu. AND BTW COVID-19 has a tenfold higher mortality rate than the current influenza virus. It’s NOT the same. It’s NOT the damn flu. Seniors are being hit harder this pandemic.
Messaging?
President Trump started off saying that media is the enemy in this pandemic. Media lies! Media is the problem! He says it at press conferences. He says it at coronavirus updates. He says it at every rally. (He finally stopped having rallies. Well, except for the nightly so-called press briefings that are a fine substitute for rallies.) Most media, that is, not the fringe conspiracy media, Russian troll media and Fox Pravda. He has been saying from the beginning that the media has been lying to us. Those rascals. Media is the enemy. They’re fake news.
It’s comforting to his base that the body count will be heavy with seniors.
Even as I write this the Conservative Republican conspiracy machine with the help of their Russian friends are spinning new conspiracy theories. They have coordinated with their right wing purveyors of filth, fake news, falsehoods, lies and disinformation to iron out their new messaging. They have turned to their tried and true old standby racism against the Chinese. IT’S A CHINESE VIRUS! It’s the Chinese MAGA hat makers that are behind the virus!
Dear Racists, it’s COVID-19.
Jesus will save us! Jesus didn’t make this mess. We did. Jesus wasn’t a racist. He also didn’t golf on Sundays instead of going to church.
Who did this to us?
The guy that knew the first of January that there was a hard storm coming. The head of the Administration that had been warned of the pandemic by the intelligence agencies. The guy that chose to ignore the warnings. The guy that kept saying everything was under control when it wasn’t and still isn’t even close to having a handle on the pandemic. The guy that said that the borders were shut early on when they weren’t. (Thousands upon thousands of citizens returned without being tested because tests weren’t available!) The guy that caused the stock market to crash. The guy that was warned before he even took office that this could happen. The guy that did away with the White House Pandemic Response Team. The guy that said it was a hoax. The guy that has lied every day that he’s been in office. The guy that has been on the job for over three years. The guy that said,
“No, I don’t take responsibility at all…”
“…try getting it yourselves.”
Well, people are getting COVID-19 themselves.
Is it time yet for the Evangelical Party of President Trump to weigh in and blame the gays and our godless society as some of them did after 9-11? That would be in keeping with their past actions. An anxious nation looking for answers awaits. After all it is God that gave them their savior, Caesar Trump. If he’s lying it’s because God wants him to lie. The true victim for them IS President Donald Trump. Trump is the one carrying the burden.
Triage
A sociopath is a person who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. It shouldn’t be contagious but it’s a condition that seems to be spreading outward into the land from the President by his followers that are okay if he shoots somebody on 5th Avenue.
Flattening the curve as Dr. Anthony Fauci says doesn’t mean that we seniors won’t eventually get it, it just means that we’ll have a better chance of getting a hospital bed and treatment if beds are available if we should get ill enough to require hospitalization. Otherwise we get triaged to die. That’s what happens when there aren’t enough doctors, nurses, beds, equipment, etc. to deal with all the people that need help. Eventually they will have to make the tough, heart-breaking decisions about who they are most likely to be able to save. That won’t be seniors with one foot out the door already. We will understandably go to the bottom of the list. After all we’re old. We’ve had good lives. Only seen on weekends. Not healthy anyway. Too many of us are on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid anyway. We’re takers that have outlived our usefulness. The pile won’t be big.
So yes, a few hundred thousand people in the grand scheme of things really isn’t that big a number. I’m praying along with others that we don’t get anywhere close to those numbers.
Death squad
Who would have guessed that the death squad for seniors would end up being a Republican Administration? (The same folks who alleged that Democrats would be setting up Obamacare “death panels”.) They have set the stage. Their hands are cleaned in the righteous waters of the Evangelical Party. The innocents of our health professionals will bear the burden of their policies, their ineptness. The chaos that we’re in is their orchestrated creation. No they didn’t cause the virus. They caused the aftermath. Because of their ineptness more people will die than should have.
We will continue to see the best and worst of humanity.
Our medical infrastructure will be overwhelmed. Medical supplies have and will continue to run low or be out completely. Necessary parts of our medical supply chains are heavily dependent upon China. People from all walks of life will be affected. The poor and uninsured and/or poorly insured thanks to the current administration taking apart the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will bear the brunt.
There will be quarantines. Entire industries will shut down. Public gatherings will be stopped. What all of these kinds of actions mean is that income will stop for large portions of our population. Once again people at the bottom of the economic chains will take a more serious hit.
Borg
The damage has already been done.
President Trump will continue to act just as he has acted his entire life as will his base of support. They are one with the collective. He is 6 of triple 6. They are Borg.
You know I do want to take a minute here to cover what he could have done if he had actually been mentally and emotionally capable of acting Presidential from the time that he first knew. If he could have laid his pettiness and concern for self aside and simply stopped lying and acted like a human that cared. He could have sealed his place in history as a leader worthy of handling a disaster. If he could have acted even half the leader that New York Governor Cuomo is he would have done well. But he is what he is.
About that body count.
In regards to the Trump Administration project that there will be from 100,000 to 240,000 deaths from COVID-19, scientists outside the Administration are unsure as to where that number and modeling are coming from AND the greatest most transparent administration in the history of the country so far isn’t sharing that information. IDK, Jared Kushner may still be working changing the batteries on his calculator.
The body count-whatever it ends up being-will be higher than it needed to be.
But here’s the deal now that they have finally recognized the danger that they have put the entire nation in: if the body county is fewer than 100,000 dead, they will pat themselves on the back and prostrate themselves before the Ducé being a hero and saving lives. If it’s fewer than 240,000 lives lost then they will pat themselves on the back and prostrate themselves before the Ducé being a hero and saving lives. Either way they’re the heroes of the Republic soon to be replaced. President Tweetybird is already patting himself on the back for saving lives from the very beginning even though he wasn’t.
Longer lines
In regards to the upcoming election this pandemic is a Republican dream for voter suppression. This is the perfect time for them to add to the length of long lines to vote in the neighborhoods of the working class poor. This is a time for them to consolidate the power of their Ducé. They have decimated the ranks of government institutions. They have taken apart Democracy.
Heroes.
There will be heroes beyond measure. Dr. Anthony Fauci should be high on the list. I hope he survives.
We should never forget the doctors, nurses, EMS drivers, First Responders, and caregivers in general, some of whom will sacrifice their lives in caring for others. They have already saved thousands of lives and will save thousands more. The cost to their ranks has already been horrible. They were and still are on the front lines without the equipment they need.
Don’t let the Liar rewrite their
history. Every time the Liar talks he rewrites the history of the heroes. The
heroes that put their own lives after the lives of those they cared for and
tried their very best to help and made decisions that no one should have to
make as to who lives and who dies.