Are we there yet?
Why write about the next pandemic when we’re a long way from being through the first one?
Hundreds of thousands more lives could be lost or saved, depending upon who is in charge. With Trump and the Republicans in charge it’s practically a guarantee that we’ll lose several hundred thousand more.
Why? Because Trump and his lackey Senators would have to acknowledge that they’ve been lying to everyone and are responsible for losing so many more lives than was necessary. They would have to admit that they killed men, women and children in order to stay in power. POWER is what’s most important to them. Republicans couldn’t agree to give working people enough money to keep a roof over their heads and feed their families but they can move within hours to get a Supreme Court justice in their pocket during a pandemic. That’s their priority.
They have health insurance and regular testing.
200,000 lives have been lost so far by President Trump. He knows that the virus is deadly, is airborne, a killer and yet he continues to lie to the American people and encourages practices that could result in hundreds of thousands more deaths. It’s crazy that a sentence like that is now possible yet it is. Due to under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths we’re likely almost at 300,000 now. Upwards of 3 million people have lost family or close friends. And we aren’t close to being done. We have yet to reach our destination.
The pandemic spread is getting worse.
When?
According to the as yet not completely silenced CDC, fully 90% of our population is still at risk and flu season is now upon us. Have you had your flu shot? Well guess what? Trump’s hard core science-denying base doesn’t believe in flu shots any more than they’ll get a vaccine for Covid-19.
President Obama successfully handled 3 global health issues during his term in office. It isn’t unreasonable to think that another pandemic is waiting in the wings. Not a matter of if one will come. Only when. The one that we’re in could come back if the virus mutates like a flu virus.
President George Bush warned of a pandemic in 2005 and started making plans. Those plans did not say that lying to the American people about a killer virus was a good approach to saving lives. President Obama tried to follow up with preparedness but Republicans shot down funding. Trump finished off any preparedness early on. And now 205,000 people have died. You might notice that’s a different number than I used a couple of paragraphs back. That’s because that many more people have died since I started writing this a couple of days ago.
Red is now winning!
Trump and company were okay with Blue states suffering the brunt of the virus but now Red states are taking the lead. Their gamble is that they will kill more Dem voters than cult members. Originally they thought that Dem Governors would be hit hard with handling the virus since there was no federal help. That worked for a while. It’s as if all of these suits didn’t realize that they were dealing with a killer virus that state boundaries don’t stop.
Like President Trump, Governor Parson of Missouri is doing a dismal job of dealing with the pandemic. He, like Trump, has abdicated his responsibility and left it to local authorities to try and deal with a conservative populace that thinks this pandemic is a hoax. Meanwhile the hospitals are starting to fill up.
Governor Parson and his wife have tested positive for the virus. He has made it a point of ignoring precautions. (He and his wife tested on a regular basis.) So he caught a hoax, as did his wife. They are quarantining separately.
A joke.
Unpopular ideas and actions can save lives. Had a nationwide shut down been taken at the very beginning along with masking and physical distancing when it should have we would already be past the middle and on the downside of this pandemic and thousands of lives would have been saved. PERIOD. Procedures would have been in place to deal with oncoming flu season. Instead, by Election Day we could have over a quarter of a million hoax deaths.
The joke is on us.