What time is it?
I’m going to continue writing about the ongoing pandemic because what is taking place will affect how future pandemics are handled or rather not handled. It’s only a matter of time until the next one and the clock is already ticking down.
It never stops.
Survival event.
“And so if we could hold that [death toll] down, as we’re saying, to 100,000 — it’s a horrible number, maybe even less — but to 100,000. So we have between 100 and 200,000, and we altogether have done a very good job.” President Trump, March 2020
By the time Trump left office we were at 400,000 deaths. As of this day, June 28, we have passed 603,000.
Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, February 2020:
“This president will always put Americans first. He will always protect American citizens. We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here. We will not see terrorism come here. And isn’t that refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama?”
Then Trump traitors brought terrorism to our nation’s Capital. (Or does it only count if you were one of those terrorized?) The virus did come here. Normally I would say that this is stating the obvious but we have millions of people in this country that remain in a state of denial.
Jared Kushner, April 2020:
“I think you’ll see by June a lot of the country should be back to normal,” Jared Kushner said, “and the hope is that by July the country’s really rocking again.”
The ‘me’niverse
What would you do if survival of the species came down to placing humanity before oneself? Replacing the concern of the ‘I’niverse with the ‘You’niverse—with the survival of your family, friends and community?
The SARS-CoV-2 virus and variants have not manifested in a species-ending plague. It has not been as fatal as, say, The Black Death. Still, the virus has done a lot of physical damage and caused the deaths of a millions worldwide along with damaging the world economy. The damage is widespread and pervasive. In poorer countries the virus continues to spread unchecked. More poverty equals more death.
The estimate now is that it will be 2022 before the global pandemic is brought under control and that is based upon vaccines still being effective for variants.
Humanity will regroup.
Death before dishonor
One of the many lessons that we have learned is that tens of millions of our own population will be against any measures to save humanity itself should such a species-ending pathogen come along. They are simply incapable of working for the common good even if their own lives are on the line. In a more deadly pandemic they can be expected to behave just as they have and continue to do currently. They will fight science at every turn. They will exercise their god given Constitutional right to die and kill others while they’re at it.
Mad Max
If the SARS-CoV-2 had been as lethal as it was contagious we would already be done. We would already be well on our way to living in a Mad Max world. The first to go are health care workers. Hospitals become houses for the dead. The medical system collapses then the rest of society as the people that know how to do stuff die off. The nationwide distribution system of everything goes away. Production of everything halts. That includes vaccines. Even if one were to be developed because enough of those working on a cure didn’t die there wouldn’t be any way to distribute it.
All of the above would happen within a few months if not weeks or days. Weeks or days. In this day of global connectedness the United States would be covered in days. If the nation’s leaders put out a call to shelter in place the anti-maskers and vaxxers would take to the streets. They would act just like they act now. People would die en mass all over the nation.
Sobering
Six in ten Republicans believe that the election was stolen. What does this have to do with a virus? What it means is that the same 6 in 10 don’t believe in science either. They don’t believe in knowledge. They are the anti-maskers, the anti-vaxxers, the anti-government, conspiracy believing, MAGAT Heads.
They would be species enders.