NOTE: This is the first of a series of Soapboxes to get us caught up after a three-week break; any of them can be read individually, although they are meant to be consumed sequentially. Oh, and they’re all filled with horribleness. Sorry…I don’t write the news, I just analyze and interpret it.
A few items you must accept before continuing:
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- Covid-19 is a real virus that is exceptionally dangerous to those who are vulnerable to all viruses. Claiming it is a “hoax” makes you look like a fool.
- That said, if you have used critical thinking and examined all of the scientific data presented by all of the experts and decided to agree with those who say this is nothing more than a horrible case of something similar to the flu, you are in the minority by a large margin and you must accept that. Now, more than ever, Americans are terrified of the virus and 2/3rds support shutting down the country again. https://www.newsweek.com/majority-americans-support-closing-down-economy-again-over-coronavirus-spike-poll-1516374
- Masks? Everyone is wearing them except for a few of us. Drone surveillance, polling, CCTV cameras, and state inspectors across the nation report between 80-90% compliance. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/89-americans-wear-masks-public-coronavirus-pandemic-persists/story?id=71455062
- Covid-19 is a real virus that is exceptionally dangerous to those who are vulnerable to all viruses. Claiming it is a “hoax” makes you look like a fool.
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- With that as the foundation, we move on…
Properly executed vacations are wonderful at providing clarity and perspective. While I wasn’t able to completely seclude myself from the news, I did create bubbles of ignorance for days at a time, allowing me to escape the drumbeat of never-ending negativity that is 2020.
And with that came this potentially obvious epiphany; when it comes to Covid-19, there are simply two polarizing mind-sets. There are those of us in the very obvious minority who are fully comfortable with, and prepared to live with, the virus. In the early days of the outbreak, various computer models predicted the possibility of more than 1 million Americans dying and in almost total unison the country agreed that was too great a cost. Now, after four months of this lunacy, seemingly about 1/3rd of us are prepared for whatever the price is to allow life to continue. And by life, we mean actual living; no masks, plenty of hugs and handshakes, no lines or limits on occupancy, and concerts, sports, movies and amusement parks open and packed to their limits. And kids in school. America circa February 2020. Whilst doing so, anyone legitimately afraid of the virus will stay home and avoid those of us living. Our only obligation will be to inform anyone self-identifying as “concerned” that we have been exposing ourselves to life and they should avoid us at all costs.
As for the other 2/3rds of America, they are simply terrified of being sick. We have become a nation of hypochondriacs living in some Bizarro world demanding that those of us who are young, healthy, and/or not afraid of the virus (whatever the consequences) are the ones who should shut down our lives, while those who have either legitimate or asinine fears are the ones to be protected and allowed to rule the day. This group also contains inexplicable numbers of parents afraid of their children going to school, despite almost literally zero children dying in the world, let alone getting sick, from Covid-19. In fact, children are more likely to be struck by lightning this fall than to be stricken down by the Coronavirus https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/09/school-age-children-likely-hit-lightning-die-coronavirus-oxbridge/
This is the same country in which an average of 150 children have died every year from the regular flu since the turn of the century and nary a mask has been worn nor a child socially distanced…until now. https://www.verywellhealth.com/deaths-from-flu-2633829
And speaking of the “F” word, as of this writing, if the death counts are to be believed, the world has lost 550,000 people to the Coronavirus in 5 months. The average flu season, according to both the CDC and the WHO, lasts 4 months and kills up to 650,000 people every year…and has for as long as we have been keeping data. And yet only now have we destroyed our way of life.
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/14-12-2017-up-to-650-000-people-die-of-respiratory-diseases-linked-to-seasonal-flu-each-year But remember: IT’S NOT THE FLU, BRO!!!!
Make no mistake, though; we have lost the battle. We live in a terrified nation, scared of a virus and willing to end living in order to save lives, despite the fact that the only people in any actual danger are the ones always in danger; the elderly and the immunocompromised. Those of us who want to live need to stop claiming that we are in the majority; we aren’t. Not even close. We are surrounded by people petrified of virtually nothing and this has been coming and building for decades.
How did we get here? Simple; it began with smoking; your choice to engage in a legal activity was deemed a danger to me, and so you were told to stop your behavior and/or isolate yourself when doing it. Sound familiar? Not wearing a mask is a danger to others, so cover your face or stay home. We spent decades telling communities that if one child had a peanut allergy, then he was to be protected by forcing all of the other children in his school to forego any nut consumption at anytime anywhere. We have disseminated countless articles, many as recently as this Fourth of July, intimidating Americans into eating shoe leather disguised as beef, lest they die…that’s literally the lie we’ve been selling. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2020/07/02/barbecue-food-safety-meat-recalls-july-4-holiday-weekend-2020/5245873002/ There are countless other examples, when extrapolated, explain exactly how we got here; it is the culmination of the pussification of America.
As a nation of scaredy-cats, we collectively cringe at the daily headlines of new records of cases. Actual data shows that the vast majority of people testing positive are young and healthy and have no symptoms, but for some reason we recoil in terror. Keep in mind that cases are irrelevant. Not only are hospitalizations in many of the places with large outbreaks not spiking, the overwhelming majority of people in the ICU have nothing to do with Covid. In Texas, for example, where headlines scream of hospitals being “overloaded by Covid,” the truth is that 90+% of ICU beds are occupied, but only 15% are COVID patients. 85% of the occupied beds are not COVID patients. In other words, people are catching a virus and it’s doing absolutely nothing to them…yet, we’re slowly shutting down the country again. Additionally, hospitals nationwide have a policy that anyone admitted for any reason is immediately tested for Covid-19; when they test positive, they are classified as a Covid hospitalization, even though they’re in the hospital for kidney disease, a car accident, or heart attack. Additionally, the daily “death tolls” are lagging indicators. On July 8th, Florida reported “120 new deaths”…yet only 31 of those deaths actually occurred in the month of July; the rest were weeks old, finally making their way into the system.
https://twitter.com/justin_hart/status/1281274249097797633
And so, across the country, despite attempts by the Trump Administration to put a happy face on economic data, America is shutting itself down, let alone being told to do so by various governors and health officials. Those of us who want to actually “live,” want nothing to do with what is being offered as “fun.” It’s miserable and pathetic to spend the day at Disneyworld in 90 degree heat with humidity that makes the heat index soar above 100, and so we’d rather stay home, hang out with friends and loved ones in private, or go camping. Meanwhile, the majority of people terrified of getting the sniffles will never feel safe, and so they, too, are avoiding commerce. Businesses are dying and will continue to endlessly. Job losses will skyrocket this summer as well. United airlines just laid off 36,000 people, Bed Bath and Beyond is closing 200 stores amidst losing 50% of its’ business, and across the country, statistics and data show no interest in anyone spending money anywhere. https://www.tpr.org/post/wallets-are-already-lockdown-people-pare-spending-sunbelt-cases-surge
As we do so, we ignore the devastating affects of keeping people at home, opening and then closing businesses, and keeping life on hold. Suicides, abuse, alcoholism, depression, and people not seeking medical care for legitimate non-Covid conditions are all skyrocketing, yet we not only look the other way, we quite literally lie about it and make people as afraid of the virus as possible. May I interest you in the Gold Standard of “Junk Science?”
The newest yarn is that the actual death toll from Covid-19 is much higher; perhaps 30-50% more than what we’re told. How have they come to this conclusion? As follows:
The average number of Americans who have died in 2020 compared to this date on the calendar in previous years is between 30-50% higher (in the early days of the Coronavirus not every person who died was tested). Therefore, they must all be Covid-19 deaths. That’s literally the “science.” They completely disregard the previously mentioned strains on America’s well-being, not to mention having a nation living 24/7 in homes, where the majority of non-disease related injuries and deaths occur as a result of falls, accidents, and the like. NOPE! Must be Covid! https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/07/about-30-covid-deaths-may-not-be-classified-such
But none of any of this, matters; not to either side. The majority of Americans are convinced, unflinchingly so, that we are living amidst our version of the Spanish Flu. There is to be no debate, no discussion, and no non-compliance. Meanwhile, about 100 million of us (still a minority of the country) respond to every story with one of two dismissive expressions; “so what,” and “who cares.” We are branded as idiots, heartless, science-deniers, and granny-killers, even though we have facts, data, and most importantly, common sense and critical thinking, on our side, and even though we are the ones who could bring America roaring back if we were only allowed to do so. Those are the battle lines, and it’s only going to get worse; something I’ll explore in my look at the remainder of 2020, the third soapbox in this series.
Post-Vacay Soapbox #1: It Really Is This Simple
