I'm a bit ticked off today about people not taking Covid seriously. So much false information, too many unvaccinated people, people wearing masks improperly, prominent people purposely exposing others after testing positive. How can so many ignore history?
Pandemics started way, way back in time. 430 B.C. is the earliest recorded pandemic and happened during the Peloponnesian War. After the disease passed through Libya, Ethiopia and Egypt, it crossed the Athenian walls as the Spartans laid siege. As much as two-thirds of the population died. Google searches listed at least 20 pandemics .. Spanish flu, Asian flu, Swine flu, AIDS, Ebola epidemic, Zika epidemic. And from way back Bubonic Plague, the Black Death, Smallpox, Great Plague of London, to name a few.
This is the 21st century with medical miracles and educated specialists. Why can't we learn from the Spanish flu, for example.
Any mortality comparisons between these two pandemics in the United States, 2020 and 1918, must differentiate between totals and rates. The current US population, a little more than 332 million, is more than three times larger than the population in 1918, estimated at 105 million. The 675,000 deaths attributed to the Spanish flu made up 0.64 percent of the total population, a little more than six in every thousand people. By contrast, the more than 899,000 US deaths attributed to COVID-19 make up about 0.27 percent of the total population.
(Newest Omicron Variant, thanks to NPR)
You have probably heard about Sarah Palin being diagnosed with Covid yet visiting restaurants in NYC. (She really should be hung in Times Square). And the heart transplant being cancelled as the patient refused to be vaccinated.
My family now wears N95 masks and avoid going to indoor public places, except groceries. I canceled hair appointment, gyno appointment, colonoscopy, and dentist ... hoping to reschedule in March when the peak has passed from all the Christmas traveling and visiting. My sister was invited to a friend's home with two other couples for dinner. She said she'd LOVE to if everyone would agree to take a rapid test. And everyone did, everyone negative and everyone had a worry free great time.
I feel it is time to get nasty with anti-vaxers. Flood the media with negative consequences of not getting vaccinated ... like anti-smoking campaign and anti-drug messages? It's almost to the point of refusing treatment to those who get Covid and have NOT had their shots and boosters. (Feeling really mean, now, eh?). These public service announcements should get FREE air time on the Super Bowl, all sports shows and maybe the Hallmark Channel for the females.
Enough is enough!
We're way past with "enough being enough" and nothing changes. Defies common sense especially as you've shown here with your account of pandemic histories. I think we're far from through with this pandemic so surely there will be a day of reckoning for these misguided protestors to taking precautions.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think after two years of people getting these vaccines (with very few side effects) that people would feel safe. What if people refused small pox vax? Or polio vax? Maybe these people need their own island and they might die off in a very few years of malaria!
DeleteI agree. We've been tolerant of them long enough. Vaccines are nothing new. We've had to have them for decades to get into schools or the military or to travel. All of a sudden they don't trust science? I think they should tax or charge the people who aren't vaccinated and use that money to build Covid treatment centers...tent cities so they can quite disturbing the regular hospitals.
ReplyDeleteMy brother's 91 year old father in law caught pneumonia and all the hospital rooms were full. He had to stay in the ER for several days before going back home. SAD.
DeleteTotally agree. If we had all done what was needed in the beginning, we could be free now. Frustrating.
ReplyDeleteOh what I'd give to go to a restaurant!!!
DeleteThe saddest thing I read today was about a 7 week old baby in my town in the ICU with Covid, struggling to live. Her mother confessed she and her family don't wear masks, are unvaccinated and thought Covid wasn't real. Her other kids have Covid also. She's now changed her tune about everything Covid related. But why wait until it hits your family before you start caring?
ReplyDeleteI find myself more than a bit ticked off all the time now due to the laisse faire attitude of most people about this deadly Pandemic. I don't think you're being too harsh with the suggestions there be serious consequences for the Covidiot Crowd, they haven't given evidence of having any Social Conscience, so frankly, whatever consequences they may face when we quit coddling them is fine with me.
ReplyDelete