COVID-19 Reality
Nothing to Laugh About
The headline is like a kick in the balls, a sledgehammer blow to the head and a punch in the gut and a billion volt jolt of reality, all at one time, but to millions of Americans it’s just one more exaggeration, one more time to yawn and scream about our rights.
Today’s headline in the N.Y. Times read, “Unvaccinated Americans are 11 times more likely to die of Covid, the C.D.C. reports.” Say it again, as if your life depended on it, “Unvaccinated Americans are 11 times more likely to die of Covid, the C.D.C. reports” and again, once more with gusto, “Unvaccinated Americans are 11 times more likely to die of Covid, the C.D.C. reports.”
You can’t get any blunter, forthright or unequivocal than that and yet you can bet your MAGA hat that the true blue Americans of Florida, Texas and likeminded bastions of stupidity will continue to refuse to be vaccinated. Later, as their chests rise and fall to the tempo of their respirators, and their breathing becomes less and less certain, they will no doubt have a death bed change of heart and decide that the vaccinations really are a pretty good idea, only then, sorry it will be too late.
We just suffered through historic flooding and the deaths of scores of people trapped in their basements and cars in New York and New Jersey, we watched helplessly as wildfires spread like wildfire out west, sending their fumes eastward for us to breath and choke on, we saw hurricanes devastate Louisiana yet again and there may be solutions to these climate change induced catastrophes but it’s going to be a long time coming. And yet, we have a vaccine right now, available absolutely free, that has been proven successful in saving millions of lives around the world from the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic and if you approached someone and said you had a way to save their life, they would surely take it, unless they wanted to die out of frustration with the Republicans or something even worse.
But indeed, many people, when faced with a life and death decision, say they’ll just take their chances because they are free Americans and nobody can tell them what to do unless it’s wearing a seat belt, not driving while drunk, getting vaccinated for polio, small pox and a long list of other formerly fatal diseases or screaming fire in a crowded theater even if you want to, and the government certainly must not dictate to private businesses unless it’s to enforce workplace safety laws, environmental pollution laws and a person’s body is his or her own business, unless it’s about abortion and then a woman’s body is totally the government’s business.
Think about it again, “The Unvaccinated Are 11 Times More Likely to Die, C.D.C. Says” and again “The Unvaccinated Are 11 Times More Likely to Die, C.D.C. Says” and again, “The Unvaccinated Are 11 Times More Likely to Die, C.D.C. Says.” That is die, die, die, die, and how many times must it be said before it is accepted as truth, the answer my friend is, somewhere else.
Here is what Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said about a study that showed that individuals who were not fully vaccinated were far more susceptible to infection and death from the virus.
“In this study, over 600,000 Covid-19 cases from April through mid-July were evaluated and linked to vaccination status. Looking at cases over the past two months when the Delta variant was the predominant variant circulating in this country, those who were unvaccinated were about four-and-a-half times more likely to get Covid-19, over 10 times more likely to be hospitalized and 11 times more likely to die from the disease.” “The key to reducing transmission is getting more people vaccinated. And even if you’re young and relatively healthy, and you’re not worried about the consequences to yourself, you could pass the virus onto other people. And that’s why this collective responsibility we have as a society to make sure we are not only taking care of our own health, but reducing the chances we pass the virus onto somebody who’s more vulnerable — that’s why this is so important. And that’s what the efforts that the president announced yesterday will help us do, reduce transmission, protect lives and protect our children as well.”
Well, what does Walensky know, she’s probably just mouthing a line from Joe Biden as part of a grand conspiracy to lock down the nation with a phony threat of COVID-19 and then they’ll take all of our guns and make it illegal for anyone to use the word “God” and they’ll just send us all down the road to the inferno.
But I will say this about the Republican, they have a sense of humor, yes, it’s as funny as a woodworm in a cripple’s crutch, so funny I forgot to laugh, and so Isimhbiwfefmtaol otherwise defined in the library of street slang as “Laughing silently in my head because it wasn’t funny enough to actually laugh out loud.”
I’m specifically referring to that riotous, laugh out loud, split a gut, cachinnated, die laughing, roll in the aisles, master of the guffaw, Kellyanne Conway, the former top advisor to the ex-president, Gen. Bone Spurs, who has refused Biden request that she and other Trump appointees leave military academy advisory boards. She had to have forced herself not to bust out in hysterical laughter when she said that Biden was acting for political reasons and that it was altogether not very presidential, in comparison with her former boss who believed that ethics, decorum and honesty were utterly nonsensical.
And then there’s that other funny man, he who can crack you up with his brilliant wit, make you convulse in uncontrollable hysteria of the best kind, and just make you whoop, cackle and titter, and I speak of none other than Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida who has worked his shtick to outrageous proportions as he tries to force Floridians to stay miles away from protective masks and vaccinations, and get this, the punch line, because their personal rights are more important than their lives because the freedoms that we all enjoy will outlive their petty, insignificant lives and it will offer DeSantis a road to the White House. But guess what, a federal judge had the last laugh for now, as he ordered that DeSantis’s order against schools from requiring kids to wear masks be delayed until the case if fully hear, in other words, the kiddies will wear masks now and into Halloween and that will just scare the beejeebies out of DeSantis.
And if you aren’t rolling on the floor in unending glee, a bunch of Republican governors plans to file a lawsuit to block Biden from his order that millions of American workers must be vaccinated so they don’t die from COVID -19. But wait, hot off the presses, it gets even more hilarious as a Florida appellate court today sided with DeSantis, ruling that schools can not require students to wear masks intended to limit the transmission of COVID-19 in classrooms. BTW Florida and Texas lead the way in COVID-19 cases and deaths. It doesn’t get any funnier than that.