Playing Pandemic Chicken
The past few years have given me a front row seat to watch dear friends, and then my sister, fight for their lives against breast cancer. And it is a fight. From the moment they were each diagnosed, they engaged not only the cancer itself, but the grueling process of surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, a slew of side effects, and the billing processes that are an Octagon battle unto themselves.
Being allowed into their worst nightmares has been humbling. But with each, they embraced the coda that “the only way out is through” and did everything they could to get to the other side and maintain control of their lives. Hell, to maintain their lives, period.
They wanted desperately to live. I think that is what was brought home to me each time — that all of us, no matter how thinking, deep, self possessed we may be — are all guilty of taking each breath for granted. Until the prospect of not breathing anymore is brought into sharp focus by disease.
This morning, my sister, who began her own journey at the beginning of the year with a mammogram that turned to a biopsy that turned to a diagnosis that ended up in surgery then onto 16 rounds of chemotherapy and then six weeks, five days a week of radiation, completed her course of treatment. Ringing the bell after her final round of radiation was a triumph. And while the thought that cancer can come back will never not be somewhere in the back of her mind, today marks a giant step forward and away from the struggles, traumas, nightmares, and battles of the past year.
I think about what I was allowed to see and now know just how many people are engaged in their own battles, unseen, yet desperately trying to wrestle back the control that has been ripped from their hands. Wanting only to continue to live.
Juxtaposed against this day are the reports of how dramatically COVID cases are exploding again all across this country. Omicron has firmly taken hold — a record 484,377 new cases yesterday alone. That number, however, belies the true stats — numbers experts guess to be up to five times that due to at home testing not reported.
In terms of deaths? We now stand at 844,496, with 1,429 of those being added in the past 22 hours.
In terms of cases that we know of, the numbers break down as follows:
Unvaccinated — 451 cases per 100,000
Vaccinated — 134 cases per 100,000
Boosted — 48 cases per 100,000
In terms of death?
Unvaccinated — 6.1 deaths per 100,000
Vaccinated — 0.5 deaths per 100,000
Boosted — 0.1 deaths per 100,000
Those numbers are stark. One might even be forgiven for thinking they are convincing — that getting vaccinated and boosted are a person’s best bet towards protecting their ability to continue breathing. Yet here we are, still surrounded by willfully ignorant, purposefully belligerent COVIDiots who refuse to roll up their sleeves, choosing instead to goad others, mock the science, and spread this virus.
If a variant could high five, Omicron would surely be hands up nonstop with these bastards.
I have long given up any hope of these people opening their eyes, doing what is right for themselves, their families, society as a whole. They are so far down their rabbit holes that there is no convincing them to save their own lives, let alone protect anyone else’s. So convinced of how special they are, they truly believe in vaccine chips, 5G control, vaccine genocide, that their symptoms derive from being targeted with anthrax, and that an interdimensional portal is being opened up by vaccinations.
Not kidding about that last one. Or any of the ones before. They are Dunning Kruger graphs brought to life. Or, in this instance, death.
So, yes, I am content to openly say “Fuck them” at this point. They are adults and they will have to face the consequences of their choices — many of them facing them face down in a hospital bed with a tube down their throat and one up their ass.
I reserve my concern for the children who are held hostage to their parents’ idiocy and self important delusions. I worry about people like my sister, whose immune system is only now beginning to reboot. And I stare into the dark at night thinking about the doctors and nurses who are being pushed to the breaking point by millions who don’t trust the science. Until, of course, they contract COVID, cannot breathe and then storm the ERs begging for science to save them.
I’d say ‘make it make sense’ but you can’t anymore than I can.
The death part is what really trips me up. Life is precious. I would like to think we can all at least agree on that. I mean their actions when their lungs revolt against them seem to support that premise, right? So why, when so much data is right there, easily accessible, do they still choose playing a game of chicken with a virus that gives not fuck one who they voted for, what channel they watch, or their ability to correctly use your vs you’re? They are more enthralled with their sophomoronic chant of “Let’s Go Brandon” than the fact that their five year old tested positive.
It’s easy to point fingers at entities like FOX and OANN, rife as they are with disinformation merchants like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham (all company mandated vaccinated incidentally). The trail back to Trump and the very beginnings of this pandemic are lit up like a night time runway at JFK. The mismanagement, the opportunistic grifting as they all saw the potential money to be made, the lies, the callous disregard for human life — it is all there to be clearly reviewed and vomited over. Facebook is culpable — Zuckerburg always far more concerned with growth and ad dollars than acknowledging the power and reach that have been abused and weaponized to spread lies like so much ivermectin on a morning bagel. Breathtakingly stupid politicians like Ron DeSantis (who has been MIA for ten days now), Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Madison Cawthorne, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar, and on and on bleat constantly to their equally dim constituents about “patriotism” and “freedom” — conflating being responsible and getting vaccinated with the Holocaust.
And none of those talking empty heads have any true concern for the actual human beings they are endangering with their lies and rhetoric. The masses are rubes, a means to an end. That end being staying in office and reaping the rewards.
Last week saw the Orange Oligarch actually say out loud that he had gotten the booster shot and that everyone should. This took place on stage with Bill O’Reilly on their thinly attended speaking tour. Boos rang out immediately. What?!?! Their poorly educated emperor espousing vaccines?!?! Based on their response, and the fallout in their media, they would actually preferring seeing him with no clothes to hearing he is fully vaccinated.
I still think about how different the past two years could have been for us. If that salmon hued psycho had allowed medicine and experts to lead the way instead of him catering to his need to always proclaim himself “the smartest guy in the room”; if he had encouraged all precautions; if he had endorsed masks as a patriotic symbol of care and concern for this country and our fellow citizens; if there had been anyone with real experience beyond working the profit angles in his administration — our lives would be so much different today. Hundreds of thousands of people would still be alive. Our hospital systems would not be crumbling before us. Doctors and nurses would be exalted, not threatened with bodily harm in their own wards.
Instead we are here, on the cusp of a New Year, dragging with us an old, ever evolving pandemic.
The current estimate is that 44,000 more people may die before the end of January. That is not hyperbole. Hell, if we just use the number I shared above, 1,429, multiplied by 33 days until January 31st — that is 47,157. Currently 2,529 of every million citizens has died from COVID-19.
Still not real enough for you? OK, how about this one? 1 out of every 390 people has now died as a result of this pandemic. 1 in 390 — with odds like that we would all rush to buy Powerball tickets. Yet with odds like that, with death not cash, being on the line, no one is rushing to get vaccinated. Instead they are standing in the street, watching a pandemic barrel at them.
Play pandemic chicken if you want. I’ll be here, vaccinated, boosted, masking, and isolating as much as possible. At this point, that’s all the rest of us can do. And I will be cheering on people like my sister who value every second of life they have. Who are doing everything they can to fiercely protect themselves, their loved ones, and people they don’t even know.
The cult has a death wish. Too bad their wish is being granted daily.
