COVIDiocy
So 102 years ago from this article’s posting, the world had just come out
of one disastrous “world war” (even though
it really was just in Europe).
It was a time of jubilation and relief.
Only it didn’t last for long.
102 years before this article’s posting, the world – still trying to
recover from the ravages of that “world war” – was hit with a global pandemic
of influenza. You may have heard of
it. They dubbed it the “Spanish
Flu”, even though they found out it really didn’t come from Spain.
About one-third of the whole human populace was affected by it, and it
killed anywhere between 20 and 50 million people. Fun fact: there were more US servicemen that
were killed by that pandemic than were killed in the war.
So the reason why this pandemic was called the “Spanish Flu” was because
Spain was not only hit the hardest of them all (reportedly
their king was even affected), but they also didn’t try to hide the
pandemic in the media like so many other nations did at the time. That’s why the actual death count isn’t that
precise. Whole nations did not want to
recognize that people died from this.
Another fun fact: the first recorded case of this strain of influenza was
in Kansas. In the United States of
America! So why wasn’t this called the
“American Flu”? Sheer nationalistic
arrogance and piousness. Plus, Spain
wasn’t ashamed to report the pandemic, unlike those in our prissy pompous
nation.
There were efforts to contain the spread of this disease. Masks were required in a lot of places. Hell, people went to jail in certain parts of
the world if they didn’t wear a mask. Stores
and workplaces were shut down.
Businesses came to a halt. Farms
were left to rot because people were too sick to work. The global economy was devastated, even in
places that weren’t already devastated by the war.
Not long after this pandemic started, the death count seemed to
decrease. People thought it was
over. They went out and partied and
celebrated and worked... and then a second wave hit that October and killed a
lot more people. It would take another
year, 1919, before it was safe to once again go out to work and play.
And all because people were stupid and willful idiots!
Fast forward one whole century, and people have clearly not learned a
single damn thing!
The year 2020 will go down in history as the year of the COVID-19 Global
Pandemic. This is a truly historic
event, one that will have an impact on humanity for years to come. And that’s not bragging or boasting. There is nothing to be proud about this, any
more than one would be proud of the Spanish Flu, or even the Black Plague.
And just like the Spanish Flu, there are willful idiots out there that
are only making this global pandemic worse.
It’s simple: wear a mask in public and practice social distancing. Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds. Clean and sanitize surfaces. And if you don’t really have to go out, then
don’t. Simple! It’s not for forever, but it will be a lot
shorter if everyone did that.
And yet, there are way too many idiots out there that not only refuse to
do that, but they are throwing Walmart-level temper tantrums about it.
These COVID idiots – COVIDiots, if you will – are not only *not*
practicing social distancing, but they are intentionally *failing* at it! They don’t want to wear a mask, they’re up in
everyone’s faces, and they are even threatening, assaulting, and shooting
people when told they either need to wear a mask or that they can’t dine-in at
their restaurants.
I will repeat that: there are idiot people who are threatening,
assaulting, and shooting other people when told that they need to wear a mask
or that they cannot dine-in at their restaurants.
It is one thing to ignore or outright fail in social distancing and to
not wear a mask when told that you need to, so you wouldn’t get this
virus. It is another thing entirely when
you are threatening, assaulting, and shooting other people for your privileges!
Yes, I said that. You red-hats who
are screaming bloody murder about having to wear a mask and to social distance
and to not dine-in at your favorite restaurants and to get your precious hairs
cut and dyed are not “exercising your freedoms”. You are screaming about privilege! The two things are not interchangeable! You lot wouldn’t know what freedom was if the
founding fathers themselves crawled out of their graves and slapped you upside
your pompous self-important heads.
Here’s a quick test for you... would you be willing to work for minimum
wage in crowded conditions and possibly catch a virus that could kill you
and/or the people you love, or at the very least subject you to some very
expensive weeks of agony and misery in a hospital with tubes shoved down your
throat? If you answered “no”, then why
are you demanding that other people do that for your privilege? Why are you telling the meat and poultry
workers that they have to continue in dangerous conditions just so you can get
your precious fast food? Why are you
demanding that warehouse workers continue in dangerous conditions just so you
can get your Amazon order delivered? Why
are you demanding that hair dressers and barbers and nail salon workers and
fast food workers continue to work in dangerous conditions just for your
privileges?
You see, there’s the difference.
If you are willing to risk it yourself, it’s freedom. If you are demanding that others do that for
your benefit, then it is privilege.
But, you know, I get it. I
do. I hate wearing these masks when I’m
out and about. I hate having to practice
social distancing. I hate having to wash
my hands all the time. I hate being the
one to use bleach cleaner to clean surfaces all the time and to use hand
sanitizer so often that my hands have become cracked and chemically
burned. I hated all those messages from
the Center for Disease Control trying to micromanage our daily activities. I was waiting for them to tell us how to wipe
our butts! I also know more about social
isolation than most of you would dare admit to.
I know the strains it places on people because I live with it
constantly.
But I am also a caregiver to an elderly and ailing parent, and I fully
understand the burdens that come with it.
I am not willing to risk my family dying just for someone else’s
privilege. So why are you?
Go ahead. Ask your loved ones if
they would like to get painfully sick and die so you can have your cheap
cheeseburger and your overpriced haircut.
That is what you are telling everyone else to do for your cheap
cheeseburger and overpriced haircut.
And as much as I would otherwise not involve a certain orange-skinned
malignant narcissist, I would be remiss if I did not pin a good part of the COVIDiocy
on Narcissist President Donald John Trump for his gross incompetence and criminal
negligence when it came to dealing with this pandemic and spreading the
ignorance and encouraging resistance to these needed safety measures. We started out with him telling everyone that
“we have it under control” and “it will just magically go away” to it being “a
hoax” and a “conspiracy” to suddenly saying it’s serious, but only when the
markets start collapsing, and then going back to saying that it’s “a hoax” and
that it would “magically go away” while the death count is still going up
around the country. He encouraged his
followers to
protest in states where there are Democratic governors, and they showed up
with assault weapons! He told various
states that they had “to
be nice to him” in order to get help.
And now certain states with Trump Party governors are withholding and
even blocking information about infection rates and deaths so, just like the
Spanish Flu pandemic, we will never really know the full extent of the outbreak
and the lives lost.
The same incompetent buffoon who spent years criticizing his predecessor
over his handling of a lesser pandemic now says with a deadpan face “No, I don’t take responsibility at
all.”
Sir, your own
words on Twitter say otherwise!
Even worse is this nightmarish policy of “herd immunity” that is being
uttered in certain circles; where people expect the virus to wash over
everyone, kill the weak, kill the poor, kill the old, kill the minorities, so
that everyone else would emerge “stronger”.
I’m sorry, but that idea sounded better in the
original German back in the 1930’s.
Oh, wait, even the Germans rejected that idea back then.
The scary part is that I have discovered that this rampant ignorant
hostility also happened a century ago when it came to the Spanish Flu. There was also a
strong resistance to wearing masks back then. Some of them even cut slits in the masks just
so they could smoke, which negated the whole purpose of wearing them. But at least our great-grandparents and our
great-great-grandparents had an excuse back then for being ignorant
idiots. They didn’t have the media that
we do today. They didn’t have resources
back then that told them what to expect and what they needed to do in order to
not get influenza.
We, on the other hand, have no excuse whatsoever for this COVIDiocy. None.
Let’s get brutally honest here... we have had a whole century to learn
from the last major global pandemic on how to deal with it and we have failed
that course miserably.
Yes, China screwed up royally by censuring news about the pandemic while
it was still in their country. But other
nations also didn’t want to admit to it until they couldn’t hide it any
longer. Again, they failed to learn the
lessons from a century ago. But that
also does not excuse America’s blatant ignorance and COVIDiocy. We had a
plan in place, an organization that was designed to deal with this very
crisis, and the orange narcissist destroyed it two years ago! Because, he said, “I’m a businessman”. We have been in willful denial since the
start of 2020; we were fed ignorance and lies about the scope of this pandemic,
we were given talk about snake oil cures from a con-artist, told first that it
was “a hoax” and then it was “real” and then it was “a hoax” again and now we
are being told that getting back to work was more important than our own lives
and the lives of our loved ones.
The narcissist calls that “patriotism”.
I call it negligent genocide.
The only thing that makes this whole mess even worse is that the mystical
force called karma is even more inept than the narcissist in the White
House. By all accounts, the people who
are out there living in ignorance and willfully ignoring those needed safety
measures should be the ones suffering.
But the fact that they do not, the fact that karma has been inept and
incompetent and not doing its job, only emboldens the COVIDiots and makes them
believe that they are right and that all of this is just one “yuge” hoax.
It’s a gamble, to be certain, to be playing this form of viral Russian
Roulette. But, for this commentator, it
is a game that I cannot take up. There
is nothing for me to gain in playing that game.
Nothing whatsoever. I have a
whole lot more for me to gain by not playing it, by being safe and trying my
best to follow those safety rules.
Because I want to still have my family alive when this is over
with. And I hope that many of you can
share the same sentiment.
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