A Coronavirus Post

I'm writing this just after midnight Eastern time on Wednesday, July 15th, 2020. As of this date, over 136,000 people have died in the United States due to the coronavirus. I'm not getting into a discussion that COVID-19 is a hoax trying to hurt Trump or that the total number of deaths is inflated or that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is lying to us like former game show host Chuck Woolery and apparently our president seem to believe (or at least supports this thinking). The people who think this probably aren't reading my blog anyway. I've spent a lot of time over the last few days reading Facebook posts and updates from a friend from high school. Her husband, who is around my age, has been in the hospital for more than a week due to COVID-19. Without sharing his medical information, my friend continuously asks us for our prayers because of the serious nature of his condition. 

The point of this post is not to convince people that this virus is real but to look into the future. How is the next generation going to look at how our country responded during this pandemic? I think they'll be amazed (obviously not in a good way) that people really had "COVID parties." That despite scientific evidence that wearing masks helps stop the spread of the virus, many people continue not to wear masks in public spaces and in businesses and cite freedom and the constitution or something. Just today (well, yesterday), CDC director Robert Redfield (who I always think is the actor when I see his name) said, "I really do believe if the American public all embraced masking now and we really did it, you know, rigorously ... I think if we can get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really do think over the next four to six, eight weeks, we can bring this epidemic under control."  

I'd love for our country to try to test this theory, but we all know that it's not going to happen. For example, over 30 people are currently suing the Western Pennsylvania grocery store chain Giant Eagle for requiring customers to wear masks. (I don't know the merits of the cases, but it seems like the grocery store is offering its customers options to get groceries without entering the store.) 

In 25 or 50 years, people aren't going to believe that some members of the previous generations refused to wear masks. They are also going to be astounded that COVID tests took days if not longer to get results. That the president and Congress gave a one-time "stimulus relief" to people and businesses, though millions of dollars seem to be unaccounted for or went to companies in less need of relief than many, many, many others. (Actually, in 25 or 50 years, people will definitely believe that last one.) I didn't even include the ridiculous statements by some of our leaders that the number of positive coronavirus cases are increasing because there are more tests and that if there weren't these tests, there wouldn't be as many cases. And I'm sure that the number of pregnancies would go down if women didn't have pregnancy tests!  

It's just frustrating living through these times where there's no end in sight. Everything gets politicized. You would think that trying to eliminate the coronavirus and saving lives would be the top priority and something the entire country could rally around together. That's obviously not happening. Just wake me up in 2 and 2 when we have a vaccine because it seems like nothing else is going to flatten the curve or stop the spread! (I realize that there are going to be thousands if not millions of people who won't get a vaccine but that will probably be a separate blog post in 2021.)



Update: I forgot to add this portion when I originally published this blog post.

Occasionally, I think about how our country could have responded better to COVID-19. Many people first really took this virus seriously when Tom Hanks announced that he tested positive and when Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz also tested positive followed by the NBA shutting down the league. Although Gobert has said that he still doesn't have his full sense of smell back, many people feel like both and most other recognizable people who contracted COVID-19 fully recovered. I don't follow British politics very closely, but I'm sure the UK realized that COVID-19 was a big deal when Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in the hospital due to this virus. I'm not sure that made much or any impact in the US. I wonder if the country's response would have been different if someone like Senator Rand Paul became really ill and was hospitalized after he tested positive to the coronavirus. At a minimum, I doubt he would have been so critical of Dr. Anthony Fauci during Senate hearings. If Paul continued to have health problems ever after being released from the hospital, I just think that our government would have done more and more people wouldn't think that this virus was a hoax.