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jen segal's avatar

Such an on-point illustration of the high level of fear and consequent demand that everyone - yes, everyone - do whatever is required to keep a person “safe” from a virus where the real lethality and negative outcomes are highly correlated with age and co-morbidities. Toss in some toxic media stupidity and you’ve got a real witches brew of class warfare where masked servants wait on the unmasked hoi polloi.

What’s missing in all the ham-handed government response is an honest assessment of the cost of all this crap. Wiped out small businesses. Years of missed intellectual progress for students. Masking children to their social detriment as developing human beings with who knows what consequences. Deaths of despair up all across the country. Skyrocketing crime as the social fabric of support is closed down.

And all to keep the elite class safe.

And then oh gosh darn it omnicron broke that safety screen and now the vaccinated are getting Covid in droves. No more demonizing those who get Covid - since you got it yourself.

Yes, a tad bitter, this I am. I view all of this as a nasty bit of theater with untold human grief and cost that was never considered or if it was, handily dismissed as not really relevant when saving their own rears was what really mattered.

What would have helped would have been a touch more empathy, a bit more cost-benefit analysis of policy choices, and understanding as well as support for your fellow humans. Yes, we were all ‘in this together’ but had very different COVID’s.

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Peaceful Dave's avatar

"But whatever the topic, this is the challenge. To recognise our own fears and struggles, but also to look beyond them. To think about what other people are going through, especially if their struggles are different to ours. And to try to make this practice our new normal." <-- There it is right there, and in every discussion.

"That he not busy being born Is busy dying." -Bob Dylan, "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"

My wife and I are 70+ with conditions that put us at risk. We vaxed and all that but don't want to be among the might as well be dead, in fear of dying crowd. Our daughter came to visit with the youngest grandson. It's been too long. After she got here, she got a call that her oldest son's girlfriend tested positive. When she went home, she tested positive. My wife and I got very sick with the same symptoms but tested negative. Something went thru my extended family (20+ persons) like a Colorado wildfire. Same symptoms, some testing positive, some not. Various states of vaxed and unvaxed. One young man spent a few days in the hospital with a low SpO2.

Tomorrow is not promised. I spent much of my younger years giving death the finger, but now I'm supposed to live with a fear of death that I didn't have with a potential long life ahead of me? I could go at any time, but I live like I'm going to live forever with long range plans that I may not live to realize. I have a friend who couldn't hold his wife of 60+ years hand because she was in an assisted care facility, and he saw her through a glass window before she died because of covid fear. I consider that to be horrible. When I took my daughter to the airport, knowing she had been exposed, I gave her the same big daddy hug she always gets. Bob Dylan's words.

I'm not indifferent to people at risk, but if they are too afraid to live, they should stay home, but not expect me to for them. I drove past a traffic fatality yesterday. I'm not going to quit driving.

I try to address ideas, rather than people when I can, but Z? Well, you said all that needed to be said.

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