We like to think of America as the most advanced country, but we’re arguably the most foolish.
No country has been hit harder by Covid-19. Doctors and epidemiologists warned the public not to travel, not to hold family gatherings, this Thanksgiving holiday. Reputable media did their best to disseminate those warnings.
Yet, this Thanksgiving, over 3 million people are flying (see story here) and another 50 million are hitting the highways (story here). CNN said on Thanksgiving Day,
“The US enters Thanksgiving with coronavirus cases and deaths soaring and hospitalizations at record levels. And on a holiday weekend that lends itself to big gatherings, public health experts still were begging people to avoid them, fearing the pandemic is about to become much worse.”
(Read story here.) With all those people mixing with each other, Covid-19 raging out of control, and 1 of every 25 Americans having now been infected, it’s a safe bet it will. The U.K.-based tabloid Daily Mail says:
“Doctors are warning that the US will see the ‘darkest days in modern medical history’ in the weeks after Thanksgiving … with deaths and hospitalizations already skyrocketing across the U.S.”
(Story here.) Meanwhile, the health care system is nearing a breaking point. On November 13, 2020, The Atlantic magazine said, “More people than ever are hospitalized with COVID-19. Health-care workers can’t go on like this” (story here). In the Pacific Northwest, as elsewhere, “the stress on hospital staff is huge,” the head of the Oregon Nurses Association says (here). It’s not just burnout (watch video here); health care workers are getting sick and dying (stories here and here).
This probably will fall on deaf ears — all indications are it will — but before engaging in risky behavior like traveling and attending family gatherings (which are now one of the key ways the virus is spreading; read about that here), ask yourself this question:
What if you get sick, are struggling to breathe, and an ambulance takes you to a hospital, but no one is there?
