Covid-19 has savaged America. Our country’s death rate is 40 times that of Australia, China, Hong Kong, Korea, New Zealand and Taiwan. Here: Over 2,000 per million of population. There: Under 50 per million. Why? They have common sense; we have Republicans.
“Many lives would have been saved if the US had only implemented basic public-health protections until mass vaccine coverage was possible: mask mandates, physical distancing, testing-tracing-isolation procedures and closing large events. Once the vaccines arrived, continued use of precautionary actions would have helped to keep the virus at bay,” CNN says (story here).
That’s what they did right, and we were prevented from doing by Republicans.
The CNN article continues, “US culture has repeatedly showed itself to be too self-centered, shortsighted and poorly informed to forestall mass deaths and continued surges of infection. … Republican politicians — and too much of the public — demanded complete, immediate and untrammeled personal freedom: the freedom to not wear face masks, the freedom to attend large gatherings, the freedom to eschew vaccines and the freedom to infect others.”
Does this sound nakedly partisan? Yeah. But the facts make it so. America’s Covid-19 disaster has been caused almost singlehandedly by Republicans.
It’s not exaggerating to say, “Many right wingers have treated even the most modest and limited protections as an attack on freedom. … The selfishness of it all has been staggering. Poor people and people of color … and frontline workers, were repeatedly ordered to go to work in unprotected settings at workplaces where even basic face mask protections were widely flouted. We have watched as brave public health workers have faced abuse and even death threats, and of shop clerks and customers have been pummeled, simply for asking others to put on a face mask. … We have been deluged by the infodemic of fake news on right-wing and social media.”
All of that came from Republicans.
“The US has proved itself to be the land of a very peculiar notion of freedom: the freedom to harm others ….” Of course, now that effective vaccines are available, they’re primarily harming themselves. Nearly all the deaths now are unvaccinated people, and the vast majority of unvaccinated people are Republicans. People who demanded, “Freedom … without a glimmer of responsibility.” But that kind of freedom isn’t free, and they’re paying a stiff price.
While the Delta variant still rages in all states, the price in deaths isn’t evenly distributed. “In recent weeks, the culture of irresponsibility has played out in especially dangerous and vulgar ways in Florida, Texas and other states where Republican governors have fought against even basic public health measures. Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas have, through their policies, been effectively leading their citizens toward death.”
Again, that may sound like a partisan rant, but it’s merely stating facts. “These facts reflect the two aspects of our broken culture: the Republican ideology of irresponsibility in the name of freedom and a culture prey to misinformation that results from chronically low-quality public education.” As to the latter, it’s painfully obvious the vast majority of Republican voters — 80% of whom still believe the election was stolen by cheating, despite a complete lack of evidence for that notion — have exceedingly poor critical thinking skills.
This isn’t history I’m talking about. It’s not over. “We are not at the end of this story. Covid-19 deaths in the US continue at an average of around 1,900 per day …. Long ago, the US Covid deaths ceased to be a tragic fact of nature, but became a fact of a fractured culture.” And we’re still stuck with the stupidity that got us here. Republicans, from politicians to grassroots, haven’t learned anything and show no signs of wising up.
Republicans are acting like children, and sometimes when children become destructive, it’s necessary to crack down hard to get them under control. Some draconian measures are clearly in order: Prison time for airplane passengers who attack cabin attendants and other passengers, and for customers who attack store employees and other customers. Government can’t do anything about misinformation, because of the First Amendment, but private social media companies have begun banning misinformation and those who spread it from their platforms. They need to do more.
In health care systems, the problem of overwork, stress, and abuse is resulting in workers quitting and administrators unable to fill essential jobs. In Idaho, a deep-red state where the GOP holds 82% of the legislature (86 of 105 seats), which needless to say has taken a laissez-faire approach to the pandemic, the situation in hospitals is so bad the state is being forced to ration care, triage patients, and ship them to other states (see story here).
There needs to be accountability for all this. The answer isn’t to “let them die,” as some might be tempted to suggest. That’s uncivilized, and we don’t want to go there. What’s happening is deeply tragic and sad, even though self-inflicted. But a sense of responsibility needs to be reinstated, and consequences for unacceptable behavior imposed, in our country if we are ever to get out of this morass.
First and foremost, prosecute those who react to Covid-19 rules and restrictions with violence. Second, don’t vote for Republicans while the pandemic continues. Once again, this sounds partisan, but the fact is their approach is counterproductive and dangerous, and causes needless cost, suffering, and loss. Sensible people don’t reward irresponsible leaders by voting for them. Third, it’s time to stop tolerating people who would harm us. Fire them from jobs, sue them, prosecute them, avoid them, don’t patronize their businesses, as the situation warrants. Fourth, make them pay. It’s time to stop burdening taxpayers and premium payers with the avoidable costs of their medical care; make them pay out of pocket. Fifth, don’t give them a soapbox, and don’t patronize media outlets, websites, and blogs who do.
In that respect, this blog is not neutral on vaccinations, masks and social distancing, mandates, or the actions of politicians, because the arguments aren’t of equal merit. That shouldn’t be surprising; the owner and founder of this blog was killed by Covid-19, one of Washington state’s first victims. He was an M.D. and medical researcher, but that didn’t save him. He also was an innocent victim; there weren’t vaccines then, and the virus was still poorly understood. It snuck up on him, as it did on so many of the early victims. That can’t be said of most people dying now, who are mostly those who refused to get vaccinated, ignored all the warnings, and took few or no precautions. Their behavior can be described as reckless.
Following his death, I became the de facto editor. I’m not neutral. I’ve taken the side of science, health experts, and responsible government leadership in this crisis. I’m for truth, responsibility, and accountability as general principles of good civic behavior. That doesn’t make me anti-Republican. I’m not against them, I’m against what they’re doing. If Republicans decide to do things right, I will support it. If Democrats are wrong, I’ll criticize them. As things stand now, there’s a clear right-versus-wrong in this whole business. There’s no excuse for a per-capita death rate 40 times that of societies that understand, in a way Republicans have filed to understand, that freedom and license aren’t the same.