COVID-19: We Are All In This Together
How can one party be so wildly blind and immune to facts? On Saturday, April 11th The Hill reported in an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, GOP lawmakers have criticized Anthony Fauci — the nation’s leading infectious disease expert — for doing more harm than good with his social distancing and stay-at-home recommendations. ⠀⠀⠀
“For Fauci, is it merely a societal or economic inconvenience that about 17 million workers are unemployed because of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, with many more to come in the weeks and months ahead? The economic calamity lies largely with the origination of policies resulting from Fauci’s recommendations”, the op-ed states.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
It is dreadful that nearly 17 million Americans have now filed for unemployment and it’s projected that 7 million will lose their employer based health insurance — I’ll leave it for another time, but I will, as I often do, scream and yell about the desperate need for a single-payer Medicare for All system as Bernie Sanders has been proposing for 30 years, and a “stimulus” package that cares more about people than corporations; the United States unquestionably has rolled out the most embarrassing relief program in the entire world — but do those rejecting stay-at-home orders in the name of freedom have any idea how doing nothing would result in an even more horrifying, apocalyptic global system collapse, not to mention deaths?
There are currently 3 billion people around the world participating in some form of lockdown, with 1.7 million confirmed cases — the U.S. is number one with 530,004 cases — and 110,042 dead [so far]. If we did absolutely nothing and went about our daily lives, when all is said and done upward of 7 billion could have been infected, with an estimated 40 million deaths around the world, according to the Imperial College of London. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Looking at our state of Minnesota, if Governor Tim Walz hadn’t taken this seriously and issued no stay-at-home order — a Republican Governor order, or lack there of, if you will — and the virus had spread throughout our state’s population of 5.6 million people, 2.4 million would likely contract COVID-19, with an estimated 74,000 dead. As we sit, 64 fellow Minnesotans have died so far with 1,427 confirmed cases. We have the lowest national infection rate.
This is not the flu, this is not ebola, this is its own unique beast, and if people we know and love keep up with this idea that it’s no big deal and they refuse to let Walz or other public officials “take away their freedoms”, they will be the single greatest threat to all of us, and the sole reason this devastating period of time will extend out even further. ⠀⠀⠀⠀
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As Bernie Sanders stated at the conclusion of his virtual FDR inspired fireside chat four weeks ago, “These are tough times. We will get through this. Let us understand, if there was ever a moment in history when we are in this together — for all kinds of reasons — this is that moment. Let’s stand together. Let’s have history look back on this moment and say, ‘Wow. Despite who the president is, the American people stood up and did the right thing, cared about each other, loved each other, and made sure we all got through this together’.”
The end will come, and the recovery period will be arduous, but we are all in this together. No amount of denial will change that. Not me, us.
