The Underinformed Masses Who Put Us All At Risk
Thank you Governor Jared Polis for being such a strong leader and positive example for all Coloradans during this crisis. I have watched most of your press conferences and I wish that public officials in all parts of the country cared as much about their fellow citizens as you do.
The far right, especially those posing as libertarians in cities protesting "stay at home" orders have their head up their as*. Northern and rural Michigan are as far apart politically as you can get from Detroit and the surrounding urban areas where thousands of people are dying. Think Terry Nichols country (since it is the anniversary of the OKC bombing today). [More..]
As for the throngs of people ignoring advice of the CDC, medical and scientific experts to roam the beaches and swim in packs in Jacksonville, FL because their Trump-puppet Governor says it's okay, how about if when you get sick you pay for your own damn testing and respirators -- and those of the people you had contact with who later come down with covid-19?
It's unsettling, to say the least, that these underinformed people and their unleader with a desk in the oval office, albeit for different reasons, cannot see the forest through the trees. Donald Trump doesn't care about freedom or any individuals outside his family. He just wants people back at work so he can falsely claim that his administration didn't hold court over the worst economy collapse in U.S. history. The realization that he will likely go down as the worst and most inept occupant of the oval office in modern history probably makes him apopleptic.
As for the residents of rural and upper Michigan and Jacksonville, FL, maybe they just can't stand being with their families or are uncomfortable being alone and want out of the house. Is it just a coincidence that when looking at the beach pictures, almost all of them are white, just like the people who attend Trump rallies? How many of them really care about going back to work? They are acting like they are on vacation. Shame on them. Their conduct will just result in the disease sticking around much longer than it would otherwise.
Please, ignore these ignoramuses and focus on the advice from good leaders like Colorado governor Jared Polis. Listen to the tragic stories told by the medical workers of people dying without being able to see their loved ones and families who are saying goodbye via Facetime.
Go over to Broadway actor Nick Cordero's wife Amanda' Instagram page and leave some good wishes and play his song. Before contracting coronavirus, he was young and in good health. He's now been in the ICU at Cedars-Sinai in LA for three weeks. He had breathing and kidney problems and blood pressure problems. He and his wife have a two year old son and had just moved to LA from New York so he could take a role in a new production of Rock of Ages. You may remember from his Broadway role in "A Bronx Tale." And even if you've never heard of him, his story is compelling and frightening. His wife Amanda says:
Although everything went smoothly after Cordero, 41, was initially put on the [breathing] machine, his health then took a turn.
“I got a phone call at 2:30 in the morning, they needed my consent to put him on dialysis to assist with his kidneys,” Kloots said. “Now he’s on a ventilator, dialysis and this ECMO machine.”
“We were waiting again and this afternoon we got a phone call that things were really moving in the right direction and that his life was being saved, which was huge. And we all kind of celebrated for a minute until we got a phone call shortly right after saying one of the cannulas for the ECMO was stopping blood flow to his right leg and they had to go into immediate surgery to save the blood flow to his leg,” she added.
Yesterday they amputated his right leg. Amanda has not seen her husband in weeks. She gets all her info by telephone.
A 41 year old actor and dancer having his leg amputated while he's unconscious and won't even know about it until he comes out of his coma? A devoted wife with a toddler in a new city who hasn't been allowed into the hospital in the weeks he's been there, but has to make the decision for him of whether to approve his leg amputation?
This disease is a nightmare, and not just for people over 65.
Listen to the scientists, not the politicians. We need testing and tracing. We need people to stay at home. People should wear masks in public, not for themselves, but to minimize spreading the gunk from their mouths and noses into the air where it might infect others, even if they have no symptoms.
Tell stories of the pandemic's heroes and victims, not the misguided, underinformed selfish supporters of Donald Trump. What goes around will come around for them, eventually. It always does.
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