Today is August 11, 2020. It’s been a while since I’ve written on this site. As I write this, 5.2 million Americans have contracted COVID-19, and 166,201 Americans have died.
I have been keeping a “doubling” chart, that looks like this:
When viruses spread, they tend to “double” over time. This virus continues to spread, and it continues to double in the American population.
The saddest part of this is that no one seems to care. We gave up caring several months ago. It is as if we have “caring fatigue”. We in America have tried to go back to “life as normal”, whatever that means. We care more about getting our haircuts and our nails done than the deaths of 166,201 Americans.
Almost every minute of the day, an American dies of COVID-19. As you read this, two Americans will die.
You might wonder why I write about this so much. My reason is that all of this was preventable. All of the deaths and all of the illnesses were avoidable. Had we had someone in the White House who was interested in leading the American people, no Americans would have died.
If you think that is an outrageous claim, consider this:
1) Two Americans contracted the Ebola virus in 2014 while treating patients from other countries. They both recovered. Ebola is more deadly than COVID-19.
2) Some countries have eliminated the virus. New Zealand, for example, has not had a new case of COVID-19 in weeks. They are managing 21 active cases. They had 22 deaths. (A fair criticism of my comparison is that New Zealand is smaller. OK, fair enough. Multiply the fatalities by 60, and the result is 1320 deaths. That is less than 1% of our death toll).
What is the difference between New Zealand and the United States? Leadership. New Zealand has it, and the United States does not.
I have a question for you.
What would the reaction be in the Republican Party if this had happened while Barack Obama was President? (He managed the Ebola outbreak well, and two Americans got sick).
What would the reaction have been if Hillary Clinton had won, and this catastrophe happened while she was President?
Elections matter, folks. If you elect someone who only wants to be a dictator, (and who has no ability to govern or lead), people may die.
In this case, 166,201 Americans. And counting.