I have had it… just totally had it.
I just sent a message to my state representative (imagine that?) over some thing important to me, trying to ensure that it’s important to him as well. (Or at least that he’s aware of it; the best that can be done most times.) And what do I get back? A “thank you for your message” at the top of which is a Corona advisory statement.
That’s enough! Really!!
I will accept Corona / CoVid statements from people qualified to discuss it. A state representative is not a practicing virologist, nor are the newscasters who act like it’s “The Stand” out there, nor are the county officials who… never mind. Enough of this stuff from people not directly involved with nor able to affect the CoVid situation.
(By the way, the legislator’s statement was about his staff working from home, not about my staying safe, nor anything like that. You know what? I don’t care. It doesn’t affect me. I do not need to know. I assume he and his staff are adults and doing what ever they find necessary in order to get their jobs done under any and all circumstances. Radical idea, huh?)
The simple truth is that most of the people making the decisions about CoVid are almost certainly the same kids who were throwing spit-balls at the ceiling during grade school science class. Now they get to make science-related decisions? How did that come about?
Give me data from actual virologists. Not from newscasters barely out of journalism school (if they have even that much training — listening to them I have to wonder — and I speak as a person with some journalism background, so there!). Not from legislators who can’t think their way out of rubics cube (the solution to rubics cube? Find a passing 10 year and let him solve it for you, then move on to something more important).
By the way, few weeks back I found a virologist, an actual, practicing virologist attached to a local CoVid “task force” (so to speak), and pinned him down for about 2 hours. (He was quite willing to discuss it with me.) Short version: he would totally agree with the above rant. All of it.
A lot of what he said I won’t bother to repeat (here, at least), because given the four-wall job the media has done on this over the last 18 months, most of you won’t believe most of what he had to say, unless you heard it first hand. I don’t blame you for that. That would be sensible, even. However, I do advise (strongly) that you do your own research. Find the facts. Even if you have to review some 7th grade biology (gasp!) in order to understand it. Do your own research. The news-anchors ain’t qualified even to understand how much damage they do with the adrenalin-pumping misinformation sessions they shove down your attention span every day, let alone why their statements about CoVid are potentially misleading and even harmful.
Look it up for yourself. But not on Fox News, or Yahoo (God no), or any other news source who’s bread and butter is sensationalism (which is almost all of them, come to think of it). Instead, go to actual science outlets. Try www.cdc.gov (you know, Centers for Disease Control?) Use Google Scholar (scholar.google.com — a different search engine Google maintains that is more information and less bull than is the “consumer” search engine). Find an old encyclopedia (you know, an actual printed book, maybe at your local library) and look up the article on viruses. (Virii).
99% percent of the fear and desperation that’s been shoveled out these almost-two-years about the pandemic is unwarranted, and has caused a lot of social and health problems in itself. Some of the decisions made have done damage also; look up anomalous deaths in your favorite search engine — you’ll find rapidly increasing numbers of people dying because their medical needs were bumped due to the official reaction(s) to the pandemic. Though I hoped I was wrong, I’ve been expecting that for some time, and it has finally hit the media and the science reporting.
Here’s a weird idea: Look at the actual numbers. Adjust them for a 12 month period and then compare those to, say, deaths from diabetes, or from car crashes or heart disease. Might put it the whole thing into perspective for you.
It is not The Stand out there. Sorry, it just isn’t.
Yes, it’s important. Absolutely. Folks at risk especially need to take some precautions. But that’s no different from how it’s always been. There are several other major health crises going on, don’t you know? Like, did you know that more people die from prostate cancer each year than from breast cancer? Did you know Men can get breast cancer? Yet breast cancer gets over 10x the budget that prostate cancer gets? Did you know that while America is just about the only country that does the annual (normal) flu shot, America also has the highest incidence of (normal) flu every year? (That’s correlation, though — meaning the shot isn’t necessarily the cause, but we need to find out, don’t you think? If it’s not, then why does America have such crummy health?) Do you realize there’s an incredibly high percentage of health issues that come simply from the awful food products on the market? (More than half of all distress / disease / chronic conditions — and that’s probably an under-statement.) Did you know that Chronic Fatigue (a condition MUCH ignored in America) now has an official death rate attached to it?
Did you know that 40 years ago I could call my GP (what we now call a Primary Care Provider, geez) and get him on the phone and discuss something with him for 10 minutes, without having to make an appointment for 3 to 6 weeks from now?
Let’s fix the health care delivery system. Let’s back up to the days of Marcus Welby, MD. The system worked better in those days, was more affordable (way! way more affordable!!), and doctors still made more money then than they do today (individually, that is; these days the profits go to the HMOs and other medical corporations instead of to the actual health care providers, go figure…). Let’s fix the food system. Let’s educate people on how to keep their bodies strong and healthy, instead of worn down and used up by the constant intake of toxins and social and psychic stress.
Let’s eliminate car exhaust, which is definitely a major contributor to general poor health, especially respiratory conditions — which then makes one more susceptible to things like CoVid! Gee Whiz, Batman!
My point? Where are the legislators on these older, far more serious problems and situations? They jump all over this one health issue — CoVid — with great gusto and enthusiasm, yet totally ignore this Herd of Elephants that has been camped out in the living room for decades.
And maybe all these CoVid / Corona decisions are valid and necessary. (Only way to tell for sure would be to run the last two years over again without these precautions and compare — meaning we really can’t know how effective all this was or wasn’t.) Maybe Corona still has a few surprises for us (all the variants, for instance) — time will tell. Maybe the “vaccine” (so-called, it isn’t a vaccine, you know? It’s a prophylactic treatment) has some surprises for us, too. (Lot’s of people think so, but there’s little hard evidence for that so far.) I even wear my mask when it’s appropriate to do so. That’s all fine. I’m not saying otherwise. What I am saying is that we need to stick to the facts, stop exaggerating, and stop passing around adrenalin-pumping emotional anti-reporting.
Doom and Gloom it sells more air-time, bigger ad spaces and gets more viewers. Whoopy. They’d be selling tickets to the End of the World, these people, without ever realizing the devastating irony of it.
Phooey, I say! Phooey.
Double-Phooey!!
I order something online, a small computer accessory, say, and I get an thank-you email with a CoVid advisory on it.
Ahhhhhhhhhh!!! Stop it!!!
[30]