COVID-19 Vindication – Religion and Politics

Kurt's Religion and Politics

20201109 COVID-19 Vindication – The Daily Summation Podcast

If you’re new to my blog, you may not be aware I’ve been pretty keenly attending, the COVID-19 statistical data for the U. S.

I have a tendency to pay the closest attention to various data on fatalities. The reason for this, is that I expect the vast majority of survivors, will very likely come back to more or less complete health, over the course of time.

Obviously, the same is not true for those who lose their lives to the ailment.

For those interested in checking out general fatality information for the United States, you can go to the page at the U. S. Centers for Disease Control titled Daily Updates of Totals by Week and State. If you want information broken out by age and a variety of other factors, you can go to the page entitled Weekly Updates by Select Demographic and Geographic Characteristics found on the same site.

There’s an interesting reality that can be found in Table 1 on the first page given. It turns out that we had a spike in mortality at the beginning of the pandemic, followed a pretty large drop in short order.

After many states began to open up from lock-downs, we saw another spike, which rather quickly subsided.

Since that time, all we’ve seen, is a continuing decline in deaths.

Obviously, if the rest of the country were to go back more or less to normal, we could count on another spike, followed by a likely very similar drop in fatalities.

This points to an interesting idea, that can be expressed in a single word. That word is, “Vindication.”

Here’s what makes that even more true. It turns out that, places in the country that haven’t already experienced spikes in infections, are now doing so. That means, mask wear, lock-downs, or not, they’re still seeing similar results—albeit, delayed by the supposed precautions.

Even so, the jump in cases is fairly small when compared to what’s happening in parts of Europe.

That’s right, that bastion of proper action is now seeing massively increased numbers of infections, in areas that carefully, studiously, chose to shut themselves into their homes, and wear appropriate facial coverings.

As should be expected, those countries (or parts of countries) that already had increases in COVID-19 numbers, aren’t seeing the same kind of increases.

Here’s the thing. I’m pretty sure if you asked about any virologist or immunologist, they would tell you pretty plainly, that viruses don’t just disappear.

This is particularly true if they’re passed around through simple respiratory activity.

What that means is, folks’ve been more or less prolonging the agony, rather than somehow defeating the bug.

Though people may want to disagree, I’m pretty sure of what we can and should expect. The virus will—over time—make its way through the majority of the population.

People will either survive, or sadly, pass on.

Once that happens though, a good number of folks will be immune, at least for a time, leaving the invader with little to no mechanism to spread.

People try to argue to the contrary, but this is more or less the same thing that ended up happening with Spanish Influenza, and other such outbreaks.

We may think we’re massively more sophisticated in the modern day, but honestly, that’s not so much the case.

It’s true that some viral epidemics or pandemics, can be limited in scope by using certain techniques. For airborne ailments though, that’s just generally not the case, unless you catch them very early—something pretty much everybody failed to do with COVID-19.

That said, I believe we’re in much better shape to deal with that pathogen now, than when things started where it’s concerned. That’s because we have various therapeutic methodologies for dealing with it, that should not only keep folks alive, but help them to heal more quickly, and suffer less severe after-effects.

Considering that younger, healthier people, seem to be mildly affected, mitigation should largely only be necessary for older folks, and folks with comorbidities (other conditions that work together to cause more serious effects).

The idea of a vaccine, seems a rather silly one to me for a couple of reasons.

The first of these, can be found when looking at the standard vaccine for influenza. Its effectiveness ranges between marginal (10 to 15 percent), and moderate success (almost never at the level of 70 percent or above).

Besides that, there will certainly be those, who refuse to be vaccinated.

The second consideration, is that even if a vaccine is created in the minimum possible time, it’s likely to be a couple years from the beginning of the outbreak; before it’s ready for mass production and distribution. That’s probably going to take even longer, with changes in government, should they occur; if on no other basis, than the need for an acclimatization process, by those taking the helm.

Based on the aforementioned Spanish ‘Flu’s period of strong effect, that means, by the time we have a remotely effective vaccine—even working exceptionally quickly—COVID-19is likely to be more or less, no longer a serious factor.

For those really looking at things, this means the concept of a vaccine, has pretty much always been a pipe-dream, and not much more.

What this all points to though, is other than overreacting to the virus, the fact is, the policies and activities in the United States, have probably been as spot-on, as those of any other country. If that’s not the case, it’s only because they’ve been more so.

We’ve never been a nation of cowardly folks. We’ve always tended to be hale and hardy.

Nobody has ever wanted to see people die from this disease, or anything else. I maintain far fewer would have done so, had it not been for malfeasance, on the part of some.

My final thought is this though. You can think what you want, in my way of looking at things, all said to this point, adds up to just one word. I used it at the beginning of this little writing. That word is, vindication. Like it or not, although we may have overdone things, we certainly didn’t fail, as folks would have others believe.

Thanks for reading, and may your time be good.


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