Yesterday I saw a video of protesters in Boise, Idaho succeeding in blocking a “mask mandate” with one of the protesters waiving a sign which read “99% survivability is not an emergency.” This is the kind of ignorance during this pandemic which just grates on me – especially on the day when I discovered my niece, who works in the University of Washington health care system, has been infected with Covid-19 as she’s been FIGHTING this virus in the hospital she works in for the past 10 months. In fact, “her’ hospital was one of the first to be inundated with patients as Seattle was a “hot spot” at the beginning of this pandemic. Here’s the deal, check out Worldometer.info for the actual statistics.

Of the OVER 17 MILLION Americans who’ve been diagnosed with Covid-19 over 310,000 Americans have DIED. According to the statistics on their site about 3% of those who contract the virus DIE. Of course, many have contracted the virus and not become one of the statistics, but, likewise, MANY Americans have died of Covid this past year and have not been part of those statistics either. Early on, the estimates I read was over 200 people per week in New York DYING in their homes because the hospitals were overflowing. That has happened in Houston and who knows how many other places around the country. If you get the “bad” version of this disease the onset of critical condition can happen in a matter of hours. People waving signs like the one I referenced above are likely paying attention to Fox “news” and the right wing echo chamber.

Plus, I have to add, approximately 20% of people who contract Covid-19 end up with various lasting effects of the disease. At this point in time I don’t believe the medical community understands what those lasting effects are and how long they will persist. I’ve listened to people who were diagnosed with Covid six months ago and are still having negative affects from their battle with the disease, still struggling to breathe. And, there’s more to this as I think about it and calm my anger at people who are willfully ignorant – when they get sick they’ll expect the people in the hospital to take full care of them and if they end up being intubated they’ll find a way to avoid the expense if they can, or they’ll be complaining about high medical costs. The HIGH cost for my niece (and possibly my daughter who is an RN and is exhausted from the past 10 months) is she’s SICK, her husband and her FOUR children are all exposed.

Individual 1 was pushing his “herd mentality” back during the summer and anyone, at the time, who was thinking straight understood he meant he was pursuing a “herd immunity” – ie doing NOTHING to mitigate the spread of the virus, which works for him because he’s been the LAZIEST president in my lifetime – and, of course, it was “his little secret” from those not paying close attention to all of this. The actual reality is our IMPEACHED so-called two time popular vote LOSING president has been encouraging people to get infected with the virus! I’m not kidding!

To the people carrying the signs claiming “99% survivability……….” I would point out OVER 3600 Americans DIED from Covid-19 just YESTERDAY and, likely, it will happen again today, or maybe worse. Apparently, the people who gather in the protests against mask wearing will have no idea about all this or they won’t care. This country has a large segment of the population who are susceptible to MISINFORMATION (ie LYING) and grifters like individual 1 are taking full advantage of all this. They’re raising “boatloads” of money from people who have been sucked in by the fear mongering which has permeated the right wing of our politics since the days of the republican plan for their “permanent republican ‘majority.'” People are getting rich by BRAINWASHING the vulnerable Americans who don’t seem to be able to think for themselves.

I grew up in a family with a single Mom, four kids, and I worked almost full time during High School while playing football, basketball, and baseball because my Mom had never worked when my Dad “flew the coop” and she was stuck in minimum wage jobs – at the time paying $1.25 per hour. (Yes, you read that correct) Somehow, thanks to basketball and, later the State Employment office, I made it through college eventually earning a Master’s degree in Teaching. I’m NOT “elite” – yet, on occasion I’ve been accused of being “elitist” because I expect adults in our society to take their obligation to be an informed citizen serious. I expect people who’ve learned to read to actually read something informative when forming important opinions.

So, now we’re at a place where the right wing members of our nation are not only making this virus MUCH worse for the rest of us, but “we the people” are still STAGGERING from the attempt by our IMPEACHED so-called two time popular vote LOSING president attempting a “coup d’etat” in the aftermath of the election. Just as we saw 126 members of the House and 17 right wing Attorney Generals around the country expose themselves as out and out fascists I believe we’ll soon (January 6th) see a group of republicans in Congress who will STILL refuse to accept that Joe Biden WON the 2020 election with 306 electoral votes. We need to create the “Wall of Shame” with their names on it in BOLD so “we the people” don’t forget.

People are dying in numbers above 9/11 EVERY day – and, they don’t care. Joe Biden WON the election for president by over 7 MILLION votes and, they don’t care AND don’t accept it. It’s as if Vladimir Putin succeeded beyond his wildest dreams when he directed the ATTACK on our nation during the 2016 election – he not only got individual 1’s incompetence in the “White House” but, he succeeded in disrupting our open society – turning our “freedom” against us in an attempt to overthrow our government. And, at least until individual 1 is gone, we will have NO opportunity to provide Putin with a consequence for his ATTACK on our country. Obviously, our IMPEACHED so-called two time popular vote LOSING president is NOT going to do ANYTHING to STOP the Russians. We now know they’ve been hacking into our government affairs for this past year – with no apparent response from the U.S. Who’s fault is that? Wouldn’t that be something for our “Commander in Chief?”

I started this post last week and the statistics continue to be startling. We’ve now come to accept over 200,000 new infections EVERY day as, well, routine. Deceased Americans in number exceeding 9/11 every day? Well, it’s become routine. Is it going to get even worse – despite the reality vaccines are rolling out? Yes and I can give you a good reason why. Today, I was at the Post Office and talked to the lady who has been there (this is a small “local” post office) for many years and I coached her two sons about 20 years ago when they were sixth graders and she said, “I’m not taking the vaccine.” Then she added, “I think the virus is a hoax” then realized I wasn’t in agreement and she then added, “I probably have extreme views.” One of her sons had the virus and has since recovered so, to her, it’s just like the flu.

I reminded her that, in California right now, you can’t get into a hospital unless you’re “lucky” – meaning really sick. This lady was wearing a mask because it’s required, but she started with the “I think the mask is more dangerous than the virus.” I wanted to tell her where she gets her “news” but I chose to just leave our relationship as a positive one because I’ve had too many conversations with Fox “news” viewers in the past. I know it’s better to just smile and say “thanks” and move on. This lady is an individual 1 supporter and I left wondering what she thinks of an IMPEACHED so-called two time popular vote LOSING president who is pondering OVERTHROWING our government – at least attempting to do so. I kind of hope he tries it because he won’t be able to pardon himself from that. I want there to FINALLY be some accountability for corrupt republican presidents. (democrats? If they break the laws as well, yes!) I hope my friend will at least draw the line here. (Even discussing this seditious behavior is ILLEGAL)

Final Thought: Today I was reading a Washington Post article titled, “The inside story of how Trump’s denial, mismanagement and magical thinking led to the pandemic’s dark winter” – and, of course, winter has just begun (Yesterday was another day with OVER 3000 Americans dying from the coronavirus’ Covid-19) and, of course, the authors of the article had to put in a response to their claims of individual 1’s incompetence with a paragraph by one of the sycophants of our IMPEACHED so-called two time popular vote LOSING president which read:

“President Trump (The only way I could get that word into this document is via copy and paste) has led a historic, whole-of-America coronavirus response – resulting in 100,000 ventilators procured, an abundance of critical PPE sourced for our frontline heroes, the largest testing regime in the world, groundbreaking treatments, and a safe and effective vaccine in record time with another to be approved in the coming days,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews said in a statement. She went on to attribute the success of vaccines to Trump’s “bold and innovative leadership.”

Honestly, I don’t know where to start. To me, none of that, if it was true, is noteworthy. Wouldn’t that be the absolute MINIMUM expected of a “Commander in Chief” in the face of a once in a century pandemic. And, of course, individual 1 didn’t have much to do with the development of ANY of the vaccines, other than to encourage them to be developed as quickly as possible – in his mind, so he could win re-election. I can’t remember a single instance where he’s shown the slightest empathy to all the people suffering because of this pandemic. One of the reasons that person’s “defense” of individual 1 is so galling to me is because of the part of it I KNOW to be untrue.

My niece has been working in one of the University of Washington’s hospitals FIGHTING this virus since its inception and, just recently, she was infected with the virus. She’s been working incredibly LONG hours in the ICU unit of the hospital and when I was talking to her mother (my sister in law) about how she’s doing I learned that of the 30 members of her “team,” right now 10 of them – fully one third – are “sidelined” with the virus. Obviously, the vaccine’s a bit late for them. Here’s the rub – while Ms. Matthews is giving credit to individual 1 for ” the abundance of PPE,” the reason for all the member’s of this hospital (including my niece) getting the virus is because of the LACK of PPE. Face masks designed to be worn in one room and then discarded were forced to be reused over and over during the day. Other things like discardable gowns were being re-used because of the shortage. This EIGHT months into the crisis. To me that is the opposite of a success. Try as they might, I don’t think individual 1’s supporters will EVER be able to paint a believable picture of him as a success in dealing with this virus. He’s been AWOL since early summer and that will be a hard fact to “spin.”