Alright, I'm going to say this once, and then I'm going to go away. I'm not debating about freedom, or "right to work", or anti-vaccination nonsense, or any of the misguided nonsense going on in this thread or the other one in the Watercooler section.
For those who think this is a worldwide conspiracy against "The Grand Orange Poobah", you can kindly "Go F.... Yourselves".
I think it's really cute people are still comparing this to the flu. If you wanted to play that game back in February, when you could claim to be misguided by the Chinese or whoever the f***...........fine............if you are still doing it, you're the reason why we're devolving into a 3rd world country and the rest of the world is laughing at us, or concerned we're going to be a permanent hot spot they can never do business with again.
I have a sister who's stationed at an Air Force base in South Korea. She's seeing how they've handled it, and how we're handling it over here, and we're a literal laughing stock..........which I'm sure many in this country are obliviously proud of.
Firstly, my uncle contracted Covid back in March. Early 60's, strong as an ox, still golfs, swims and plays rec league basketball regularly. Hospitalized for three weeks. No ventilator, but was put in an oxygenated room, Covid still wrecked through his system, got sepsis of the liver, and 5 months later he still hasn't really completely recovered. He's had the flu before, this isn't the flu.
Lastly, my wife lost both of her parents to Covid, in a 3 week span between April and May. They were not on their deathbeds already when it took them. The flu takes people in 1st World Countires who are already (for the most part) on their deathbeds, Covid puts them there. They were not living in a nursing home. They were not in hospice. They were not convalescing. They were in their early to mid 70's at the time. They were exposed by somebody who had it and didn't know they had it, during a trip to the hospital for an unrelated issue.
My mother-in-law received a dose of Trump's "miracle drug", had a major cardiac event hours later, and died. Then her body was actually misplaced in a refrigerated truck because of the Covid backlog at the hospital and unable to be found for several days.
My father-in-law spent 3 weeks fighting on a ventilator before he passed. Much of it in agony and unable to communicate properly when he was awake. The medical bills that the family saw for the pair of them after they passed, that was submitted to the insurance companies, approached $1 Million bucks. If you think the pittance the government gives to hospitals for Covid cases, are grotesquely skewing the statistics in Covids favor........you don't know how hospitals work. Anecdotal bullsh*t does not skew statistics that badly.
The only person who could visit them while they were sick, was my sister-in-law, who just happened to be a medical professional at the hospital they were being treated at. My wife (a former medical professional herself), was sewing triple filtered masks for her sister and the hospital she was working for, as they couldn't restock in supplies fast enough at the time.
The dual memorial service for her parents was about 20 minutes long, in a cemetery, with less then 20 people in attendance and spread out over the grounds. Unbelievably, I still saw idiots show up to a goddamn Covid funeral without masks on. But hey, "Freedom".........amirite?
My wife was unable to tie up any emotional loose ends she had with her parents, before they passed.
CNN didn't tell me this, the portion of "the media", that involves fact checkers and non-opinion pieces that a lot of this country seems to hate, didn't tell me this, Dr. Anthony Fauci didn't tell me this.
I lived this with my wife, and she still lives with it today. She has to deal with supposed friends asking her about "underlying conditions" her parents had. She has to deal with the underlying rage that builds up when she sees store clerks without masks on in close proximity to other people, or even worse, people who enter a store she is in with a mask, to get past the front gates, and then proudly rip off their mask, the second they get past that first line of defense, and then sneer at her, like she's some "sheep", for keeping her mask on.
If you think these are "Acceptable Casualties" and consequences of this virus, on behalf of my wife I will happily say "F**k You!".
Sincerely, Me.
P.S. Not looking for condolences or sympathy.....just for people to open their eyes. If Leon wants to disappear this entire thread and the other one, I'm all for it. I see enough of this sh*t everywhere else already.