Officially, the United States has over 963,000 deaths from COVID so far. That’s a very conservative number, due in large part to states such as Florida very deliberately undercounting COVID deaths. The actual number is almost certainly more than twice that.
And yet, almost every state has gotten rid of most mask mandates, except for possibly in hospitals and on public transportation. Businesses can still put their own mask mandates in place, but few if any will.
“The pandemic is over!” Bullshit. Anyone who thinks that is a fucking idiot. In the US, while the numbers from the “fourth wave” caused by the Omicron variant are decreasing, we still have something like 1,500+ deaths a day.
A! DAY! 1500!
Boy, we freaked out of our minds over 2,977 deaths on 9/11, didn’t we? But now we’re losing that many of our family and neighbors every 48 hours and no one cares.
What brings this to the forefront and has me so pissed off tonight?
The grocery store yesterday morning.
After over two years of almost 100% compliance with masking requirements, things changed in an instant with the lifting of the mask mandates. It’s been a week or so and last week there were still mostly folks all wearing masks, one or two not, but this week? It’s over folks. Even here in blue California where the loudmouth idiots protesting masks and vaccines were a vocal but very tiny minority, this week the masks came off.
Maybe half of those in the store (besides the employees) were masked. Maybe.
Next week I expect it to be less. And less the following week.
Okay. Whatever. I will continue to wear a mask at all times indoors in any public place, but that’s just me. And a small minority of other sane folks.
For the politicians and those at the CDC who caved to the insane rantings of the vocal minority, I have a question:
Now that you’ve let go of the reins and gone to useless “recommendations” to stay masked, what are you going to do when the numbers start climbing exponentially again?
The genie’s out of the bottle. Pandora’s box has been opened. There’s no going back.
When we’re back to infection rates and hospitalization rates and death rates that make the fourth wave look like a picnic (and remember, we’re STILL at rates that would have horrified us during the first wave), how do you re-start mask mandates and get any compliance whatsoever?
Herd immunity? Never going to happen.
At some point enough people will die, and the health care system will be overwhelmed enough to collapse, and the morons still won’t wear masks, but enough of them will die slow, horrible deaths so that the rest of us can get on with our lives and do what we need to do to stop this.
Until then…
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 