Life, Not More Important than Inconvenience

 

“Remember when 240,000 dead was a shocking estimate?” 

Asked by Nicholas Goldberg in an LA Times Aril 18th OpEd.

The United States, even with more than ample supply of vaccines and masks, is facing a virtual certainty of achieving a million direct-from-COVID deaths in the immediate future. This reality does not cover the uncounted horde of deceased people who either did not go to hospitals or could not be timely saved because hospitals were overwhelmed by COVID patients. That we are experiencing a new BA-2 COVID Omicron surge, much more contagious although less virulent than past strains, still does not stop diehard Trumpers who insist that they have right to mix in public, even in highly confined spaces, without wearing a mask. Even those with symptomless COVID.

Unless there is a stay pending appeal, the mask mandate in public transportation may have just ended by order of a lower court ruling.  U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of Florida, a Trump appointee, said the mandate exceeds the statutory authority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Federal officials last week had extended the mask mandate for flying commercially and in other transportation settings, including on buses, ferries and subways, until at least May 3rd. Kimball Mizelle said a remedy limited to the plaintiffs would be meaningless, so this Tampa-based federal judge decided on a summary judgment (i.e., no trial) to vacate that CDC mandate across the entire country.

Regardless of your immune status or other medical vulnerabilities, you could be sardined on a flight, even on the bus on the way to the airport, to alleviate the “anxiety level” of a fellow traveler inconvenienced by having to wear a mask while traveling. That greater anxiety might be imposed on fellow travelers is irrelevant? And while those who have been vaccinated and boosted are unlikely to perish from a COVID infection, there is no guarantee of a symptomless recovery with no risk of long COVID. How quickly, we forget. Bleach or horse de-wormer, anyone? That drove Los Angeles Times correspondent, Nicholas Goldberg, to wax nostalgic about the bad old days, in his OpEd noted above:

“At the start of the pandemic, in late March 2020, President Trump held a White House briefing at which his top advisors presented their official COVID-19 death projections. In somber tones, they forecasted that between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans would die from the disease if we followed reasonable social-distancing and other mitigation guidelines.

“Two hundred and forty thousand! That was an inconceivable amount of death. Four times the number of Americans who died in Vietnam. Eighty times the number who died in the 9/11 attacks.

“‘As sobering a number as that is, we should be prepared for it,’ said Dr. Anthony Fauci [at the time], the nation’s leading infectious disease expert. Trump added that there was ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ if we behaved as we should, but that ‘we’re going to go through a very tough two weeks.’

“Today, two years later, we all know how that worked out. We didn’t behave as we should. We didn’t see the light after two weeks. And we didn’t have 100,000 deaths, or 240,000 deaths either.

“Instead, we’re now closing in on 1 million deaths. As of Sunday [4/17], total U.S. COVID deaths were at 986,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with 400 more Americans dying each day… Our cumulative national death rate of more than 200 per 100,000 people is higher than that of any other large, wealthy, industrialized nation…

“Admittedly, this is a confusing moment. The danger has lessened. And by now, even liberal Democrats who hate Trump, revere Fauci and uncomplainingly followed all the mitigation rules are very sick of hiding out from this disease. We all want our lives back.

“So we tell ourselves there’s a level of ongoing death we can live with. That COVID is like the flu — endemic, not pandemic. That we’re vaxxed, and better yet boosted, and therefore we’re kind of, sort of, invulnerable.

“But eager as we may be for this to be over, now is a time to move slowly and avoid complacency. For one thing, only 66% of the country is fully vaccinated; only 45% has received even one booster. (In L.A. County alone, there are some 1.7 million people over age 5 who haven’t received even a single shot.) For another, as long as the virus is raging anywhere, the possibility of new, more dangerous mutations remains real… If we’re careful, perhaps we can slow the process and keep 1 million from becoming 2 million.”

Funny how that exceptionally selfish vision of individual rights, enshrined nowhere in religious text or constitutional law, seems to permeate a widely populist, modern and dangerous vision of America. From gun ownership, even to military assault weapons, all the way to mingling in public without concern for spreading an infectious disease. Inconsiderate? Rude? Or subject to reasonable rules and regulations?

I’m Peter Dekom, and the “say anything, do anything that I want” American constituency says more about the survivability of the nation than it does about individual liberties.