Inscription entering the Paris Catacombs. It reads "Stop! This is the empire of death."
A grim New York Times analysis found that the death toll from COVID in the United States far outstrips that in any other wealthy industrialized country: at least 63 percent higher than in England or Germany or France.
One barely needs to mention why. More than a third of Americans—36 percent—are not fully vaccinated. In Canada, it's 20 percent. More than a third of Americans are obese—in Japan it's 4 percent—which makes a sufferer far more susceptible to die from COVID.
Fat, medically ignorant people. Not exactly what is traditionally in mind when hopping around, poking your fist in the air and chanting, "We're Number One! We're Number One!"
But any port in a storm, right?
With vaccines politicized, 20 percent of the United States citizens refusing their shots entirely and even more skipping the booster, the omicron is scything across the country virtually unchecked. I don't know about you, but lots of my friends and relatives are suddenly getting it. All vaccinated, thank goodness. Those who aren't are 23 times more likely to be hospitalized. Already 891,000 have died over the past two years, and at this rate—about 2,500 COVID deaths. a day—we'll reach a million dead before St. Patrick's Day.
Not that the anti-vaccine crowd will care. As I've said many times before, once you start ignoring reality, the specific reality being ignored hardly matters.
And the rest of us? The most cautious follower of science falls prey to the natural acceptance of almost any risk. Think of how the risk of any new technology is viewed: autonomously-driving cars. Each death in their testing is treated as a specific calamity. Totally unacceptable! While regular human-piloted cars can mow down 20,000 or 30,000 people every year and nobody balks at getting behind the wheel. Because we're used to that. Maybe someday a half million or so Americans dying every year of COVID is just the price we pay for living in an ignorant, fear-ridden, anti-social country. Like school shootings. Just something shrugged off. What can a person do? It isn't like anybody can do anything.
Plus most Americans couldn't find other countries on a map, never mind keep track of what happens in them. If they did, we'd have universal health care. And frankly, between Putin getting ready to grab Ukraine, and his biggest fanboy, Donald Trump gathering his energies to seize control of the government at home in a more focused and forceful manner, I could see an argument that COVID is the least of our problems right now. Which is also terrifying.
With vaccines politicized, 20 percent of the United States citizens refusing their shots entirely and even more skipping the booster, the omicron is scything across the country virtually unchecked. I don't know about you, but lots of my friends and relatives are suddenly getting it. All vaccinated, thank goodness. Those who aren't are 23 times more likely to be hospitalized. Already 891,000 have died over the past two years, and at this rate—about 2,500 COVID deaths. a day—we'll reach a million dead before St. Patrick's Day.
Not that the anti-vaccine crowd will care. As I've said many times before, once you start ignoring reality, the specific reality being ignored hardly matters.
And the rest of us? The most cautious follower of science falls prey to the natural acceptance of almost any risk. Think of how the risk of any new technology is viewed: autonomously-driving cars. Each death in their testing is treated as a specific calamity. Totally unacceptable! While regular human-piloted cars can mow down 20,000 or 30,000 people every year and nobody balks at getting behind the wheel. Because we're used to that. Maybe someday a half million or so Americans dying every year of COVID is just the price we pay for living in an ignorant, fear-ridden, anti-social country. Like school shootings. Just something shrugged off. What can a person do? It isn't like anybody can do anything.
Plus most Americans couldn't find other countries on a map, never mind keep track of what happens in them. If they did, we'd have universal health care. And frankly, between Putin getting ready to grab Ukraine, and his biggest fanboy, Donald Trump gathering his energies to seize control of the government at home in a more focused and forceful manner, I could see an argument that COVID is the least of our problems right now. Which is also terrifying.