The Reality of Covid and The Delusional Thoughts of Trump Supporters!

By Ron Signore

With all the time passed and vaccinations rolling, we are starting to feel like normal more than ever in the past year or so. Family outings and gatherings, athletic and entertainment events opening up and businesses loosening their guidelines on COVID restrictions. It has been noticeable that people are taking advantage of the lightened enforcement of COVID guidelines. While I still see people in most cases to be socially distanced in public arenas like stores, the mask usage has dropped significantly.

Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake, COVID is NOT gone. While many of us have been vaccinated, we need to remember that vaccinated is not guaranteed immunization, and transmission of the virus is still possible. I spoke with two healthcare professionals this past week and they had some interesting stories around COVID that truly make me worry that were getting too laxed too quick.

The first conversation was with an ICU nurse, who ironically is a MEGA MAGA SUPPORTER. I say that because I learned that despite his love for the MAGAt view of politics, he believes in science enough to discuss the reality of the COVID situation. Nurses in these practice areas of health professionalism describe COVID as the FLU 6X. While it transmits at a higher rate and causes more impactful reactions to the infected patients in most situations, its mortality rate is not a certain death being less than 1%. The issue we had at hand in the beginning was conflicting misinformation, but also the unknown. The downplay of the virus because of its mortality rate being so low, and news of tabulations for positive COVID tests and COVID related deaths cause mistrust in many. And for those who supported the MAGA principles of information, those tangents were enough to exploit publicly, which allowed for further resistance of doing the right thing.

Clearly, 600,000 people dying from a virus is nothing to scoff at. In fact, the stories my friend had of watching the virus kill people in his care was disturbing to think about. The effects of a body just shutting down and someone slipping away like that will haunt me as I think about those 600,000. It makes me both sad and mad that some of those 600,000 were probably unnecessary deaths cause by the spreading of the careless. Or just as bad, deniers who learned the hard way.

In another conversation with someone from a more administrative perspective of healthcare, many still share paranoia about the virus despite vaccination, but a far more visible part of the population has let their guard down. One healthcare organization has shown many instances where positive tested patients have taken a call one day saying they are feeling fine, and three days later they are in the ICU on a ventilator. The worry is not just for the individual at this point, it is the concern that the lack of worry from potential impact to self would allow a lack of consideration to others by doing something careless like going out in public.

In one case, a patient was documented of slowly getting worse with the impact of the virus after they caught it, and slowly returned to a more normal state when concerning symptoms. But normal was far from a reality. The patient started acting out of the ordinary, going through droves of depression and developing a paranoia to death. While this situation is one case that was brought to attention, the simple truth is that we still do not know the true long-term effects of this virus. If a result of the medical cocktails or just the virus/fevers alone are traumatizing enough to create an impact to brain activity or chemical balances, we could be in for a long trip of increasing depression cases. With the flu, we have years of cases to have an idea of the long-term risks associated, with COVID 19, we do not.

What is most scary to me right now is the increase in transmission to children, and the unknowns of the new strains without vaccinations being readily available for children. Our lives as adults have seen either return to regularity or transitioned to a new normal professionally. Schools and youth activities are still slowly transitioning. What is going to happen when kids, who unfortunately are germ hot spots, start to regroup together? While I like the optimisms in life, especially with the hopes of children and their future, I think we will see a wave spike once kids are back in classrooms everyday together that haven’t been so far.

It is a long road ahead of us, make no mistake. It is not over, not by a long shot. Please, for the sake of people, put your pride aside, put your politics aside and still practice socialization safely.

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