Unmasked

The holidays are about family, friends, and togetherness.  This year has challenged those things in many aspects.  Lockdowns, mask mandates, curfews, fear marketing, scare tactics-the list goes on!  The COVID infomercials, news casts, social media ploys are just never ending, but what about the rest of the world?

It seems the majority of the world has been pushed aside to make way for political propaganda and illogical rules for the minority.  Now, do not get me wrong, those families that have lost someone from Covid-my heart goes out.  But my heart also goes out to those who have lost someone period.  Death is never easy or welcomed!

As of November 25th, 2020, COVID deaths accounted for less than 10% of U.S. deaths (less than 3% globally).   9.26% to be more precise and guess what?  Pneumonia deaths account for 9.06%-a communicable disease which has a vaccine yet hundreds of thousands die from it every year. (CDC)  I know I was not wearing a mask last year.  Were you?  I was challenged on the above because car accidents, suicide, and those types of deaths are not contagious.

So I looked up communicable diseases in the Global Bureau of Statistics.  It is estimated that that over 11.7 million people have died from a communicable disease this year.  Covid accounts for about 1.4 million of these globally which means over 85% of the deaths have nothing to do with Covid.  Yet, so many social media and news streams continue to cram Covid into our lives while pushing out the most important parts of being human-connection, love, family, togetherness.  

I see a lot about the case numbers rising.  Some news streams and people will have you believe those numbers are more important than the bigger picture.  They will try to convince us that only one test is counted for each person.  I worked in a lab and in my opinion would be a false claim.  First, it is a HIPAA violation to share a patients information.  For pandemic purposes, only the results can be shared when reporting for tracing purposes.

Now, if a patient goes to the same doctor, it is likely the same lab is used every time.  Now, that lab could see if that patient already had a test result in a positive.  The challenge lies in someone actually going in their system and looking that up before reporting-this would be a full-time job as NO lab system I have seen is set up to flag someone every time they get a positive and take them out of the report.

I have also heard that antigen tests have been included in the reporting as a positive.  I am not sure to the validity of this, but if that is the case, this would skew the numbers even more.  Antigen tests just tell you if you have the antibodies and does not necessarily mean you are positive for Covid.  Also, keep in mind they report cases without telling you how many are symptomatic and how many are not just like reporting the deaths; they do not tell you how many died with underlying conditions vs. a 'healthy' person.

I will not get into unemployment and how much more harm lockdowns have had on the economy and mental strength of this country.  Just know people are losing everything and they too will not be at the dining room table because they cannot afford it.

With all this said, the next time you see the sad infomercials about people not being at the dining room table because of Covid alone.  Take time to remember the majority of empty tables this year are attributed to non-covid conditions.  Pray for them too!  Send those people your warm thoughts and wishes.

Final thought:  Life is a risk!  We take risks everyday whether it be at our work place, driving, leaving the house, going to the gym. . .the point is we get to decide which are too risky and worth the risk.  Right now-we do not have a choice (or are very limited in choice).  We do not have any responsibility in a sense because we have people thinking for us.  Making the moves for us.  Telling us whether we can have people over for Thanksgiving or not.  All those people, know the risks and get to decide if they go or stay-not the news, politician, or anything in between.