COVID-19 predictions
The COVID-19 pandemic has vividly shown that educating people, even in a most educated country, is not easy, especially when some of its spineless leaders spread misinformation in order to be politically correct so as not to lose votes. In the process, they go against science and say what their constituents want to hear: No mandates on mask and vaccines, even when science says otherwise. And of course, as expected, this has contributed immensely to the confusion and chaos and the nearly 50 million COVID-19 cases and almost 800,000 dead Americans.
Scientifically, majority of these infections, hospitalizations, and deaths were preventable! More than 90 percent of the casualty involved the unvaccinated. Science, not politics, is what we need to end this pandemic. The government must follow science! All of us should continue educating the public, even repeatedly, until people truly understand that COVID-19 is a vicious stealth killer that must be destroyed soonest. And that we now have the vaccines to do it
A national disaster, in this case a part of a global calamity, deserves no less than a unified federal response, not a DIY fragmented and conflicting management approaches by 50 State governments, many times politically clashing against one another. An outburst or a local endemic affecting a city or a State may be handled by the State government, but not a pandemic! In a national cataclysm, like a war or a pandemic, all the 50 States must be seamlessly in synced with the federal government, functioning as a one unified force against SARS-CoV2 virus. We cannot afford to lose more lives. One person dying is one too many.
Epidemiologists from all around the world have developed a proven scientific protocol, the technology, the wherewithal, a proven containment strategy to minimize, even end, the infections and deaths, but sadly, all of these state-of-the-art armamentaria are all still waiting for the national government to employ and deploy fully ASAP. The administration and The Congress have failed to consolidate their efforts and properly utilize the proven effective weapons they have at their disposal in a timely fashion to defeat this killer virus soonest. They have allowed 50 million people to get infected and greater than three quarters of a million to die…and counting.
This is gross negligence and dereliction of duty on the part of the Executive and Legislative branches of our government, arguably (just to make a point) bordering on involuntary mass manslaughter or negligent genocide, and they must be liable and held accountable. Not mandating a proven and available epidemiologic strategy that would have saved millions from getting infected and nearly 800,000 from dying is clearly negligence and a dereliction of a sworn duty of these public servants to serve and protect the nation and its citizens.
If a physician did not employ the available state-of-the-art standard of medical care (for COVID-19 or other diseases) in a timely fashion resulting in the death of even one patient (or dozens, or hundreds), would he/she not be charged with malpractice, negligent homicide, etc.?
The Federal “mandate” for children to have the required vaccinations before enrolling in school has saved hundreds of millions of children from dying. Countless millions of lives have been saved by these laws against driving without a license or auto insurance, using cellphones while driving, not wearing seat belts, reckless driving, driving while intoxicated; no-smoking bans, etc. These are all government actions curtailing the civil rights of the people to do what they want and their freedom to choose not to obey. But these good laws follow the principle of societal rights, national safety and welfare, prevailing over the rights of the individual. A national mandate for COVID-19 vaccination would be an excellent medical evidence-based law that will end this pandemic soonest and save millions of lives, certainly much more than the other mandates above. Yet, we have such federal mandates.
No end in sight
This COVID-19 pandemic will be with us for years to come because more than 50 million people, in the United States alone, refuse the vaccines. Their bodies will act as long-term hosts, a giant reservoir, and enable the SARS-CoV2 virus to rapidly replicate and mutate non-stop to more easily transmissible and deadlier strains. Without a host, the virus will self-destruct. We may actually end up needing annual COVID-19 shots, like the flu vaccines.
The Delta strain caused breakthrough infections among those who were vaccinated, clearly showing how worse it is compared to the previous variants. Now comes the South African strain, which has led to US travel bans from South Africa and other African nations starting last Monday. Named Omicron variant (B.1.1.529), it may “have the ability to evade COVID vaccines and increase the risk of reinfection.” The longer the virus is allowed to replicate and mutate, the greater risk it becomes to human lives. The Moderna vaccine is now suspected to be ineffective against Omicron virus. Future variants may not respond to any vaccine or treatment at all and wipe us out as a civilization, a bit of a stretch, but a plausible scientific reality. God forbid.
More people will die until we destroy this virus for good. Medically, the only way to do this is to vaccinate every single person, to deny the virus any host. Or, isolate those unvaccinated, carriers and infected, reminiscent of the Leper Colony in the 1800. Obviously, this is not possible, compassionate, nor humane. Scientifically, the unvaccinated people, who are the easy targets of the virus, become the carriers and transmitters of COVID-19 infections. When not totally isolated from others, they will continue to spread this deadly virus and kill more.
Unfortunately, at least 50 million people in the United States appear to be more interested in exercising their civil rights, their freedom of choice, their right to refuse vaccinations, rather than protecting themselves and their fellowmen from this killer virus. The greater tragedy is their choice is killing, taking others with them, and damaging our economy besides our psyche, and prolonging this pandemic.
We should have learned our lessons from Global Plague, the Black Death of the 1890s, which killed more than 200 million across Europe and Asia, and the Spanish Flu of 1918 (USA, UK, France, Germany), which infected more than half a billion people (nearly a third of the world population then) and possibly killed up to 100 million, the deadliest recorded pandemic in human history.
How many more deaths are we waiting for before we do the right thing?
PHOTO CREDIT: MSNBC Breaking News broadcasts.
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