More COVIDiocy: How had we sunk this far?

Today is 9/11, the day when the largest terrorist attack on US soil took 3000+ lives in moments. 

Today also marks a time that it has been more than 20 months since COVID first appeared in the US, and it has claimed 659K lives since then in the US alone (check on Google for latest CDC data). 

In fact, on September 10th alone, CDC recorded 2418 deaths, in the US. And the trend is still upwards. We may see deaths surpassing 3000 daily in a few days. 

US COVID Daily Deaths for 9/10/21 = 2418... and rising

Yet it seems some people are so desperate to go back to normal, they are ignoring the deaths and prefer to tout "right to choose". 

Texas Governor Abbot infamously tweeted that he will defend the Texans' "right to choose" when the Biden administration announced some sweeping vaccine mandates in a few months. How he can tweet that, having signed the anti-abortion law which limits Texas women's "right to choose" not too long ago, signifies the broken Republican moral system, and clearly, his own broken hypocrisy detector. But let's not get into that at the moment. 

It seems a lot of Federal Worker Unions are not going to be onboard the vaccine mandate train, so to speak. Many have carefully worded their response as "workers should have a choice in their own working conditions" or similar verbiage. 

Translation: "You can't tell me what to do!" (Even though it's the right thing to do, like masking up, or getting vaccinated.)

Who says that? Entitled people, i.e. the "Karens" of the world. 

One Florida parent was arrested when he got physical with a student who started filming him without a mask on inside the school. The guy was already warned several times for not wearing a mask despite school policy. So he was basically provoking a reaction. 

In California, a man got into fisticuffs with a teacher who was trying to protect the principal as the man yelled profanities over the school's mask policy. He was arrested for assault and battery. 

In Austin, Texas, several parents started yelling at the teachers who chose to stay masked during a meet-the-teachers meeting. One parent even yanked the mask off a teacher's face. The two cases had shaken the community. (FWIW, Governor Abbot of Texas, whom we mentioned earlier, also signed an order PROHIBITING mask mandates)

Please keep in mind that Florida, Texas, and California are the most populous states in the US, and therefore, COVID hotbeds, with the most cases... and deaths. 

Given that we can't vaccinate the kids yet, at least those under 12 years of age, the only way to protect them was to mask them, and the teachers, and all the school employees, and EVERYONE around them (including the parents, relatives, and so on).  It'd be better they all get vaccinated too, but it takes weeks for the vaccination to reach full potency (the antibodies get made).  Masking is immediate. 

So people opposing the masks are basically saying "my right to NOT cover my face is more important than protecting the kids". 

COVID is not merciful. Given half of US population is fully vaccinated, the new COVID cases are almost exclusively of the unvaccinated, and sadly, that includes children. Infants. Babies. EVEN THE UNBORN. Yes, COVID also causes fetal deaths. And we've earlier covered a case where a 4-year old went from fever to death in mere HOURS. Children are now over 20% of new COVID cases in several different states. 

In 2020, we thought we had survived COVID because we didn't get the huge wave of casualties like China when the entire medical system was overwhelmed in Wuhan. 

It is now 2021, and ICUs across the country are filling up with COVID patients with a good number of them children. Several states have started or are preparing for "rationing care" because they only have so much resources available to fight COVID. First state to do so was Idaho. Care to guess which party is Idaho's governor? You guess it: Republican. It is just so ironic to see how Sarah Palin (Republican) tried to push the narrative of a "death panel" in the 2009 political debate, and it is now forced into practice... 

The Republican party has governors in two out of three most populous (and thus, most COVID) states. DeSantis in Florida, and Abbott in Texas. BOTH have signed mask anti-mandate orders for their state in the name of "freedom for the parents". 

It is no coincidence that many reports of overwhelmed hospitals have surfaced from both Texas and Florida. Texas had run out of ICU space near Houston, and Florida is believed to have less than 10% space left in ICU as of mid-August.

Is freedom really worth THAT much death, esp. of children? 

Or perhaps..

"The needs of the many, outweighs the needs of the few"?