Covid the Killer has many accomplices

And Charles Darwin predicted this

The world hits its second highest day for Covid New Cases Saturday, April 17, mostly driven by the out of control pandemic in India. I should break the all time-high soon. At 260,000 cases a day, India is about 40,000 shy of the US all time record.

Meanwhile, in the US, comedy show host Bill Maher read a new Gallup poll that indicates few Democrats know their percentages in assessing the risk of a covid hospitalization and from that singular fact, he determined:

1) Ron DeSantis protected senior citizens better than Andrew Cuomo did.
2) Panicky Democrats in blue states are keeping more kids out of school because of media misinformation about the risk.
3) Going to beaches during spring break is the best way to avoid getting covid.
4) Taking precautions to avoid covid is paranoia based on bullshit information.
5) Being fat is the thing that kills most people who catch covid.

With zero supporting facts and faulty logic, the former comedian is apparently auditioning for a new job on Fox News. Which is why Fox News is the only major network reporting on his biased suppositions.

Most of the deaths in NY occurred due to a lack of available tests, lack of knowledge about how to treat covid patients successfully in the earliest stage of the pandemic, and the lack of available masks at the outset. DeSantis didn’t do anything of note to protect seniors better. Florida seniors get credit for taking the proper precautions no matter which businesses or schools were open or closed.

Democrats in blue states are highly concentrated in big urban areas where classroom sizes are larger, where more students mix together and other factors come into play that make them riskier than suburban and rural schools.

I agree with Maher’s assessment that a lot of misinformation has had a huge impact on people’s knowledge of covid facts, though his ‘both-sides-do-it’ is the standard modus operandi of right wing celebrities trying to create false equivalents. The mainstream media is not leftwing. They and the actual leftwing media outlets have sought accurate information and dispensed it. When they make an error, most will issue a retraction. That’s hardly the same as the rightwing media outlets that completely gloss over some news events being widely reported elsewhere and will happily pay consultants and advisers to present bullshit and call it fact to support any and every rightwing politician’s talking points.

As to the deaths caused by covid, obesity is one factor of many. Multiple-factor patients fare the worst. Is there any published data to indicate fat people with no other factors die of covid? Not that I’m aware of.

Also, there’s very fat people on both sides.

As a leftwing journalist who digs deep into covid stories and numbers and crosschecks all fresh sources with people trained as scientists, doctors and other healthcare professionals, I view Maher as a self-styled Libertarian too frightened to register as the Republican whose biases he most often shares.

And to be distinctively clear, that’s my bias speaking. I have no clear knowledge that Maher is a Republican. The evidence only indicates he loves to criticize broad groups of people without much evidence to justify his critiques and that he often sacrifices satire in favor of being a garden variety dick.

Also, New York’s new covid cases declined this past week. Florida’s cases have increased for 4 straight weeks.

Hospitalizations and deaths remain low because of the fast pace of vaccinations caused by well-coordinated federal purchases and a well conceived and successful distribution plan in the past three months.

Yesterday, church services were held for my nephew. Some members of the family, including his sole adult offspring, were unable to attend because they’ve contracted covid. Two members of the family who have decided not to get vaccinated have mingled all weekend maskless so they can count themselves lucky that I was not in attendance.

I have too many friends and family in the healthcare field who’ve been at war against this virus for over a year and my patience with idiots is completely gone. I do not want to hear from those who make covid decisions because of their politics, their religious beliefs or their celebrity status. It’s not ‘edgy’ for Maher to make the unsupported claims he did. It’s not ‘edgy’ for me to claim that in the past 15 months, some doctors, some nurses and some scientists have made mistakes. As humans we are all error prone. But the same health professionals and scientists who made an error or two along the way spent the better part of the pandemic saving lives.

Idiots like Maher and certain family members didn’t. Nor did a substantial minority of elected officials who chose to put politics above the lives of millions, especially the lives of the healthcare workers under siege.

I personally would not vote for DeSantis or Cuomo because I can weigh their decisionmaking in a non-partisan way when lives are on the line.

And when herd immunity is achieved through vaccination or everyone has had a chance to obtain a vaccination and made their choice, I’m perfectly content to let the idiots test out Darwin’s observations. Those living beings incapable of adapting when their survival is threatened can cause a species collapse.

Because of scientists, not former comedians, our species won’t, this time.

Because of vaccines, we can reach a point where only the stupid members of our species are dying from the pandemic. Even among microbial life, the most adaptable survive. That’s either what evolution randomly created or a deity created by choice.

I celebrate the death of none. But I do celebrate the lives of those who value the lives of other living, breathing human beings. And it’s very easy to distinguish the difference.