We are America, and we deserve better. We call ourselves exceptional, but we are dying in numbers not befitting third world countries. The Covid-19 pandemic handed us the opportunity to live up to our ideals, and we have failed.
This failure lands squarely at the feet of the current administration. This has nothing to do with hatred of the President or lack of patriotism; it's a statistical truth. Here are the numbers.
The US has suffered 320,787 deaths from the pandemic as of this writing. That's a rate of 0.097% of our population. The comparable worldwide rate is 0.022%. That means that more of us are dying than we would expect - about 4-1/2 times more!
What if our leadership had been able to keep US deaths down to the average of the rest of the world? With a Covid death rate of 0.022%, the count would be 71,374. But we're not so lucky - we've already counted 320,787 bodies. If we were as good as the rest of the world, we would already have saved the lives of 249,413 Americans. That's what the numbers say: nearly a quarter million Americans have died needlessly!
But wait - aren't we supposed to be exceptional? No sh!t. We spend more on healthcare than any of the civilized nations of the world. We certainly have the resources with which to respond to a public health crisis. Hell - we're the 13th richest country in the whole fuc&ing world! Suppose our response to this pandemic were as good as, say, the country with the 13th-best pandemic response? That, by the way, is Rwanda, with a death rate of 0.0004% of their population. Yeah, Rwanda. If we were as good as Rwanda, the US would have suffered 1,324 deaths. That would mean that we have unnecessarily allowed more than 319,000 of our fellow Americans to die.
I grieve for the families and friends who have suffered unnecessarily. I grieve for those who will suffer afflictions for the rest of their lives. But there's not much we can do now. I'll stay inside, away from people, whenever I can and if I have to go out I'll wear a mask. I'll get the vaccine when it's available. I voted, but for some of us it was four years too late. What else - besides steeping in our despair?
Yeah, I'm pissed. I'm pissed at Trump and all of the spineless toadies involved in this carnage. I'm pissed at the a**hole at Walmart with his mask in his pocket. I'm pissed at the TV talking head who tells us this is normal. And I'm pissed at the local authorities who are so scared of an insane despot that they dare not cross him by saving a life or two.
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