“One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.“
[Tweet by bo @chelicerage: the way that so many people have become incapacitated by immeasurable grief and depression and pain over the past year and it has been watered down to “burnout and how to avoid it so you can do better work!” makes me want to start smashing things]
We’re going to see this A LOT as people get vaccinated, as businesses start opening up. “Sure, last year was hard, but it’s over. We all got a long rest and now it’s time to bounce back and pull together and get stuff done!”
…no.
We did not have a “rest.”
We had a global trauma.
Which is NOT OVER.
Don’t expect yourself or anyone else to be unchanged. Don’t expect “back to normal.” (In case you forgot: “normal” before was hellish and we all wanted it to change. We don’t want to go back, but even if we did, that normal is gone.)
Be kind to people who seem lost, who can’t finish projects, who keep forgetting to call back, who panic over deadlines, who talk endlessly about trivial worries, who can’t focus, who are either louder or quieter than they used to be.
We are all walking wounded.
You may need to pressure people – to insist, “I really need this done today,” to demand payment or a refund or another copy of whatever. You may need to tell people to do their job, pay their bill, get out of your driveway, or whatever.
But you don’t need to be cruel about it. You don’t need to insist that the person in front of you “snap out of it” or that, since you didn’t cause their problems, they should pretend to be “okay.”
None of us is “okay.” And if we all keep that in mind, our recovery will be quicker and we’ll build stronger communities.
I thought I was dying,” the 72-year-old singer said during a Facebook Live video on Monday in a video shot at his Michigan ranch.
Nugent repeatedly used racist slurs to refer to COVID-19 and reiterated his previous stance that he won’t be getting the vaccine because he claims wrongly that “nobody knows what’s in it.”
Nugent, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, previously called the pandemic a scam and has railed against public health restrictions.
lil bitch made sure to blame minorities and make false claims about the virus and vaccine.
In this poignant column, Dana Milbank talks about some of the people who died from covid-19. Here are a few excerpts:
After Donald Trump got out of Vietnam with student deferments and a spurious claim of bone spurs, he proposed that those who did serve in Vietnam were “stupid” and “losers,” according to various accounts. He mocked their sacrifice by saying he was a “brave soldier” in his “personal Vietnam” — avoiding sexually transmitted diseases.
We’re seeing the same thinking now with covid-19. After getting treated for his infection by a team of top-notch doctors using antidotes that are rationed or entirely unavailable to other Americans, President Trump shared a description of himself as “an invincible hero” — in contrast to all those wusses who are taking precautions against the virus.
“Don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to beat it,” Trump proclaimed in a video message Monday night after returning from the hospital. “Don’t let it take over your lives. … I’m better and maybe I’m immune. I don’t know. But don’t let it dominate your lives.” Tuesday morning, he exulted anew on Twitter that “we are learning to live with Covid,” which he falsely claimed is “in most populations far less lethal” than the flu. [….]
On Sunday, as Trump was joyriding around Walter Reed with his captive Secret Service detail, a group memorialized the pandemic dead by setting up 20,000 empty chairs, symbolizing 200,000 lives, on the Ellipse, facing the White House. As Trump staged photos at Walter Reed, the Twitter account @FacesOfCovidcontinued its grim work of collating obituaries of the deceased:
On Monday night, as Trump was filming his video (without a mask) telling Americans not to let the virus dominate their lives, the West Des Moines (Iowa) Community School District announced that Jennifer Crawford, a junior high school special-education assistant, had died of covid-19 complications.
On Sunday, Julie Davis, a beloved third-grade teacher at Norwood Elementary School in North Carolina, succumbed to the virus. Davis, 49, died two months after the district resumed some in-person classes. She decided to devote her life to helping children after the Columbine shooting.
[emphasis added]
Remember, these were over 200,000 real people who died of COVID-19. Many of these people died needlessly in part because Trump underplayed the pandemic’s lethality–and he’s still doing so.
