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On April 27, just 11 days ago, I posted a piece noting that the world had just passed the grim milestone of three million COVID-19 cases and 210,000 deaths. It took this highly contagious and dangerous virus just 11 more days to infect another million people and kill another 65,000. In the US during those same 11 days, 320,000 more people caught the virus and more than 22,000 died.
To try to remind ourselves that these are people, not statistics, that means that every minute of those 11 days four husbands, wives, fathers, mothers and children died miserable deaths from this pandemic disease.
To try to remind ourselves that these are people, not statistics, that means that every minute of those 11 days four husbands, wives, fathers, mothers and children died miserable deaths from this pandemic disease.
Anti-quarantine demonstrators in Colombus, Ohio, 4/18/20
Nonetheless, countries, states and cities around the world are "re-opening," loosening the restrictions that have, when applied with determination and followed in good faith, slowed and in a few places even stopped the virus. This is said to be necessary to get the economy moving again.
What is not said nearly as loudly if at all is that this promised economic recovery will be purchased at the price of tens or hundreds of thousands of human lives. Nor should we forget that the majority of those lives cut short will not be those of the rich, nor or the well-educated, highly skilled occupants of the kinds of jobs that can be managed largely online. No. Most of those who die will be ordinary people whose jobs require face-to-face contact or working close to others, and who have no choice but to go back to work when they're told to.
What is not said nearly as loudly if at all is that this promised economic recovery will be purchased at the price of tens or hundreds of thousands of human lives. Nor should we forget that the majority of those lives cut short will not be those of the rich, nor or the well-educated, highly skilled occupants of the kinds of jobs that can be managed largely online. No. Most of those who die will be ordinary people whose jobs require face-to-face contact or working close to others, and who have no choice but to go back to work when they're told to.
The boosters shout, "Liberate out state," or "Let's get the economy going again." Trump eggs them on, and so it is happening now. That despite the fact that few places in the US are in a condition to do so safely.
Let's at least be honest about the price, and who will pay it.
Let's at least be honest about the price, and who will pay it.
REA
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