Perspective

This is one of the posts I've been struggling with for a while, writing myself into a tangent and then realizing it wasn't what I wanted to say. Back up and start over. Several times.

So this post might be a bit of a downer, but maybe it will help place things in perspective. These are all American deaths and dates, somewhat rounded. Do you see a pattern there?

Vietnam    58,300  over 20 years, with peak death rates in the 70's so a low deaths per month rate overall. First real time graphic media coverage of a war, so that might be part of the impact.
Korea           36,500     36 months    1,000/month
WWI           116,000    19 months    6,100/month
WWII           417,000   45 months   9,200/month
Civil War     750,000   48 months  15,600/month
COVID     140,000    5 months   28,000/month (so far, and the number of cases is growing daily. The death rate cannot but rise along with it.)
Spanish Flu  675,000  12 months   56,000/month

A couple further thoughts. Towards the low end of that scale the ordinary flu kills people every year, but it's hard to pin down the exact number. Let's say 2 to 3 thousand a month with some months worse than others, and say we're in the rough ball park. At the high end, Black Death during the Middle Ages killed many millions of people over decades. Somewhere on the list is the number of Native Americans who died from infectious disease over the last 500 years. That number and the causes of it are hotly debated and I don't want to get into it here.

All of these events have had an impact on society. Some are only in the history books, being beyond living memory. Many of us were alive to watch the impact of the Vietnam War on American society.  We have only just begun to see the impact of COVID, and it appears that some of our political leadership isn't taking it seriously. In turn that drives some ordinary people from taking it seriously.

Which is getting those ordinary people killed at an extraordinary rate in the USA. Look at the deaths per month numbers again. Americans are dying from COVID at a rate higher than any other event in American history except another viral infection 100 years ago. Hospitals in many areas are at capacity. The morgues are beyond capacity with bodies being stored in refrigerator trucks. If the virus goes a year, at the same death rate, which I think is optimistic given current cases, they end up with just under 350,000 deaths.

That's in what calls itself a first world country, with what claims to be best medical system in the world. There might be other countries doing worse, but we don't know because there isn't a rigorous way of counting. Then there are all the other deaths from normally preventable causes that will happen because the required hospital bed is already full. Or because the required medical staff are passed out from exhaustion, or are sick themselves. A hospital in Texas is triaging the patients to make space for ones they can help, sending the most sick home to die with their families, and probably infecting other people along the way.

Except if you're of a particular political persuasion, this is all fake news. Not a real thing. The number of nut bar conspiracy theories floating around to 'explain' this event is mind-numbing. The latest I saw is that the vaccine contains a microchip so 'they' can track you. As if the phone in your pocket and all the info about yourself that you give to every corporation and government under the sun in your daily life isn't enough tracking, and lets not even bring up what they know about you that you didn't give them.

As a brief digression, let me remind you of the test a conspiracy theory has to pass. Ask, how many people have to be involved to make that theory true, and how many have to keep the secret? If that number is bigger than three, the person trying to convince you of the theory is breathing air with special additives you don't want in your lungs or brain. They might well own a tin foil helmet, even if they aren't wearing it at the moment.

There are lots of people from that camp who say the economy must be opened up, full steam ahead. They don't think the deaths and illness are real, or they don't care. In either case they are vampires preying on us, and ought to be treated as such. Closely related are those who say the same thing, while making some provision for public safety, though they get excited by wearing a mask. Their priority is the economy, not the people, though they would say by opening the economy they are helping people. Keep in mind these people want the economy back to 'normal' so they can continue making money by siphoning it from your pockets.

The latest bit of opening the economy is to open the schools. The thinking is that gets the kid's education going again, and frees up the parents (mainly women) to get back to productive work. Somehow, while it isn't yet ok to mingle in bars and other indoor spaces, it's safe to send our children back to school. Kids that have no sense of social distance and are mobile germ factories at the best of times.

But kids don't get it, they say. Which isn't quite true. They can, and even worse, they can pass it on to their adult teachers, teaching aides, and custodial staff. From there it can go anywhere. We know there is a long period where people who are not apparently sick, but have been in contact with people who were not apparently sick, who were in contact with someone who is now apparently sick with it, can pass it on. And that's a simple chain of contact.

It isn't just deaths, bad as that is. All the ill people need some degree of care and there is evidence that many are never back to normal after. We're still in the middle of this, and we're still figuring it out. Better safe than sorry seems to be a good rule these days. Let's hope Alberta's political leadership figures that out.

But the economy, they say. Rhythms with 'But Hillary'. The economy as a measured global thing hasn't been around that long, and measuring it's activity is mainly of benefit to the very wealthy and is mainly measuring discretionary spending. Lets take care of people and the essentials to human lives first, and leave the economic money shuffling to take care of itself for a while.

The ending of the Spanish Flu had a huge impact on society. We started taking public health seriously. Starting dealing with the issues that were known to cause the spread of infectious diseases. Yet now many people think disease has been conquered, or it will only affect some other group. Them. You know, the poor, the elderly, the already ill, the immigrants. Someone else. Not us. Taking precautions would admit that it's a real problem, and since we're in charge, we could be blamed for not doing something about it.

I'm pretty sure that COVID is going to have a major impact on society. Every other big event does. Wait, let me get this straight. You still think this is just the seasonal flu? No big deal? Scroll back up and read those numbers again. It's killing people faster than any other event in American history. America has passed the WWI death total. The total from WWII looks like a long way off, but consider at the current rate will take only 15 months to get there. Not 15 more months, 15 months in total, less than a year from now. Less, if the death rate goes up like the infection rate has gone up recently. Is anyone going to bet that the USA will get it's shit together faster than that?

I don't know what the impact will be, once we can look back and say, 'thank goodness that's over, mostly.' With any luck we will keep firmly in mind the next virus pandemic is coming. Next year, next decade, next century. Sometime. It's safe to bet there will be a worse one coming because we're stamping out the easy ones.

Working from home will be a thing for many people, and those who have homes with an office, or a bedroom to convert to an office, plus fast wifi, will be right there. I'm doing that and loving it. So much for all those middle managers who said it wasn't possible to work from home. When the corporate rice counters figure out they don't need to rent as much expensive downtown office space, you can bet the office towers will be hollowed out even more. I feel for the people that depend on foot traffic through the +15 system.

How much will a vaccine change things? I don't know, and neither does anyone else. Considering some people think that proven vaccines for preventable diseases are somehow worse than the disease, we can fully expect the anti-vaxxers to be in full cry. I'll probably get it, just like I got the shingles vaccine, but I won't be pushing to be at the front of the line. Neither do I think it will be a panacea and we can go back to the way things were. There's no vaccine against the common cold, and the current yearly flu vaccine is a bit of a hit and miss thing. There's some evidence that getting it once does not prevent you from getting it again.

So I'd say get used to this. Get used to limited social gatherings. Figure out an income (and I have thoughts on a UBI that is the other troubled blog coming soon I hope) that relates to what people now think is actually essential. Figure out how to work on line, or in a socially safe way. Lots of other people are. If we're still lining up outside buildings in January, someone will have figured out a way to make money providing shelters for the line up. Or a quick easy app that lets people check in at some random store, and the app manages the line up while we wait in the car. We're smart people, we can figure it out.

My last, unvarnished thing to say. If you have the internet at home, and you still say you're bored, that means either you are stupid, or you need to grow up. Get with the program.

This was taken March 20, the day before we flew home. The virus was much on our minds at times, given what we didn't know at the time. But we still enjoyed the beach day. Now we wonder if we'll see a New Zealand beach again.

Of the Day
Michelle

Curtis
Christmas 2016. He is still an optimist about being let out to hunt his hot buttered bunny. Or better humans...

Flowers
The first dahlia from seed.

White Peony
A bit of red in the heart.

Driftwood

Ribbon Creek