Health Begets Health

Frontline healthcare workers are slowly getting back sedated with the new Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. At the end of December 1 round of the Pfizer vaccine began and the Moderna vaccine has recently been approved as well. Both of them require two doses and the most vulnerable, the rich, and frontline healthcare workers are the first to receive it. Will it be enough?

At the rate that America is going at least, it won’t be. Slowing the spread of the virus is the main goal of the vaccine that’s over 95+% effective. The trouble is you need to get a critical mass of your population inoculated for it to take affect. As a healthcare system crumbles under the continued stress of Covid patients, America still has to deal with their anti-vaccine minority.

The predominantly white population confused with conspiracy theories are refusing to not only get the vaccine, they are also staging anti-mask protest there by increasing the spread of infection at an exponential rate. This is been going on since Covid first came to North America, and likely will never end. That’s a difficult reality to consider when a significant portion of the population will refuse the solution. That will continue to impact businesses but more importantly decimate the most vulnerable populations.

In the process of killing themselves, anti-maskers and anti-vaccine Proponents are slated to take down as many people with them due to a otter lack of intelligence.

Get your vaccine, compel your government to distribute effectively, quickly, and free. Let’s get this thing over with and let’s imagine a better world and healthcare system of tomorrow.

North and South Dakota have a dubious distinction as the worst places to contract Coronoa. They have the highest per capita COVID-19 death rate anywhere on the face of the planet. Does this come as a surprise? Absolutely not.

This is one of the last places on earth that has employed any coherent COVID-19 strategy. The majority of the citizens simply don’t want it. Most think the virus is a grand hoax. Apart from lower education levels, implementation of simple measures do go a long way. But try convincing anti-mask states.

One of the simplest tools that prevents the transmission of the virus is mask wearing but libertarian states refuse to adhere to a mask rule because of its supposed infringement on personal liberties. This has led to a direct correlation to the astronomical increase in cases and deaths. To make matters worse America is the only advanced economy in the world that does not have a single payer healthcare system. Americans prefer no access to healthcare and death, over health and community safety. What’s exchanged is the notion of maintaining individual liberties, but that comes at the cost of dying.

To some it’s worth it.

Data from http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/

the United States is quickly approaching a dubious distinction of hitting a quarter million deaths as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The lack of federal response, coupled with conspiracies and the overall conservative and libertarian culture in America has proved to be its undoing.

With the looming election coming, the expectation is the terrible federal response will be one of the following issues and the proverbial straw that will break the Republican party’s back.

America is one of the only developed nations on the face of the planet that does not provide universal healthcare. This despite spending more per capita on healthcare. The unwillingness to move to a single payer system in favour of individual rights and military spending, means for the average American Covid is killer. For the most vulnerable it’s deadly. The poor and the elderly are unequally represented in COVID deaths.

Things could be changing just around the corner. Despite America’s rapidly increasing divide between ultra wealthy and the growing yet stagnant middle-class, a change in government may offer the federal response required to turn the tide of an unmitigated growing a second wave of the virus. A vaccine will also help, but that can’t be relied upon to stop the bleeding that’s occurring now.

The proliferation of racialized violence and protests in America has dominated the new stream which in some ways has covered up the continued problem of COVID-19. The pandemic has not abated, in many states it’s actually increased as economies have open too soon.

America continues to demonstrate the A complete lack of preparedness and a problem around public education. Many states have pushed the reopening of the economy prior to the first wave of the pandemic from being fully complete. This is caused another surge which is really the tail end of the first wave rather than the emergence of a second wave. The uptick in cases will continue to proliferate across states who already have problems controlling the spread of the virus. This will lead many Americans vulnerable and it will slow recovery efforts by overriding initial gains.

Not to be outdone there are other countries that have a similar approach the public health and safety as America and the Trump Republicans,. Brazil is now over taking America for a man one of the worlds worst approaches to the COVID-19 virus. Brazil death tolls and new cases are surging at an unprecedented rate and it won’t be long before the entire country will be grind to a halt and perhaps even exceed numbers found in the USA.

Globally the spread of cases has not yet reached its peak in many of the most populous countries including India. Does a cause for concern especially because the numbers in many of these countries are much lower than reported because testing doesn’t happen.

Testing is one of the best ways to track the virus, and one of the tools that Donald Trump is pushing back against hard in the United States. His unwillingness to acknowledge testing is important pales in comparison to his willingness to lower the numbers. He literally came on to the media and demonstrated stupidity once again. He wants to start testing to reduce the numbers because if their numbers go lower than in his small mind that means COVID 19 is magically disappearing.

Americans in particular need to be more serious with their approach to the global pandemic despite the difficulty in economics slow down and shut downs. The difficulty also surrounds the problem of perceptions. Maybe still don’t believe that COVID-19 is dangerous and considerate merely the flu. This type of miss information continues to spread along with the unwillingness to wear a mask in public.

If local cities do not appear to have many cases it doesn’t stop people from trying to live a normal life. The problem emerges when cases go beyond local capacity to adequately treat patients. Then the dominoes continue to fall as chaos ensues and another shutdown becomes imminent. We are in that stage right now as the first wave of cases appears to be picking up speed again due to re-opening too early.