Don’t Be Fooled, COVID-19 is Still with Us
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken the lives of more than 110,000 people in the United States while infecting nearly 2-million Americans and worldwide the number is even higher with an estimated 400,000 deaths and just over seven-million humans infected and that number growing as the days and weeks pass.
There have been tens of millions who have lost their jobs and businesses and entire industries have been shut down across the United States and around the globe as doctors try to find ways to treat the sick and scientists look for the all elusive cure and seek a vaccine for this virus. The virus known as COVID-19 or the Coronavirus has turned the world upside down and taken so many lives in just a few short months.
We know the damage that this virus has done. We have seen the pain and the death. We realize where we are with this pandemic and how this illness may be with us for some time to come and perhaps may be in our lives forever as some experts have claimed. Those of us who have had the virus and doctors who treat it know the chaos it can cause and what is to come.
However, if you look at our cities and communities you would think that things have returned to normal and that the pandemic is over and the virus has left us. You see people going to the mall, to the movies, getting their nails done and hair cut, going out to eat, and so on and you are left to believe that this is all done with and life is once again, normal.
Sadly, that is not the case.
Yes, places have reopened and are doing so more each day, but the virus has not left us and we are for sure not out of the woods and this is FAR from being over with.
There are other issues at play within the United States and around the globe that complicate things, but this pandemic remains with us and despite how people are acting, it will be with us for some time and in fact, will be around even longer because of the way our society is acting and the callousness the people in America and elsewhere have been behaving.
One of those other situations is the protests and riots that have sprung up because of what happened to George Floyd in Minnesota just a couple of weeks ago. The racial unrest that has happened across America and the ensuing protests that have happened all across the world to take a stand against racism and police brutality gave us just one more impression of a pandemic that is no more.
Trust me when I say that the pandemic has not left us and is still very much alive and well in America and across the globe. The protests, people going out places, and cities reopening give us the false sense that the virus is gone and that things are once again normal, but they are not normal and the virus is for sure not gone.
The events in Minneapolis outraged us all and the protests are without a doubt necessary but they have made the pandemic situation much worse and have ensured one thing, they have guaranteed that more are going to become infected and that this virus and all that goes with it will remain with us for the foreseeable future.
However, it is not only the protests that have given us more cases and opened things up for a second wave of COVID-19. In general, our world and the U.S. especially have not done things in the right ways when it comes to flattening the curve and slowing this virus down. Places reopened too soon and people went out and acted like this went away and that is the reason for more people becoming infected and dying from this illness.
We were all told to wear masks when we went out around people and to be sure to maintain our distance and stay six feet apart and people did not pay attention to these rules and they did as they always do, they did what they wanted to do and ignored the medical experts and the medical advice being offered to us.
Just go into any grocery store and you will see select people who are not wearing a mask and not social distancing and just showing a complete lack of respect for the personal space of others and their health. Many people do wear a mask and follow the rules but there are so many who do not and they are the exact reason why that second wave will show up soon (if it isn’t here already) and why this will not go away anytime soon, if at all.
I hate to break the bad news but COVID-19 is still with us and it may not leave us ever.
Sadly, more will become infected and more will die. These are hard pills to swallow but they are the facts that we must come to terms with and a truth that we have to accept.
The Coronavirus is not leaving us.
So, we can pretend that it is gone and that our world has returned to what it was before this all came upon us, but the reality is that COVID is here with us just as much today than it has ever been since this pandemic started and the virus will remain for months and perhaps, even years. I know, this is a hard thing to accept but sometimes the truth is difficult to process.
The truth is that if people had followed the rules from the very start of this entire thing and did as the medical professionals suggested that they do, then lives would have been saved and the lockdown would not have lasted for as long as it did. Also, if they would follow the rules now, then we would be on our way to ending this pandemic and would not be facing another wave and yet another lockdown in our future.
Humans and especially Americans are slow learners and are often impatient and want what they want when they want it as we have learned throughout our history.
The rules of masks and social distancing are there to make life easier and to keep us healthy, yet people do not see it that way.
Failure to follow these rules and guidelines that society has in place for a reason puts us into some difficult predicaments and that is what we are seeing in this very situation. For instance, look at places like Georgia, Texas, and Florida to see how failure to be patient and wait things like a virus out can have some deadly results.
These places reopened too soon and because of that they have more COVID cases and more deaths. These cities and states misjudged their progress on the curve and as a result they are paying for it or shall I say, their citizens are paying for it and are sick and worse.
These locations reopened before things could be resolved and as cases were rising and because of their impatience, we have seen cases rise and more and more people succumb to the virus and sickness plague these communities and the states as a whole, when if they had only waited, things could have been contained and lives saved.
Now, we have restaurants, malls, barber shops, casinos and everywhere else reopen in state after state as COVID-19 cases go up and the virus continues to spread throughout our country. These places did not follow the guidelines and those who did follow them did not do it for long enough and this is the place we now find ourselves in and this is our situation.
I mean, what was the point of the lockdown if it did not slow the spread over the long haul and help us to defeat this virus?
The point of the lockdowns were to slow the spread until we can get a vaccine and to make sure less people become infected. Now, what we have on our hands is a situation where we may not be able to recover from as we move forward. The virus will spread to levels we never could have predicted because people did not listen the first time around and the numbers will be so high that our medical system will be overwhelmed.
The whole point of stay-at-home orders was to make sure the hospitals and emergency rooms could handle the cases that came in to their facilities but now with a perhaps stronger second wave and more cases when we just barely got over the first one, they may become just that, overwhelmed beyond what they are prepared to handle.
Just look at it this way. I believe in protests. I am a strong liberal and am for sure a Black Lives Matter supporter but when you have thousands of people protesting in close proximity during a pandemic and virus that is spread as easily as the Coronavirus is then you get what we are about to have, more cases and more deaths. Then, you have at the same time, places reopening and people not following the rules set in place like social distancing and wearing masks and a double whammy for our country and a public health crisis beyond what we can handle.
This is not good and the reason that it is not good is because this pandemic is not OVER.
People seem to think that there was a time limit on this pandemic and once 30 days hit or a certain date arrived that this thing was over and they could go back to their beaches or parks or jobs and so on. They saw the ease in rules and restrictions as an excuse or permission to go about their lives as they once did and return to normal, but things will never be normal again or at least not the way they were before.
The COVID-19 crisis is far from over.
In many ways, the crisis has just begun. Contagious diseases such as this one do not just go away and people do not suddenly stop spreading the virus just because governments tell businesses that they can reopen once again or this rule or that restriction is lifted. Medicine and science do not work that way nor have they ever worked that way.
The myths about this virus make the situation worse as well. People repeat a falsehood that they hear like the one that says masks do not work to prevent the spread or that there is “Herd Immunity” to the virus so we can all go to the beach and party once again. That is not true and that is not how this works, that is not how any of this works.
The crisis is not over. This pandemic is still with us.
These are facts and we must act as if we have the virus and take the same precautions that we took when the crisis began and wash our hands, wear masks, stay six feet away from others, and be vigilant in our everyday lives and stay home as much as we can. It is crucial that we do these things and think of others as well as our own health and well-being because this virus is still with us and is not going away anytime soon.
People may be acting like the COVID-19 crisis has gone away but rest assured, it has just begun!
