Overwhelmed And Over Being Polite
Tags: Prompt, Short Story, Hypocrisy, Pandemic, Journal

Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash

Overwhelmed And Over Being Polite

This prompt is the hardest and easiest to handle of the challenge. That I am overwhelmed is true, but to explain why might be controversial to some. I am overwhelmed because eleven months into the pandemic, the infection rate and the death toll in the United States is the highest it has ever been. In February and March here and throughout the world the pandemic was new. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) was not available to most people. In fact, there were limited supplies in hospitals for those working on the front lines. We were learning as we went. People died because hospitals were overwhelmed and staff had to decide who they could treat and who had to die.

We now know treatments that work most of the time. Death rates have dropped even in serious cases. PPE is available for anyone what wants it. Stores and places are marked for social distancing. Guidelines are posted everywhere. We have vaccines that are available now or soon. So why are more people contracting Covid19? Why are more people dying? I saw a graphic yesterday that showed the eight deadliest days in the United States throughout history. To make the chart it had to be from a single cause and they all had to die in the United States. Numbers four through seven were in order: Last Thursday — 2861, Last Wednesday — 2762, Last Tuesday — 2461, and Last Friday 2439 all deaths from Covid19. Virtually all of these deaths were preventable! More people have died in the United States from Covid19 in 2020 than any other cause. More people have died from that than heart disease. Almost all preventable deaths.

I need to explain my logic and this will be, might be controversial. I need to talk about abortion in the United States. I am not and will not discuss the right or wrong of abortion, the moral grounds of abortion or anything of the kind. The Supreme Court of the United States decided in 1973 that abortion was “legal” based on the idea that nobody has the right to tell another person what they can or can’t do with their own body. There are two main camps in the United States. They are Pro-Life and Pro-Choice. The Pro-life groups says they can tell you what you can’t do with your body because that it is killing. They argue that this gives them the right to tell a person what they can do or can’t do. The Pro-choice group may or may not believe that abortion is wrong but leaves that decision up to the person that has the decision to make.

I needed to talk about that because there are two camps in the United States right now. There are the Anti-maskers and the “I will wear a mask if I want to” or need to group. Many of the “I will wear a mask if I want to or need to” wear them voluntarily. What overwhelms me is that over ninety percent of the anti-maskers are also Pro-Life. They feel they have the right to tell you what you can do with your body but you don’t have the right to tell them what they can do with their body. Their RIGHT of not needing to wear a mask might have a direct effect on your own health in fact it might kill you. Their campaign is that they have rights. That nobody has the right to tell them what they can or can’t do with their body. They use the exact same argument that they say is not valid for someone else.

You may argue that they are not killing anyone. The fact is that one person on this planet is now directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of over a million and a half people. Anti-maskers argue that they are making a personal choice and will accept the consequences. The problem with that is that not everyone that comes in contact with them is giving implicit permission to also accept those consequences. Every person that contacts Covid19 got it from someone else.

If I am in public wearing a mask and I am keeping the correct social distance, if I am using hand sanitizer and not taking risks, I am not giving you implicit permission to transfer the disease onto me. I firmly agree that you do get to make choices for yourself. If you choose to go somewhere that is violating capacity guidelines, people are not wearing masks, people are packed in close, singing, shouting, and doing whatever. You have that right. You do not, however, in my opinion, have the right to be around me for the next fourteen days. You do not have the right to tell me I can’t tell you what you can do and then violate my own right to be safe.

We know how to prevent Covid19 from being transferred. We know how to protect others and therefore ourselves. We are more concerned with how comfortable we are and how we look than we are about the people around us dying. How can we talk about being Pro-Life when we see people dying all the time from this, gun violence, lack of proper medical care, famine, disease, suicide, and other totally preventable deaths? They are all for Pro-Life until it affects their fun and comfort. Yes that overwhelms me.