'One Million Of Us'
 

"The pandemic’s death toll in the United States will surpass 1 million people in the coming days. Conveying the meaning or the magnitude of this number is impossible. But 1 million deaths is the benchmark of an unprecedented American tragedy.

Consider this comparison: The population of D.C. is about 670,000 people. Try to imagine life without every person, in every building, on every street, in the nation’s capital. And then imagine another 330,000 people are gone.

To attempt to put the 1 million deaths in context, we plotted its damage over more than two years and compared the continuing death toll with the tolls from previous catastrophes in our history." continued -

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...opinions-other


Damn...:(

Yeah! I lost some good friends and nearly lose a daughter. Luckily for her I was a fearless fighter by her side.



Yet Mr Covid hasn't given up...he is still making the rounds.

He is indeed. We attended a family gathering last weekend with about 30 people attending. So far, 9 of us have come down with COVID. Everyone was fully vaxxed and boosted (the older among us double-boosted). The symptoms for all of us were the same. Stuffy nose, scratchy throat, nagging cough and headache for ~2 days diminishing over the next 2-3 days before a full recovery.

Condolences to you and to us all.

A companion piece to go with the profound loss a lot of people are going through.

'One million died. It didn’t have to happen — and it must not again.'

"On Feb. 14, 2020, President Donald Trump spoke to a White House audience about the virus then engulfing Wuhan, China. “We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it,” he said. “It’s like around 12. Many of them are getting better. Some are fully recovered already. So we’re in very good shape.” But we weren’t in good shape. A little more than two years later, the United States is passing the ghastly milestone of at least 1 million deaths from the pandemic virus, and still counting.


This marks the gravest public health disaster in a century, outstripping all the combat deaths in both world wars, Vietnam and Korea. Largely because of the pandemic, life expectancy in the United States declined 2.39 years, the greatest fall in eight decades. The disease caused by the coronavirus became a leading cause of death all through the pandemic, and as recently as January, more people age 15 and older died of covid than of cancer. In addition, the pandemic is leaving lasting personal scars, including long covid and mental health troubles in years ahead.

The death toll is just one part of a truly catastrophic chapter in American history. The pandemic also tore at the nation’s social fabric, sent shock waves through the economy and caused widespread disruption in schooling and careers. It brought unimaginable sadness: families and loved ones suddenly bereft; the deaths of so many people all alone, without a warm hand to hold; the bewildering arbitrariness of infection. The costs were heavy, the wounds deep and lasting."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...s-preventable/

I know that conservatives are tired of hearing that their very own Baron Harkonnen was largely to blame for many of the excess deaths. Tough shit. Take some responsibility for once in your miserable lives. You voted for him.

How fast we forget 'hug a Chinese' - closing down flights was racist if you recall.

Trump was perhaps not the best person to have for this, but I'm not sure what more could've been done (outside of him keeping his mouth shut!).

He did say:

“I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly.”

“It’s a great vaccine, it’s a safe vaccine, and it’s something that works.”

“The federal pause on the J&J shot makes no sense,” Trump said, adding: “Just six people out of the nearly 7 million who’ve gotten the Johnson & Johnson vaccine reported blood clots. Indeed, this moronic move is a gift to the anti-vax movement,” Trump said. “The science bureaucrats are fueling that deranged pseudoscience.”

What a strange world, that anti-vaccers are now on the right.

My heart goes out to those who lost loved ones.

I didn't lose anyone directly to Covid-19, but the inactivity forced upon my elderly father absolutely hastened his demise, likely by a few years.

[Edit: I'm not saying the lockdowns were bad. It was simply... unfortunate.]

.

It's not just the COVID corruption:
(If you read one twitter thread this week, read this one.)


https://twitter.com/djrothkopf/statu...14394638286848

I prefer you use the term republican or wingnut in some of your comparisons instead of conservative. There are some of us that don't fit your narrative and I really haven't considered the GOP conservative in quite some time. I would encourage you to read this short piece from the Atlantic by Eliot Cohen to kind of understand our mindset. I agree with most of the article, but I turned from the GOP back at GWB instead of waiting for the Trump nomination. It really is a good short read.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...vative/571747/

Not a problem, Marc.

"Today, the Biden Administration is announcing that COVIDTests.gov is now open for a third round of ordering. U.S. households are now be able to order an additional eight free at-home tests at COVIDTests.gov—bringing the total number of free tests available to each household since the start of the program to 16. As the highly transmissible subvariants of Omicron drive a rise in cases in parts of the country, free and accessible tests will help slow the spread of the virus." White House

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-...ovidtests-gov/