Preventable Deaths: The Heartbreaking Reality of COVID-19

Renewable energy superstar Robert Rapier: I know a year ago there were some big Ron DeSantis fans here. They really liked how he was handling the pandemic, and they pointed to the modest case and death numbers as proof that what he was doing was working. Heck, National Review even wrote an article (that hasn’t aged very well) ‘Where Does Ron DeSantis Go to Get His Apology?’ Anyway, here’s what Florida looks like right now.

The anti-vax/anti-science movement, driven, as it is, on misinformation, has brought us to a point of exasperation. Now, doctors and community leaders are desperately assembling a campaign that will walk people, step by step, through the process of identifying bad information sources and replacing them with the truth. I hate to sound cynical, but how many of these people have any interest in learning more so they might change their minds?

Anti-vaxxers are completely dug in. They honestly believe that a) the entirety of the pandemic and our attempts to control and eradicate it are government tactics to control our minds, and b) any information that conflicts with this belief is propaganda.

Sadly, the only antidote here may be death. Young, otherwise healthy people, many of them parents of little kids, are dropping like flies. From NBC San Diego:

Christina Lowe, 32, lost the love of her life and father to her children to COVID-19 less than a week ago. It’s a death she now believes was preventable. “I just always thought it’s never going to happen to us,” Lowe said. “It can’t happen to us. We’re young, we’re healthy. And then it did happen to us, and then you start playing the regret game.” Lowe and her husband Mikel were both adamantly against the COVID vaccine — that is, until he lay dying in a hospital bed.

When I was a boy, my grandfather, a very wise man and one of the first chiropractors in the early 20th Century, told me, “Those who will not listen must feel.” I’m sure he was referring to a small minority of pitiable idiots, not 20+% of the adult American population.

In any case, it’s possible that the only real remedy here may be massive numbers of agonizing deaths, and the publication of these heartbreaking stories.