I don’t even know where to begin with this post. I cannot even get onto my personal FB page without my head exploding. My personal FB page is closed to the general public becuase I share personal pictures of my son and myself that do not need to be floating around the world. I do not friend people I do not know. My son’s school and teachers also share information to our immediate community. These are all people that I know personally outside of the FB community making my head hurt.
My FB friends are divided between OMG buy toilet paper and OMG it’s illegal to suspend our personal rights and freedoms because of a common cold. The flu, the flu, the flu….. I have a few friends being rational residing in the middle. Very few. Most of them are healthcare professionals or life long farmer/ranchers who understand what a virus actually is. A virus exists for one reason only and that is to propagate. A virus has no politics, borders, emotions, and does not care if you believe in it’s existence or not. In fact, your disbelief is a benefit to the virus. Most importantly, a virus doesn’t know nor care who Trump, Pelosi, Biden or any other politician in the world is. A virus doesn’t know or care about your country’s laws. It’s one purpose is to propagate. That’s it.
I had to shoot down a FB meme today going around which says Italy is choosing not to treat it’s elderly because of socialist medicine. There are variations on the wording but the message is the same. I have had four friends share this post yesterday and today.
Here is my response:
This is completely untrue if you do any research at all. Their hospitals are so over run with patients needing beds and ventilators, they literally cannot treat everyone sick at the same time. The doctors have to assess who has the best chance of survival. They get the ventilator or the bed. Yes, that’s usually the younger patient. It’s about numbers not socialist medicine. We will be in the same situation if everyone here gets sick at the same time. The reason for quarantines and banning large gatherings is to prevent us from having to make the exact same choice. We know we can’t stop the spread. We just need to slow it down so anyone who needs to be in the hospital will be able to be treated. I sincerely hope that we stop believing memes, wake up, and become proactive instead of hysterical and panicked about temporarily losing our rights. It’s just temporary. It will pass and most of us will be just fine. And the toilet paper hoarding…. oh my. Stop it
I have very painfully (for me anyway) ignored numerous posts pertaining to the COVID-19 virus being nothing more than a bad cold. For some, that maybe true. The meltdown over school closures, banned large sporting events as well as other large gatherings, hysteria over the legalities of temporarily placing restrictions on our daily lives, possible gun grabbing in other states, to outright denial that the virus is even real surpassed ridiculous at least a week ago. At least half of my FB page genuinely believes the entire pandemic is made up in order to prevent Trump from being re-elected in November. The most hysterical people I personally know are Trump supporters and COVID-19 deniers. They are off the deep-end angry, panicked and hysterical. Everything is about Trump and the socialists and/or communists taking over the world. Get a grip people before it’s too late! We are quickly running out of time to be able to slow the spread of this virus down to a manageable rate for our hospitals and healthcare workers.
I am not normally a believer in any type of censorship. However, FB does need to remove some of these factually incorrect memes which are meant to be taken seriously. Disinformation is a serious threat to our safety in the face of an epidemic. People from Italy have posted numerous online factual information imploring the US and the rest of the world to learn from their situation, not repeat their mistake, and be proactive before it is too late. I admire Italy, it’s people, and their attempt to save others from their current fate. My heart goes out to the people suffering in Italy and every other country enduring this new virus. If we do not act now in the US, it will be too late.
Middle of the Muddy Road 