Stupid Human Tricks

 

This and That, but Mainly Stupid Human Tricks

Off the top:

         Someone I know and love, not immediate family, but a relative, posted the paragraph below as part of a somewhat rambling diatribe about masks, distancing, etc. The implication is that…well, read it for yourselves. My response follows.

“The US Population is 330,000,000 and in 5 months the number of Covid-19 deaths was 156,000. The number of deaths as a percent of the population is 0.00047 %, compared to the number of cancer cases diagnosed in 2019 (1,762,450) and 607,000 deaths.”

This implies, while avoiding a direct statement, that .00047% as many have died from Covid as from cancer. Here’s the problem with leading with that. To begin with, the math is misleading. The Covid annualized death rate for seven months is already 25% as high as the annual cancer death rate! The cancer death toll is .0018%. (Bear with me a moment longer.)  Annualizing the Covid rate to make an apples to apples comparison, Covid, alone will kill about 40% as many Americans in 2020 as all cancers combined!

      Cancer, first of all, isn't a communicable disease! Secondarily, cancer is a generic umbrella for over 100 different (as in distinct and without a common cause) types of aberrant cell growth. Why the underline? Because it’s critical to the validity of the entire argument. If we could avoid or minimize the possibility of contracting all cancer with a mask, no one would leave home without one. 

    Actually, and pathetically, some would, just as some still use tobacco products, even though there is zero doubt of the cancer risk. In fact, lung cancer kills more annually than Covid has to date in the US.)  Those folks (smokers) are the same persons who refuse to wear seat belts, drink habitually to drunkenness (goodbye liver, heart, blood sugar, blood pressure!), and don’t look both ways before crossing. 

        The common mental disconnect factors in these, include 1: “No one’s gonna tell me what to do, I’m an “Amurrican.”  2: denial, because of who knows what illogical personality characteristic. 3: rationalizing it away because it’s not (insert word of choice here, “comfortable”, “simple”, “easy”, “convenient”, “whatever”.) 4. Preferring bad information, while calling real world data “fake news,” because it gives them a “reason” to ignore sound medical advice.

         This is precisely the same mental disconnect as the anti-vaxxers share. Oh, and by the way, in an ironic Karmic twist, cases of Covid are not only more frequent among those in the age 0-15 age group which did not get MMR vaccinations,  but are also more severe, because they lack the innate immune system response. Follow the link below for a far more detailed explanation:

https://bubblehead1026.blogspot.com/2020/07/beware-law-of-unintended-consequences.html

        We, at least those of us with a brain, vaccinate our kids because competent medical advice from the overwhelming majority if physicians says it will prevent childhood diseases which can be fatal, Only radical and  truly fucked up anti-vaxxers oppose these things. As a result, instead of the 15,240 measles deaths in 1935, we see no reported measles deaths since 2015, since, in fact measles was declared eradicated in the US in 2000. Since then with the rise of anti-vaxxers, using the same (possibly fatally) flawed logic of some posts on this thread, we have seen clusters of measles in areas like Oregon where pre school vaccination is optional. So, if you vaccinated your child, but bitch about being as cautions as possible with Covid, your logic circuit is faulty.

And:

        With several major national College football conferences cancelling fall football due to concerns about Covid. Florida Governor DeSantis has urged Florida Schools to continue preparing for a season. This is the same moron who insisted on “opening up” the state prematurely, leading to Florida’s caseload and rate of positives surging to the top of the heap. As a Harvard Law grad and former Navy JAG officer (abbreviated JAGOFF, completely apropos in DeSantis’ case) I had hoped for a sliver of improvement over the former un-incarcerated Medicare fraud perp and also Navy vet, Rick Scott.  Alas, apparently both have suffered brain damage due to extended periods of time with their heads ensconced twixt Donald Trump’s buttocks.  

One final brighter spot:

After being pardoned by Trump,  88-year-old Joe Arpaio decided to run again for sheriff of Maricopa county, Arizona – a post he had held on to for 24 years and lost four years ago amid national outrage over his abusive policing tactics and immigration crackdowns. He lost in the primary, thankfully for Maricopa County, and hopefully as a prequel to even more rejections of Trumpian policy in the rest of the nation.

“Goodbye Joe, you gotta go, me o my o, time to go pole a pirogue down the bayou.” (apologies to Hank Williams) Or just go away.