We Know Better (Re: COVID-19) But Still Aren’t Doing Better

There was a point in 2020, where we felt helpless to this strange new virus (COVID-19) that was taking so many lives so quickly that morgues ran out of room. One moment, people talked about feeling slightly under the weather, and the next, we were seeing their obituaries. The world shut down, because this was possibly the fight of our lives as a collective mourning was happening.

We didn’t have enough data to fight COVID with confidence. We just had to sit in the house and hope and pray that scientists around the world save us with their knowledge and stop this invisible predator. What was at stake was the survival of humanity, if we didn’t figure this thing out.

The best scientific minds worked together as we sat inside our houses hoarding toilet paper and wet wipes, because whatever Hunger Games we thought would come would be won with bathroom supplies. 🙄

We praised frontline workers who were brave enough to put their lives on the line. The ones who literally went to war by simply being at work. Many lost their lives as they saved countless ones, and are no longer here to see the fruits of their labors.

It was a scary time, but it was also a time of global vulnerability, which united us. NONE of us knew what would come, or how to fix it, and for a moment, we tapped into deep humanity. For only a moment.

It’s August 2021, and where we are is worse, and more hopeless than this time last year.

Why?

Because scientists DID do their part, working tirelessly to create an effective preventative measure (the vaccines). They used:

• Decades of research that already existed on mRNA and coronavirus vaccines as their framework and baseline
• The sheer number of infected people around the world to their advantage. Most vaccines take years (sometimes decades) to develop and make public because there aren’t enough people infected with whatever the virus is to have a large test sample. COVID-19 was the (gift and) curse that gave us millions of people to pick from to test in a few months
• The pandemic’s severity to get the cooperation of governments who usually do not play well together, to put down their petty and unite for our greater good, to fund this, coordinate distribution channels to the vaccine could get to people around the world quick

Lemme pause here to say this: I am not being paid a dime for this article. I am not being sponsored by any pharmaceutical companies. There is no entity that backs me and has made me put these words on paper. I am a concerned person who is sick of other people’s shit and simply wants us to stop being so ridiculous all the gahtdamb time. Aight, keep reading.

Anywho, the fact that we have at least 4 effective vaccines available (Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson. AstraZeneca) a year after we were losing tens of thousands of people a week, is a scientific, logistics and project management miracle. MIRACLE.

What did we do with it?

I’ll speak simply about the United States’ response. Because there are some countries who don’t even have the access we have, and that is its own discussion for another day.

What did we do with all this science SCIENCING on our behalf?

As of August 17, 2021, the Mayo Clinic says only 51% of the US population is fully vaccinated. 51%. How have only half opted in when you can literally walk into a WalMart to get it (so it ain’t an access issue)? Well… many of us became graduates of YouTube University, majoring in Conspiracy Theories. Folks have been spreading disinformation with such conviction that you’d swear they actually have degrees that are relevant to what they’re spewing. Some people have somehow learned to trust the person they went to high school with, who they didn’t even respect when we were 15 years old because they were dumbasses even then. NONE OF IT MAKES SENSE.

And all the good feels from last year? Gone.

Those frontline workers? LOLLL PRAISE WHERE?? We are sending teachers into schools where mask mandates have been banned, and the walking petri dish that is the children they teach can bring whatever germs they have into the building.

Those nurses have stopped hearing “thank you” and the doctors are fed up of the folks who didn’t believe in the science enough to get the vaccine rushing to them when they have to fight for every breath from COVID pneumonia. If you don’t think science works to prevent a virus, why do you think it should work to treat you once it’s in your body?

The virus’ spread was under control for a few months, but is now surging wildly because this Delta variant ain’t no punk. Numbers of new infections are rising so much that they are reminiscent of April 2020 in certain areas. People are still acting like being told to wear a mask is an infringement of their raggedy ass rights so even the bare minimum is too much for some in these United (LMAO WHERE) States. Every day, we’re seeing news of people wishing for the vaccine while on their deathbed.

So this pandemic rages on. This looks like our new normal, and it doesn’t have to be.

BECAUSE WE CONTINUE TO DENY SCIENCE, REFUSE LOGIC, REMAIN STUBBORN.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” — Maya Angelou

At first we didn’t know better to do better. Now we know better and we still REFUSE to do better. And that is the worst part. And because of it, more people will die, needlessly.