It’s Election Morning in America. It’s a midterm. Between the flu, RSV, and Covid, America is once again sick and seeing more school closing. The day is beginning with the last blood-red moon until 2025. Omen or not, today and the next few months will determine many paths, including the public health response and the trajectory of illness and death as we try to get our health and lives back. And when I look at the numbers, I am both hopeful and yet concerned. I am concerned we have lost focus and we are about to face yet one more wave. A small wave, but any wave just adds to the needless deaths that have come from our handling of the pandemic.
The bottom line. Covid is still here. Covid is beginning to pick up a little more steam. And to top it all off, our monitoring statistics have gone to hell.
Because of this, we have no clue what to expect next. At this point, we will probably be analyzing the next wave in our rearview mirror. We, as a nation and as states, have lost control of our response, some more than others. Some have willingly surrendered the fight against covid. Some are just trying to get everyone to ignore the data and thus the threat.
Almost 30,000 more will die over winter from covid. Another 300,000 have died and no one seemed to care enough to count them.
At present, the people at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington School of Medicine are predicting that about another 28,000 Americans will die over the next couple of months from Covid. That’s not too terrible considering over a million Americans have already known to have died. It’s also not too terrible since IHME also estimates that the true total of those who will have died is closer to 1,389,000, an almost 300,000 undercount.
Covid with Lime will continue to monitor the data, even as it dies off like so many Americans have and will continue. We will also choose to live as best we can in the new unknown. After all, what choice have we been left with?
CWL will continue to monitor the covid data. It will continue to look for better data even as it availability continues to get worse. But let’s face it, the data has never been great. How else could we have undercounted 300,000 deaths? It’s also varied based on politics, not public health. But don’t worry, you trust your politician with your health, don’t you? So, remember all this as you step into the voting booth. Today is going to go down at some point in history as the Blood-Red Moon Election. What that piece of history will tell us will be dictated by the winners, as is all history. But the history of America’s fight against covid will tell its own story, but again just probably now in the rearview mirror.
So, vote. Vote for those who just might care.
But in the end, no matter what, choose joy. You might as well. It’s the only thing we seem to be able to control anymore.
Orignal posted at CovidWithLime.com.