The Darkest Winter: And How We Got Here
A perfect storm has descended upon us, and by us, I mean the United States of America. The pandemic caused by Cov-Sars-2, colloquially named Covid-19, formally named for the type of virus, the coronavirus, and the year in which it was discovered, has unequivocally unveiled the weakened and potentially broken infrastructure of America and its people. This perfect storm has resulted in the most cases to date of any other country, and the most deaths of any other nation on the planet, and even if we were to adjust for per capita numbers, we still rank rather high for a developed nation. How did we get here? Truthfully, the blame and burden does not fall on anyone today, but rather rests on the shoulders of institutions and those who created them decades ago. However, there are individuals and groups today are culpable in advancing the ineptitude of literacy, or education, the healthcare industry, and the idea of exceptionalism, or nationalism, often confused for patriotism. These three have been singled out because they are the leading causes of the current status of the country, and why we’re all in for some of the most trying times in recent memory.
Education used to be something desired by the wealthy, the aristocrats of the time. It was seen as a symbol of status. The more intellectual and literate you were, the higher your status in civilized society. The ability to recite plays and sonnets from the most well-known authors was common, just as reciting basketball stats or rap lyrics, the key difference here is the former had the potential to illuminate societal issues and educate those on how to correct it for future generations. I have nothing against sports and rap music, and truthfully, rap is potentially a modern poem, albeit the hidden messages and meanings in the lyrics offer litter value in my opinion. Today, however, education is gawked at since we live in a society that teaches its youth to be viewed as ‘cool’, then you have to fail in school. Being cool means you also must be dumb, and thus, this mentality breeds ignorance and a shift of what our values are as a culture. We now on aver- age view popularity, money, fame, sex, and entertainment as the most important values in our society. To be happy means you have money and a mansion filled with erroneous trinkets and material possessions that only offer fleeting moments of happiness rather than sustainable happiness achieved from knowing thyself. The secondary problem with education, or lack thereof, becomes the ignorance or willful ignorance of information, facts, logic, critical thinking, skepticism, and a basic understanding of science, history, math, and language arts. Education has become a method to cram as many facts down our children’s throats as possible instead of teaching them the more important lesson of how to learn. How to learn is vastly superior to what to learn. If our education system had not been a race of global superiority, which was confused for this fact-cramming, then perhaps our population today would be arguing over which masks would be the best to defend against a virus instead of whether masks offer any protections at all, or whether they somehow magically deplete the oxygen as if you were enclosed in a plastic garbage bag. Proper education and critical thinking skills would have rooted out these misconceptions at an early age, and those who may be unfamiliar with how masks function, would know how to learn about it, and steer clear from social media for their sources of information.
The sleuth of misinformation has formed an adhesive between the schism of fact and fiction, now blurring those lines and geared towards not only Covid-19 numbers themselves, but the hospital workers who deal with these patients on the daily. Claim after claim, without basis or evidence, aim to discredit the rising cases and fatalities plaguing our country every day. Many claims allude to the following: “cases are inflated, or they’re labeling a heart attack as a Covid-19 death.” These claims are both true and untrue. If one was to interview a care worker or doctor, they might realize how cause of deaths are catalogued. There is something called a comorbidity, the presence of two or more diseases in patients. Some common comorbidities are hypertension, heart disease, asthma, obesity, and many more. In a nutshell, this means if Covid-19 enters the system of someone with pre-existing comorbidities, their chance of Covid-19 becoming fatal is increased. They may succumb to a heart attack, or asthma, or anything else, but the underlining cause was Covid-19 because had Covid-19 not been introduced into their system, their life expectancy would have been longer. Both Covid-19 and heart attack, for example, would be listed as the causes of death. There is no evidence that car crashes, falling down the stairs, gunshots, or anything similar, would be listed as Covid-19 deaths. They would merely be listed as new cases. This does not stop conspiracy theorists and “skeptics” from postulating hospitals inflating numbers. Realistically, these numbers are undercounted when you consider how many asymptomatic people do not get tested, and others who die in their homes that potentially could have expired from the virus. A study done by Boston University in 2019 showed that pandemic-related deaths is potentially 36% higher than actually reported. At the time of writing this, the death toll is nearing 400,000 which means if we were to add this percentage, we would be closer to 545,000 deaths to date. Again, there is no way to accurately gauge the deaths, but rest assured, these deaths since February are not overcounted.
The second part of this perfect storm, and possibly the most damaging, is our health care infrastructure. Universal Healthcare is constantly balked at by Americans, mostly from conservative Republicans, but desired by more progressive democrats or liberals. The idea that taxing every tax paying American to provide free or affordable health care has been lobbied for years, potentially decades, but usually carries a negative connotation of Socialism, or Communism. This has led to healthcare that is not affordable for most Americans, leading many to ignore signs of disease and reject healthcare. In 2020, the CDC determined 42.5% of Americans are obese. This does not include individuals who are overweight according to guide- lines. Obesity is a high-risk factor in the inability to fully recover from Covid-19. This percentage totals around 139 million Americans at risk due to poor diet and health, too many options for fad diets that don’t work, but cater to our ‘lazy’ attitudes towards health and nutrition, when we should be listening to health experts such as certified nutritionists, doctors, and nurses. In- stead, we fall prey to homeopathic remedies, holistic nonsense, and other pseudoscience that steers us away from medically backed and proven science built to extend our lives and health. This downfall has made many America a small pond and Americans ducks, waiting for a virus to prey on. An overhaul is needed on healthcare. Former President Barack Obama at- tempted this with The Affordable Healthcare Act, insuring 6–8% more Americans during its rollout. It was not perfect and had its flaws, but it was a steppingstone to something better, and something that could make it easier for all Americans to get the healthcare they deserve. This topic alone is vast and problematic, but the bottom line is that if our healthcare system was more aptly designed to be more affordable, easily accessible, and more transparent, we would be better equipped to deal with the problems this pandemic has caused. However, health and fitness have little bearing on the virus as many healthy individuals with no comorbidities have died from Covid-19, it is still imperative to understand how our crumbling health- care structure makes most Americans vulnerable to health problems, and now Covid-19.
Finally, the most damaging and extreme part of this perfect storm is the idea of nationalism, exceptionalism, and individualism. All three of these ideals are alive and kicking in America. Standing for the flag, freedom, rights, blinding loyalty to the leaders instead of to the constitution, selfish- ness; I could go on. America has fallen far from the “We the People” that begins the Preamble of the most progressive document in human history, as we are now more individualistic than ever. Too many times have I heard, “Well if they don’t want to get sick, then they shouldn’t go outside,” or, “It’s my right to not wear a mask if I want to, it’s my body, and the government is overreaching. They can’t tell us what to do.” These statements are absurd and plain wrong. The constitution gives powers under Article V, allowing the states to determine what is best for its people, and how best to promote the general welfare. If masks promote the general welfare, according to the CDC and WHO, then this is a requirement of basic human kindness, to do what’s necessary temporarily to preserve as much human life as possible. Freedom isn’t freedom to do whatever one wants. Freedom is such that it doesn’t infringe on other people’s freedoms. If an individual doesn’t wear a mask and infects another, now you’ve potentially taken away their life because of selfishness caused by individualism. Advocates for no masks are a disgrace for the real advocates in the world, crying about rights when they undoubtedly have not read the constitution of either the nation or their state, and grasped a clear understanding of what those rights mean. This has led to more deaths than any other nation in the world, and there seems to be no curbing the spread. Pride in one’s country, as stated by self-pro- claimed nationalists, hinges on the Second Amendment and the idea of freedom. These things are typically the top of the list, and recited by those who are proud to be an American. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being prideful in the country you live in, in which most had no choice in regard to living here, just as you had no choice in being born at all, or what your name would be, or what gender. Most were told what to believe, and we were told to believe America is the greatest country on Earth because of freedom. Most countries have freedom in some form. America is listed at number 15 on the Human Freedom Index, which means there are 14 other nations that feel freer to them, or are freer, than America. Again, this is a complex topic that will be explored in further articles about the Human Freedom Index, but if America isn’t considered the freest country in the world, then what makes America great? Guns? Perhaps, since America leads the world in gun related deaths. No statistic makes a country great. What should make us great is our ability to recognize that greatness is subjective, and America has always had work to do in creating a better world to live in. America had a rocky start, but never gave up and said, “This is good how it is.” We continued to strive for better with The Emancipation Proclamation, Suffrage, Civil Rights, Equal Rights for Gays, and so much more. America is great, because a majority feels greatness hasn’t been bestowed on everyone, but we continue to move forward, we continue to progress instead of building a wall and declaring we’re good, let’s keep it this way now. America is as fluid and changing as the tide, there are moments of turbulence where walls of hatred seem ready to consume our very way of life, but then there are times of peace and acceptance, where serenity calms our culture, and we embrace one another.
As we find ourselves knee deep in the snow of our dark winter, now more than ever, our survival depends on how we understand information, where we get information or misinformation, and who we trust to keep us alive. Our healthcare workers are inundated by careless individuals who never through it could happen to them, lead by baseless claims of what Covid-19, or who it affects, that masks won’t help, or that everyone will get it someday. Banding together, giving up luxuries, not freedoms, for a time is what must happen to preserve what was gifted to us by our parents: life. As we move forward, now is the time to question our infrastructure with healthcare, education, and so much more. How can we better take care of one another? How much are you willing to pay to take care of someone else a thousand miles away? Change is how we came from pilgrims setting out to colonize another world to the capitalist nation who put a man on the moon, for it is inevitable. It’s okay to find exceptionalism in one’s country, but its imperative to recognize where we’ve come from, acknowledge the problems we have, and work together to improve upon the very foundations of this country. It’s okay to be patriotic, but it’s necessary to understand we are a melting pot of cultures that love where they have come from too. It’s okay to be individualistic but realize that we are a collective of individuals together and our happiness, our sadness, our progress, or demise, all depends on one another. As we head into this dark winter, don’t forget we are not alone, and together we can protect one another, fight for one another, and love one another.
