Monday’s Musings 8/8/22- disease round up- now starring 2 diseases of concern

Bump goes bogeyman.

Clutch goes the fingers around the pearls.

Shame, shame, chants the sheep. Only when it is convenient and nothing they think they need to be concerned about.

Hey, in case you’ve forgotten. Covid is still a killer. As of this morning ONE MILLION THIRTY THREE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED SIXTY EIGHT Americans have died.

Poo, poo go the people who are bored with the pandemic and just want to go back to their lives. Can’t we just go back to our lives?

There is no back to pre-pandemic carefree society. Well, only carefree if you were wealthy enough and lived in a developed country to provide food and medical care. Or, you know, a white man. Then you had it pretty good. Hell, you still have it pretty good. What is happening with woman’s healthcare is the subject of a different post.

People are still getting sick at a high rate. How high? Well. we don’t know because like all of us, the US Congress is bored and sick of talking about that which still kills over a thousand people a week. They’d much rather get back to how to control women even more. Limited people are reporting their at home tests, positive or negative. Some cities are monitoring wastewater but even that does not give us the entire picture. The answer is we don’t know how many people have covid, how fast and wide it is spreading because people, Congress, your school, the community you live in, the state you live in, can’t be bothered anymore. They are bored of covid. It is like Jan chanting in the Brady Bunch when she is sick of her sister, “Covid, covid, covid.”

The ONLY positive is that hospitalizations are down, kind of. I’ve been monitoring hospitalizations in my hospital the entire pandemic, and while we HAD a few days with zero covid patients, the number has been sneaking up since June.

But to many, covid is old news. What is the new sexy disease that wants to hurt us?

Monkeypox.

Terrible name, really. Needs to be renamed. I’m looking at you WHO where it was announced that would be happening in short order. On June 15th.

Monkeypox is not a killer. Yet. There have been 5 deaths associated with Monkeypox in the world in 2022. Zero Americans have died of it.

What makes this a pearl clutching disease that allows people to shame the people who get infected is that this round, because this has been a disease of concern before, most of the infected are those men who have sex with other men.

I can hear the chins wagging from here.

I was a very young child when the AIDS epidemic started. But by the time I was in middle school, the shaming was in full force. There have been great books and plays about it, check it out for yourself. But the shaming energy feels very much the same.

As if those infected DESERVE it.

This is very much bullshit, of course.

Recap:

1. covid is still killing people
2. people should still be wearing their mask if the infection rate is high in their area
3. how do they know the infection rate is high in their area?
4. they don’t
5. Monkeypox is becoming a real concern
6. the US has reported more than 6,000 cases since the beginning of May
7. sound familiar yet?
8. don’t worry about not being able to find a vaccine
9. the US is and has been bungling the response to monkeypox
10. much like they bungled the response to covid
11. does anyone else feel a sense of doom?
12. as if there is something just waiting out there to emerge?
13. no, just me?
14. Okay, then, have a good day
15. wear your mask if your community has a high level of covid, or you know, just wear the mask
16. wash your hands
17. stop shaming monkeypox victims
18. what are you? 5?

But don’t let us stop your cookouts and vacations. Sure.

If something that is trying to kill you could have a bit more of your attention, that would be great!