CV Diary 25: Joe Stalin was Right

 
Shortsighted business strategies, really confusing political calculations, and the decisions we’ve already made are high on my list of unfavorite things this week.

1. Every day brings a new tale of a deathbed conversion—the too-late recantation of someone who rejected the vaccine and won’t live to tell their grandkids about it—but that’s a drop in the bucket. Other than intentionally doomed patients in Covid wards and a few of their survivors, nobody is going to change their minds at this point.
   
   
2. So I kinda understand people who are hesitant to take a vaccine that was developed very quickly and has unknown five-year effects, even if it prevents 95% of infections and roughly 100% of hospitalizations. But then people are excited about a new anti-viral pill that was developed very quickly and nobody knows the five-year effects, even though it only prevents 50% of hospitalizations...after you already have the disease.  I'm really trying to follow the logic here, but I must admit I'm lost. 
   
   
3. People talk about the vaccinated and the unvaccinated as if they are two separate groups, but that’s not true. The vaccinated pretty much fall into one group of people who believe the jab is safe, certainly safer than contracting Covid, and that it’s no big deal to take the same shot as another 200 million Americans. The unvaccinated include people who think the shot includes microchips to control our lives, people who oppose all vaccinations, people who view this as their personal run up Mount Suribachi, people who think they aren’t at risk and people who can’t finish anything on their to-do lists.  Did I mention that nobody is going to change their minds at this point?
   
   
4. We’re closing in on 700,000 Covid deaths in the United States and, at the current rate, we’ll hit the million mark this winter. That’s one person out of 340, though, so the odds of knowing someone who died of the disease are very low for most of us. I think that’s why I get a lot of comments from people who say the pandemic is over-hyped by the media because they don’t personally know anyone who died of Covid. Joe Stalin was right. One death is a tragedy, but one million deaths is a statistic.*
   
   
5. Am I the only person who is really, really, really tired of Covid Theater? The crazy school board meetings, the parents who write speeches for their six-year-olds to deliver, the protest marches…enough already. Did I mention that nobody is going to change their minds at this point?
   
   
6. I can’t figure out the strategy of politicians who encourage their voters to resist the vaccine, which leads to more of their supporters suffering and dying from Covid. I get the appeal of promoting freedom and resisting government overreach, but where is the political benefit from undermining the health of your followers?
   
   
7. As fall unfolds, we’re heading back into the shortages and delivery disruptions that marked the beginning of this pandemic. We probably won’t be hoarding toilet paper and Twinkies again, but we’re out of stock on everything with a computer chip and we’re already seeing delays of Christmas inventories. This is the real cost of all those “profit maximizing” decisions to source everything overseas and remove all the slack from our supply chains. I like free trade, but I also like sound business decisions, and all that “efficiency” is looking less brilliant every day.
   
   
8. I feel really bad for all the innocent bystanders getting caught up in this mess, especially those who need non-Covid health care. People can’t get into emergency rooms because the hospitals are on bypass due to Covid patients, while all kinds of important, but not lifesaving, procedures are getting delayed unnecessarily. School outbreaks lead to parents missing work and, sometimes, losing their jobs… while local businesses continue to fail without foot traffic. Fortunately, politicians and cable news anchors have job security. Phew.
   
   

By the way, in case I didn’t mention it, nobody is going to change their minds at this point.

*So it turns out that Stalin might not have made this observation, but we haven’t completed our research to identify the true author of the quote. Subscribers will learn the source as soon as we find it, which is a great reason to click here to subscribe.

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