Health and Sanity category archive

In Maine, Paul LePage, the Republican who held the governorship before the current Democratic incumbent, is bent on getting his old job back. It appears he will attempt to make an issue of Maine’s response to COVID-19. In an article looking at the impending campaign, the Portland Press-Herald’s Greg Kesich cites some statistics:

Texas, where Gov. Gregg Abbott has gone to court to prevent both public and private entities from mandating mask wearing, has lost 55,000 people, at a rate of 192 per 100,000 population.

Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis champions an expensive, brand-name pharmaceutical COVID treatment but won’t require anyone to get vaccinated, has lost 42,000 people, at a rate of 197 per 100,000 population.

South Dakota, led by right-wing superstar Kristi Noem, who had the nerve to come to Maine to campaign for Donald Trump last year while her hands-off public health policies were spreading COVID across the upper Midwest, has lost 2,000 people, or 233 per 100,000.

Maine has lost 926 people to COVID, a rate of 69 per 100,000.

The complete article is at the link.

The artist comments. Here’s a bit of what he has to say; follow the link for the rest.

If you’re anything like me, your social media feed is chock full of red-faced suburbanites spraying angry spittle all over the podium at their local school board meetings as they decry the loss of freedom and liberty that comes with being asked to think about someone other than yourself for two damn minutes.

Via C&L.

The Charlotte Observer’s Barry Saunders is not happy that he won’t get to see the movie Aretha in the theatre because of pandemic surge fueled by the unvaccinated. Here’s a bit of his rant (emphasis in the original):

Of all the stupid reasons people give for not getting vaccinated against the ’rona — the virus is no worse than a cold, the vaccine will magnetize your skin or make an ear grow out of your elbow — the stupidest one of all is this: It’ll allow Bill Gates to implant a microchip in each of us and let the government and him know where we are.

Hate to break it to you, homes, but they already know where you are. I knew that even before my recent $15 Reuben episode. That point was driven home three years ago, when one of my writing class students told of a cellphone conversation she’d had with her boyfriend. He’d invited her to a wedding and she told him she would need to buy a dress. Within minutes and for the next several days, she said, she found her phone deluged with ads for wedding dresses and dresses to wear to weddings.

Paul Rupert is currently undergoing regular dialysis while awaiting a kidney transplant; his brother has committed to donating a kidney, but he worries that hospital space won’t be available, as hospitals fill with anti-vaxxer COVID patients. Indeed, he is quite fed up. An excerpt (emphasis in the original).

When the vaccines had rolled out, science and concern for self and others seemed to be winning the day.

Any euphoria proved short-lived. In a matter of weeks, delta rampaged, along with “vaccine hesitancy” and spiking hospitalizations and deaths. Soon ICU beds filled up and the talk began of postponing “elective surgeries” — as if a transplant were a tummy tuck.

If the rest of us are required to go willingly or unwillingly through protective steps for routine hospital visits, admission for COVID treatment should meet the same standard. Simply put, it is time to declare: No vaccination, no hospitalization. Except for those too young to get shots, the adults among us should show the courage of our convictions, make our choices and live — or die — with them.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Dr. Austin Ratner argues that it’s a major factor in our society’s bumbled response to COVID-19. A nugget (emphasis in the original):

When the unvaccinated Phil Valentine was first diagnosed with COVID-19, he posted a statement on Facebook claiming he’d be fine in a few days and touted the benefits of “some very effective alternatives to the vaccine.” In these statements, he was clearly saying what he wanted to believe more than he was facing up to known facts about the dangers of the illness for people in his age group.

That is denial.