Super Tuesday and Health Related Thoughts
Today is known as Super Tuesday, which means if you live in the 14 states that are holding their presidential primaries today, it is time to go out and vote. The primary is not the only thing at stake, in every district, there are multiple items on the ballot that require the attention of the public, and if one abstains from voting, then it is impossible that their voice will be heard. I hear the arguments that we have a broken system, and it may be that our system is indeed broken, but how can it be fixed if people refuse to vote? I really don’t want to spend too much more time on this subject since I’ve already talked about voting in the very recent past, so the main point remains that voting is important and we cannot move forward as a democratic society if people abstain from voting out of cynicism.
The other thing that is on my mind this morning while I sip on my coffee is the latest news on how our country is handling the coronavirus outbreak. Honestly, I find being told to just obsessively wash my hands and wait for some cure to be developed while there is only some regulation of passengers from overseas being put into place a little disturbing. Six people have died in the United States, and it seems like the administration is not taking that statistic seriously. Those are six lives lost to a virus that is now spreading person to person. Just because there are only a few confirmed cases at the present moment in time does not mean that more are not going to spring up, no matter how many flights are canceled.
Would this be taken more seriously if six were instead six hundred? It is truly baffling to me that the president claims to not know that the common flu kills a very high number of people every year, and now knowing that number the main stance from him and the vice president is “wash your hands.” I highly doubt that they have any idea how difficult it is to develop a new treatment for a disease and then get it approved for human use. Every new drug needs to go through testing, and even when it’s being put on the fast track there are corners that should not be cut to ensure the safety of those in need of the new treatment. It just seems like science and health literacy is not very common with certain elected officials, and that has lead to an unsatisfactory response to a disease with the potential to be quite serious.
Not I need to say that I do not think that we need to panic about the coronavirus, just that we need to take it seriously. It is really frustrating to me to hear the response that each health threat in the past years (ebola, swine flu, etc…) has ultimately been nullified so this is no different because those threats were taken very seriously by health officials and the administrations at the time. Yes, washing your hands will help to protect you from the coronavirus, but I really do not think that is the point. The point is that the threat should be taken seriously, even if it will likely be a thing of the past in a few months. The fact that people have died because of this virus does not change just because we are told to wash our hands.
