According to the NY TIMES there have thus far been 23,607 deaths in the US due to Covid 19. No doubt the true number is higher with some, perhaps many, deaths not occurring in hospitals not being counted. A TV talking head described this as ‘staggering’, an emotionally charged word. Frightening people is their business. What I want is simply to be given the number. I will then decide for myself whether to be staggered.
I found myself wondering how many people die in the US in what are ‘normal’ times. The answer is about 8,000 every day.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6826a5.htm
What would be significant is how many more than 8,000 people are dying every day now. Googling has not provided an answer.
I have found multiple reports that as many as 90% of Covid 19 deaths have come to individuals who had other health problems. The term ‘substitute deaths’ is being used. We do not live in an Age of Patience. People want immediate answers and quick solutions. I don’t suppose the number of ‘substitute deaths’ will be known for months or perhaps even years.
I am not dismissing this pandemic. I am almost totally socially isolated except from Carol, but then as you know that comes easily to me. But I try to see beyond the emotionally charged words, beyond the fearmongering. This is the first great trauma in the lives of many who know no history and unthinkingly assumed that tomorrow was going to be like yesterday.
If this is clearly not The Age of Patience what is it?
It is the Age of the Deification of the Mob. The Age of Making Begging Respectable. The Age of Self-righteous Outrage. A few years ago when Apple made the first iPhone without a headphone jack I read online of people’s outrage. I thought: Outrage? Over a phone jack? Get a life people. And of course most of the outraged had not lived long enough to have a life, and some of them even if they live to be eighty never will. It is The Age of ‘Oh, Poor Me’. Another article in the TIMES asks: Is being socially isolated harder for only children? I was an only child. Get over it. Move on. It is also in the words of my friend, Michael, The Age of Learned Helplessness. I wish I had written that. He has given me permission to quote what he wrote yesterday in his Key West Diary.
I got a call at work from some guy Up North who asked me, a police dispatcher, when the Covid-19 shut down would be over. I just sat there wondering why he needed me to help him to decide to cancel his fishing trip. Dude, I wanted to say, I canceled my Irish vacation at the beginning of March. But there again I'm an adult and I felt no need to call the Irish Gardai to ask their opinion. But we live in an age of learned helplessness.
From my friend, Zane, who recently sailed his junk-rigged Contessa 26, PANGO, to the Bay of Islands come three short videos that fill me with sweetly sad longing.
I drank too much Sunday evening. I broke the two glass rule which is a good one. I am going to stick to it. Beyond there be dragons.
3 comments:
Just at the moment confirmed US Covid deaths are around 2,000 per day but projected to begin dropping (with a wide cone of uncertainty of about 500 to 4,000). I haven't seen an updated figure for this, but the average time from diagnosis to death was once reported at 30 days, so the deaths today are on average from cases before the lockdowns started.
About 1% of the NY population has tested positive so far.
Your post today sounds like you are still about to implement restrictions on booze . Perhaps you got those Ina Garten glasses ?https://www.vulture.com/2020/04/ina-garten-makes-giant-cosmo-on-instagram-watch-video.html
That glass would not be in the spirit of the thing. Pun recognized belatedly.
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