To a covid minimizer

This came out of an unhappy Twitter discussion. I am not sure, even, why I kept on with it as long as I did, but it did get me to organize some of my thoughts about covid and so I’ve saved it and present it here. If you take nothing else away from this rather cranky article, take this: Covid is above all a disabling disease, and it can disable people of all ages, yes, even children.

Unless you are extremely old or grossly unhealthy, you have little to fear from Covid, stop being so melodramatic. – @Nahanchi7068

You have disability to fear. One in five infections lead to some sort of long-term disability. But, hey, keep deceiving yourself. Then you can learn how disabled people are treated, which you probably also don’t believe.

And now that I’m done with my snark, let me make this point: Covid is above all a disabling disease. We should treat it as such and take it seriously. In the “real world” you speak of, covid is a disaster. I know a med tech who got it. Young healthy man, lifts weights. Covid knocked him out for two weeks. It took him another two weeks for him to fully recover. That was a mild case. People can get it again and again. The impact of this thing on labor markets alone is enough reason to take it seriously. But there’s worse. Sometimes, it disables. I don’t see how anyone can get covid multiple times and not end up with serious health problems - no matter your luck, sometimes you roll snake eyes.

A 9/11 worth of deaths every week. Weeks of disability for infected people, with a high risk of long-term disability. Risk of reinfection. If this is what you consider overhyped, I’d hate to see what you consider soft-pedaled.

Because its death rate is relatively low? Should the USA not have responded to 9/11 because it only killed 0.001% of the population? At this point there have been more deaths from covid than any US war. Consider what having a perpetually ill military will do to combat readiness. Washington did – he ordered vaccinations. Covid disables healthy young people and a military that ignores that at a disadvantage. World War II was first war where more people died of enemy action than of disease, and that is down to vaccination.

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And now that that discussion has petered out, I can only wonder what it is conservatives believe about covid. In the areas conservatives seem to care the most about – martial prowess and physical strength – covid is a disaster. Why all these complicated reasons to ignore it? I think of all the pointless wars conservatives have fought and lost. Is all the talk of martial prowess – just talk? Is it all bluster?