Into the inferno of insanity

Yesterday, I wanted to include a comment about the state of affairs of those who do not believe in the coronavirus. There has been some heartbreaking stories about those in the hospital facing the prospect of undergoing intubation. The mindset of those who have been in denial of the pandemic I can only describe as insane. It’s just an insanity to not listen to the doctors and scientists when they tell you to put on the masks, social distance and don’t gather together. This whole year has been one mass insanity.

““A lot of times before they’re intubated — which means put on a ventilator because they can’t breathe on their own — when they’re still struggling to breathe, and they’re saying, ‘Well, I didn’t know COVID was real, and I wish I’d worn a mask.’ And then it’s already too late,” she tells NPR’s All Things Considered. “You can see the regret, as they’re struggling to breathe and it’s finally hitting them that this is real. It makes me very sad.”

In her experience, it has been mostly patients in their 40s and 50s who come to realize they should have done more or taken the coronavirus more seriously.”

“‘You Can See The Regret’: ICU Nurse On Patients Who Failed To Take COVID Precautions”, NPR – WBHM, Audi Cornish, November 12, 2020.

The link to that article is here

How did we get here?

Is it the failure of education? Is the the negligence of certain news media for failing to adhere to journalistic standards of facts and truth? Is the the strong socialization impulse that we humans have? Or all of the above and plus others not thought of?

Sometimes I just want to not care about them because they either don’t care about the rest of us or because there is nothing we can do until the crisis hits them. For some, that’s too late.

“Jodi Doering, an emergency room nurse, told CNN’s Alysin Camerota on New Day Monday morning that she’s seeing many people in her state in denial over their Covid-19 diagnoses, and are often angry in the last moments of their lives when they could be talking to loved ones. “Even if positive results come back, some people just don’t believe it,” she said, adding that they sometimes will insist it’s something else like the flu, a cold or even lung cancer. “It’s hard and sad because every hospital, every nurse, every doctor in this state is seeing the same things. These people get sick in the same way, you treat them in the same way, they die in the same way. And then you do it over again,” Doering told CNN. “It just makes you mad and sad and frustrated.” ”

“South Dakota is grappling with the nation’s highest positivity rate. This Covid-19 widow wants a mask mandate”, CNN, Lucy Kafanov, Leslie Perrot and Hollie Silverman, November 18, 2020.

For more, read here.

I just cried when I saw these news. It just makes me mad and sad. When they deny so vehemently, that strength of denial makes me think that deep down inside, they know the virus is real but can’t face the thought that they have made a HUGE fatal mistake in not listening to the public health messages. When they are hoping that their inability to breathe is really a symptom of lung cancer suggests to me that they don’t want to face the truth that the coronavirus is real: they are coming face to face with the reality that they have been grossly wrong all along and a reckoning is now upon them.

Deep down, their subconscious knows that they have made a fatal error.

I just hope they come out to the other side, sorry and wiser, but being intubated is usually not a good sign.

We have approximately 3 or 4 more months of this.