It started very early Monday morning. Slightly awake in the dark, my throat felt odd when I swallowed. The room was warm, so I just wrote it off to that, that my throat was dry. I drank some water and tried to go back to sleep.
Odd. That is the best I can describe what hung on yesterday. Not sore, not really scratchy. Did not hurt when I swallowed, but something was sitting there like a faint echo. Then my nose, which had been runny over the weekend - nothing too major - was stuffy. What little sleep I got last night was not enough. I am exhausted today. But as I lay awake most of the night, I managed to track down and secure a COVID testing appointment about 30 minutes from my home.
This morning my throat was something. Not the red, fire-y feeling, but the I-swallowed-a-handful-of-sand feeling. That has not abated.
Arriving at my destination - a sports complex with drive up testing, everything I have been writing about was clear - the line of cars stretched to at least 100. That was ahead of me. The line that formed behind me ended up just as long. For over an hour I inched my way forward, finally being approached by a nurse who supplied me with the sterile swab and vial of liquid, instructing me that I would swab myself and continue to move forward. Done.
Closed vial in hand, it still took 40 minutes to move forward and for another nurse to come to my window, ask for my confirmation number, print out a sticker of my info for the vial, and then take it from me.
And now I sit and wait. When my husband had COVID in November, I went and got tested a couple times. Each time I was emailed my results within 24 hours. But back then, there were no lines to wait in. And the country was not averaging 2 MILLION tests being processed daily, with upwards of ONE MILLION coming back positive each day.
819,563,548. I sit and look at that gargantuan number - the total number of tests in this country since COVID hit - and know I am in there for three. The two in November, the one today. I look at 735,152 - the total new positive cases since 9am this morning and wonder if I will be in the data dump tomorrow or Thursday when my results come back.
Then I look at 4,078 - the number of lives lost since January 1 - three days ago. I find my solace there. Fully vaxxed and boosted, I am very confident I will not find myself in the hospital, choking for air, or being bid farewell by my family via an ipad.
That is why we get vaccinated. That is why we get the booster. That is why I will get another booster if the guidelines move to that point. Not because the shots provide an impenetrable suit of armor, but because they provide my immune system the tools it needs to help better protect my body from the devastating physical storm of COVID that continues to take over a thousand lives daily.
Unvaccinated holdouts account for nearly 99% of all COVID deaths. Daily we see yet another story (stories) of some loudmouthed talking head, Facebook Karen, or politician with an R by their name - so brazen only weeks ago about not being told what to do - having their COVID death announced. Children left behind, a new GoFundMe set up by relatives left to care for them and dispose of the ignorant wretch who passed, and typically a plea from a once unbelieving family member for people to get vaccinated.
It shouldn't take the death of a loved one. But that is the attitude so pervasive in this nation that is dragging us into our third year fighting a variant that is blazing through our population - from babies to the elderly. It should not have to affect you for you to finally give a shit. For you to wake up and realize that Hey! Maybe you don't know more than an epidemiologist who has dedicated their entire adult life to research. That horse dewormer is not a cure-all, and that Joe Rogan is actually just a loudmouthed prick who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.
Here are FACTS.
Our 14 day average of new cases is up 239% The globe's average is just 132%
Hospitalizations are up 75%
Children's ICUs are full and children ARE dying
If you have an emergency - a car accident, a stroke, a heart attack - you may be turned away. Hell, even a laceration that needs medical eyeballs and stitches can find you sent home - this happened to my brother-in-law last week. Urgent Cares with no doctors, or one doctor and multiple patients ahead, ERs overflowing. He ended up back home at 1am, still bleeding, with my sister attempting to tourniquet and bandage him as best as she was able.
Here in Arizona another hospital made national news last week when they had to deny heart patients and have their status as a Cardiac Receiving Center removed because they did not have enough healthy employees to staff the cath lab. And no, you cannot just swap one doctor or nurse for another. These are highly specialized and trained medical professionals and if they are sick, you and your suddenly bum ticker are screwed.
Transplant patients are closer than ever to dying because they either refuse to get vaccinated or test positive when an organ is found, removing them from being qualified to receive it.
But back to the children. All over this country they are being hospitalized in record numbers - Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maine, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania, as well as Washington, D.C. - all have charted record numbers of compromised children.
Dr. Mark Kline, the physician-in-chief at Children's Hospital New Orleans: "We've spent two years rebutting myths pertaining to Covid and children, that it's 'harmless' for children. It's not."
In his pediatric unit alone, there are fourteen children, three children under TWO in the ICU. The youngest COVID patient is 8 WEEKS OLD.
These numbers are repeating across the country.
At least 325,340 cases were reported nationally during the week of Dec. 23, up from 198,551 the week before. Common denominator? Either too young to be vaccinated or the children of selfish, ignorant, unvaccinated parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids.
"We rarely see a vaccinated child in the hospital," Kline said.
Can you read that simple sentence, you oafs? I cannot wrap my head around intentionally endangering my children. I just can't. And with each passing day, as the numbers grow, the beds fill up, and children fight for their tiny lives, there is no other way to describe it than this: CHILD ENDANGERMENT.
That is not hyperbole. That is cold, hard, provable truth.
But there you are - a plumber, a dental hygienist, a produce stocker, a talk radio host, a stock broker, a football player, a mom, a stay-at-home dad, a truck driver, a mechanic, a singer, a cake decorator, an accountant, a lawyer - all noble, honest endeavors and professions - BUT YOU DO NOT KNOW MORE THAN THE SCIENTISTS. I don't care how many badly spelled memes you ingest on Facebook, Gab, and now Gettr - YOU. ARE. NOT. MORE. QUALIFIED. THAN. DR. FAUCI. (Who, despite continuing death threats still works daily to save your stupid asses.)
And stop quoting statistics from VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System). Ever since you people discovered that site, it is obvious you take advantage of the main loophole that makes it worthless. VAERS is completely self reporting. That means I can go on right now and report that the COVID vaccine gave me anal warts in my ears, then make another report that the COVID vaccine killed my aunt's cousin's babysitter's dogwalker when his scrotum inflated (a la Nikki Minaj bullshit) and exploded in church on Christmas morning. Then I can submit yet another report that after receiving the vaccine, I grew a tail, began to speak in tongues, saw my hair turn purple, my nipples begin to spin like radio dials, and that my uterus now hangs to my knees like a cow udder. Oh, and that my car key sticks to my vaccination spot.
All you have done by padding that site with bullshit is insure your fellow dullards stay further away from FACTS and SAFETY, and you scare more people into thinking they will die, or worse, be controlled by Bill Gates and George Soros. By paying for fake vaccination cards, all you have done is endanger those around you. Literally, people have died because of your cowardice and blinding stupidity and belligerence.
It does not matter if YOU only have a mild case. You spread it like ivermectin on your asshole to countless other people who may not be as lucky. And yes, you can get COVID again. And again. And again. One round does not give you some magic cloaking powers.
Delta is still very much out there, and Omicron is like the Colorado fires last week, driven forward at astonishing speed by the winds. MILLIONS of people are going to contract it. Age does not protect you. Joe Rogan does not protect you. FOX does not protect you. THE VACCINES WILL PROTECT YOU.
Because that is what they are for. Not to keep you from the column that just added 99,760 new cases since I started typing this piece. But to keep you out of the column that just added 247 more deaths in the same amount of time.
COVID is coming for you, for me, for all of us. The difference in our outcomes is what we do before it finds us. Get vaccinated and live, or wallow in your memes and die.
Tick, tock, mother fuckers...
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