“In the face of a novel virus threat, China clamped down on its citizens. Academics used faulty information to build faulty models. Leaders relied on these faulty models. Dissenting views were suppressed. The media flamed fears and the world panicked.
The current coronavirus disease has been called a once-in-a-century pandemic. But it may also be a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco.”
Two questions: how did we let it go so far? And what can we do to ensure it doesn’t happen again?
How are you, really? This whole Coronavirus experience has been a bit of a shit storm, wouldn’t you agree? I feel like I’m stuck in a Draconian nightmare and I can’t seem to wake up. There is light at the end of the tunnel, so we’ve been told, but I wonder how getting back to normal is going to actually work. Our government has dug us into a hole, I’m not sure I trust them enough to get us out of it. And the longer we put off opening our country, the harder it’s going to be to dig ourselves out.
My head is spinning with so much data and thoughts about things I’ve heard and watched that I truly don’t know where to start, so I guess I’ll just start at the beginning. Please note, these are my thoughts and opinions. These thoughts in no way reflect how the hospital I work for, nor the people I work with, think or feel. This is my experience, it’s unique to me, everyone has their own unique experiences. You are free to disagree, it’s okay. We can agree to disagree. In return, I will work hard to remain fair and objective about this whole situation as the goal of this post is to record my thoughts and experience and to hopefully give you another perspective, or, to perhaps confirm thoughts you have but are too scared to admit out loud.
And isn’t that a sad state of affairs when you are afraid to voice your thoughts for fear of being attacked and ostracized?
Here’s how it began for me: This nightmare for me began the week the doctor I normally work with was on vacation with his family. He was out-of-the country. Two days into his vacation, shit hit the fan. The COVID-19 scare began and since none of us knew what it was or how severe it would be, we all freaked out, myself included. But still, I’m the sort of person who tends to downplay something, to not panic, until facts present themselves and the situation truly turns dire. THEN I would panic. But I would lying if other people’s fears didn’t affect me. What exactly are we dealing with? How serious was this virus? The fact that no one had ever seen anything like this before, and it was HIGHLY contagious, was … concerning.
The hospital responded the moment it became a pandemic. Most of the entrances were shut down leaving two main entrances and the ER open. We had to stop and have our temperatures taken and elective surgeries were shut down. The hospital also published travel restrictions stating that if you had traveled outside the country you had to be quarantined for 14 days either using ETO (which is estimated time off) or unpaid time, regardless of whether you tested positive for the virus.
When the cases exploded in New York, the hospital put up a tent outside of the ER and patients had to be screened for the virus in the tent first before they were allowed into the tent. (That tent is still up, by the way). A local business donated money to the hospital and they built a COVID wing in preparation of COVID patients. To my knowledge, they’ve only had a few patients use the wing, thank God.
(Update: that wing is about half full now and has been consistently half full for a few weeks now).
We all started worrying that the hospital wouldn’t allow our doctor back to work since he traveled out of the country. We were super worried when the hospital starting furloughing employees – they gave us the option of either working from home, if we could, or staying home using ETO or unpaid time. The hospital’s response to all of this was to try and protect the employees, which was actually pretty great – they worked very hard to put employees in other departments in order to try and avoid sending anyone home because let’s face it, who can afford to stay home without pay?
Oh right, millions of non-essential workers, that’s who.
I don’t know how, and it’s really none of my business on the details, but the hospital allowed my doctor to come back to work. Never one to be idle, he and his mid-level started coming up with a plan B because when he returned, we were essentially shut down and not seeing patients – at all. God bless my team because they come up with a plan to keep people working: They suggested Telemedicine.
I have worked for this clinic for almost nine years and we have never, not once, ever considered offering Telemedicine visits. It couldn’t be done, we were told. Our doctors needed to examine the patients to determine if surgery was a viable option for them. But now, given the option of either trying it or doing nothing, my team started really breaking down the details and asking questions on how we could make it happen. We were willing to try anything at this point, anything to keep the lights on.
We were especially motivated because we were hearing stories of entire departments being shut down simply because we weren’t seeing patients outside an emergent situation and we were scared we would be the next department to get the ax. We hurriedly came up with a plan and started using a program that worked, but was sort of clunky. But again, at least we were moving forward and not sitting idle. We then quickly shifted to using Microsoft Teams since it was a program that the hospital had purchased a license for and if it wasn’t for my lovely nurse and an administrator figuring out the details, how it worked and how it should all come together, we probably would have been told to stay home sooner.
Patients were reluctant at first. And setting up the visits was pretty stressful at first, but we have since figured it out and have come up with enough troubleshooting solutions that we have a pretty good handle on it now. However, it was slow going and instead of seeing 40 patients a week, we were seeing about twelve. And not all of the doctors were on board with this option at first. A few of them fought the option and refused to participate which ultimately led to management calling an emergency meeting letting us know that they were going to have to ask all of us to stay home at least one day of the week – we could use ETO or just not be paid.
It was a sobering meeting and one I will not soon forget. We all gathered in the main lobby, all standing six feet apart, of course, looking serious and crestfallen knowing what was coming but not sure how it would logistically pan out. Our director had tears in her eyes when she told us and though it was shocking to hear it was happening, none of us were surprised. We all saw it coming, and honestly, we were more surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.
When this was asked of us, the providers that weren’t on board with Telemedicine were suddenly on board. I think they felt bad for us, quite frankly. Even though it was in no way their fault, I think they felt a bit responsible for us because let’s face it, our jobs are solely dependent on how many patients and surgeries they do.
Fortunately, this new “normal” only lasted two weeks. Since we were one of the last departments to make any staff changes, it happened shortly before the hospital started allowing elective surgeries again, which was the first part of May. In the meantime, patients started being more receptive to the whole Telemedicine thing and we were “seeing” more patients at one time. In fact, in some ways, it’s been working out better than actually seeing patients in the office because it’s allowed us to really focus on the patients that truly need to be seen for various problems. I know my doctor has been getting quite a few surgeries and he’s been very happy with the process so far. And to be fair, I think the patients have been happy with it as well. My doctor has the ability to share his screen with his patients and he’s able to pull up their images and go over them with the patients so the patients can see what is going on with their spines. Our mid-level has thought of creative ways to do exams over web cam and except for being able to do vitals on the patients, honestly, our process hasn’t changed all that much. I mean, it has, but we have just found a new way to treat patients.
As of this post, the tent is still out in front of ER, we are still only seeing patients via Telemedicine but the city and the hospital are getting ready to implement phase 2 of this process starting June 1st, which means we can see a handful of patients in our clinic but everyone has to wear a mask and we have to space the patients out in the waiting rooms and/or put them in an exam room as soon as possible.
Though we’ve been given the green light to do so, my doctor doesn’t want to see patients in the office yet. He would prefer to only still do Telemedicine which … is fine with me, it means I have a job and it keeps the lights on, but it is a lot of extra work on my part to get it set up because it’s not a quick get them on the schedule and be done with it, a two minute phone call turns into ten minutes, then I have to put them on the Teams schedule, then the normal schedule. Then I’m on the phone with them on the day of their appointment for 15 minutes updating their chart and talking them through establishing a connection. Our doctor doesn’t want to start seeing patients in the office until we have a vaccine, but let’s be honest, that could be 18 months from now, or never, quite frankly. I’m sure he’ll cave once he sees his partners allowing patients back in the office. But who knows, I’ve gotten so good going with the flow lately that I’m sure I’ll deal with whatever new challenge is thrown at me next.
Now on to my thoughts about this mess …
I think shutting down the country in the first two weeks, though not ideal, was understandable. We didn’t know what we were dealing with. And with the crazy models that were coming out predicting 2.5 million people were projected to die, well, that was scary shit, of course we reacted the way we did. This virus could have easily been another 1918 Spanish flu which “sickened up to 40% of the world’s population, killing an estimated 50 million people.” Granted, our medical advances have come a long way since 1918 but still, that’s a lot death.
During a typical flu season, up to 500,000 people worldwide will die from the illness, according to WHO. But then again, I’m not sure the WHO is exactly a credible source at this point in time so take those numbers with a grain of salt.
But when the data starting trickling in and we analyzed the facts – the hospitals were NOT being overrun with COVID-19 patients and the people who were dying were older and had other comorbidities, we should have immediately eased up on the restrictions. I’m not saying turn everyone loose and go back to normal, but definitely not placing everyone under house arrest for weeks, in some cases, months, like we ended up doing.
I know everyone gets bent out of shape when I compare the coronavirus with influenza but let’s look at the facts. The CDC estimates that 24000 – 62000 people have died from influenza this year in the United States. Note the word “estimated.” I don’t say this to discredit the CDC, though I naturally question the validity and motivations of the CDC because I’m a cynic and feel every government department is politically motivated on some level, but to me, that means even the CDC doesn’t really know how many people die each year from influenza. And I get that a lot of people have the flu and never go to their doctor so if it’s not been officially diagnosed then it’s hard to know for sure, but my point is, people die from influenza, not to mention other illnesses and catastrophes each year. Looking at the data for COVID-19, 188,000 people have died from COVID-19 as of the date of this post so right away, in comparing numbers and characteristics it seemed plausible that we were dealing with a more aggressive-type flu-like disease. And that’s assuming the CDC is accurately reporting the data being sent to them and assuming that the deaths documented in each state are accurate as well. Let’s not forget that some of the data is being skewed to falsely report more people dying from COVID-19 when in fact, COVID-19 was likely the straw that broke the camels back for them and their bodies simply couldn’t take anymore sickness.
(Update: The CDC’s website cited that after more data was analyzed, only 6% of the 188,000 Coronavirus deaths were actually caused by COVID, the rest of the deaths were recorded as the people who died from other causes and just happened to have COVID was listed as dying from COVID. They didn’t die FROM COVID, they died WITH COVID. There has since been an UPROAR that this information was misinterpreted and that is not what the CDC meant, though it was published on their site – pretty sure it’s been taken down as I couldn’t find it, but perhaps I just missed it – but it begs the question – why is everyone so upset? Shouldn’t this be GOOD news? Oh wait, if it’s determined that COVID wasn’t as deadly as first projected then that means we destroyed our economy and people in general for no reason. I can see why some are furious by this information because it’s hard enough to justify our reaction to the pandemic, let alone continue to convince people that it’s as deadly as they want to make it out to be. I guess we’ll only know for sure when we have a chance to look back on this time period and analyze it outside an election year, right?)
But what do I know? I’m not an expert. I’m just one of millions being forced into a groupthink situation that refuses to go along to get along because I’m not part of the sheeple mentality.
I feel like to have a valid opinion of the coronavirus, and by valid, I mean informed, not just a reaction to the fear the media is determined to cloak us with, you need to understand a bit more about the virus. I found a really interesting interview on PragerU with Dr. Reed Wilson in Los Angeles who does a good job of explaining what the virus is and why we’re so leary of it. Feel free to watch it, or don’t, be a sheeple, it’s your choice. (Yes, I’m being snarky because it frustrates me that so many people are just so WILLING to accept what is being spoon fed them).
One of the reasons people got so worked up about the virus is because the coronavirus is a “novel” virus, which means it’s a new virus, one the experts have not seen before. This, naturally, puts people on edge because again, you don’t know how it will affect people. As with influenza, which occurs every year, in different varieties, people have naturally built up an immune to it, not perfectly and there is enough variety that a person is still susceptible to it, but that person also has enough immunity from previous seasons to potentially fight it off, or when that person gets sick, he/she is not as sick as he/she might have been without these immunities – it’s enough to somewhat protect a person. Not to mention, that people have the choice of getting the flu vaccination every year which also helps to build immunity, though I also personally feel suspicious of the vaccine because again, you’re asking me to put blind faith in a government that I firmly believe doesn’t have our best interest at heart, but that’s another topic for another day. The bottom line, for better or worse, the flu vaccine is an option to help build immunities to annual flu viruses. we also have medications on the market to help combat flu systems, for example Tamiflu and others.
With the Coronavirus, we don’t have these tools to help combat the virus – no natural immunity – no vaccine, no known medications. With that said, I can totally understand why we went into this nightmare cautiously. Until we knew what we were dealing with, it was better to be safe than sorry. I get it, I respect that.
But you have to take into account that the models that were presented to our government were based on information from China, where the virus was originated. This data was risky at best because the Chinese government completely controls what information is allowed out, there are not checks and balances in China – the government controls everything. So now we have to assume that China is telling the truth. The initial projections were that 2.2 million Americans would die from this disease but as the weeks went by, the data, the hard data, that was coming in, showed that the numbers were not only lower, they were significantly lower than the models, which was good news! It could have easily been correct and we would have had a much worse scenario on our hands, but the fact that it wasn’t, and it was in fact, much better than projected and yet we tightened the screws and forced the country to lock down ended up being worse than dealing with this novel virus. And to quote Dr. Wilson, “if you have garbage data into a scenario, you’re going to have garbage data come out of the scenario.”
But instead of stopping, asking fresh eyes to review the data and take into account several key elements, the media fixated on epidemiologist Neil Ferguson’s flawed data as gospel truth thereby working the public into a frenzy and stoking the fear so much so that people where nearly paralyzed with it.
I believe the media is one of the biggest contributors to this disaster and think they should be held accountable in some way. It will never happen. But it’s my hope that the media’s gross mishandling of this crisis will at least wake some people up from this Matrix-like trance they seem to be in and realize that the media does not exist for the people, it exists to promote an unrealistic utopia world that they control.
Take the red pill, as Elon Musk recently urged Americans to do in his tweet. I couldn’t agree more.
It’s all about control for many politicians and the media. And I don’t know about you, but NO ONE controls me, my life or my decisions. Period.
And going back to Neil Ferguson for a moment, he also “predicted [in 2005] 200 million could die from the bird flu. Total deaths over the last 15 years turned out to be 455. This is the same Neil Ferguson who in 2009 predicted that 65,000 people could die in the U.K. from the swine flu. The final number ended up around 392. Now, in 2020, he predicted that 500,000 British would die from coronavirus.
His deeply flawed model led the United States to fear over 2 million deaths and was used to justify locking down nearly the entire nation.” Source
WHY do we continue to listen to anything this man says? Or at the very least, run his “data” by other experts so they can corroborate his findings instead of taking what he says has gospel truth? This makes no sense to me.
Anyway, Dr. Wilson does a really good job of explaining how the virus likely spread and why New York was hit so hard by the virus. He also does a really good job of breaking down various reasons why Italy was impacted so much. Italy is referenced a lot by people who are trying to back up and justify our exaggerated reaction to the virus. But we have to be willing to recognize societal and regional factors in order to get the complete picture. Again, the media will not tell you any of this, all they want to do is give you the most dire details and then stand back and nod in satisfaction when we take the bait, lose our freakin’ minds with fear and start hoarding toilet paper.
It’s evil, really, and it makes me furious that people are that gullible.
Something else that Dr. Wilson mentions, that we generated a test vaccine in 63 days. He says that it normally takes 5 to 10 years to generate a test vaccine, let alone approve it for mass production. That to me, tells me we are CAPABLE of moving and getting things done, but we don’t because it’s much more beneficial, on several fronts, to drag our feet and squeeze as much money and political rewards as we can before actually getting anything done in this country. Again, a telling sign that our government is not really in this for the people, they are in this because it’s become a business that the American people fund.
You know what bothers me most about this whole COVID nightmare? That people were so willing to give up their rights. Government says STAY HOME and we all bow our heads and just do what we’re told. Again, I get why we did it for the first few weeks, but now? I think it’s nothing but a power grab and our politicians don’t want to give up the power of controlling us.
But politicians aside, what’s up with this groupthink shit?
“[This] is the story of what may eventually be known as one of the biggest medical and economic blunders of all time. The collective failure of every Western nation, except one, to question group think will surely be studied by economists, doctors, and psychologists for decades to come.” Source
That quote is from an article that Kevin sent me that sums up my thoughts and concerns about this whole virus nightmare. The article is called How, Fear, Groupthink Drove Unncessary Global Shutdowns by Yinon Weiss published on Real Politics Website.
“To put things in perspective, the virus is now known to have an infection fatality rate for most people under 65 that is no more dangerous than driving 13 to 101 miles per day. Even by conservative estimates, the odds of COVID-19 death are roughly in line with existing baseline odds of dying in any given year.
Yet we put billions of young healthy people under house arrest, stopped cancer screenings, and sunk ourselves into the worst level of unemployment since the Great Depression. This from a virus that bears a survival rate of 99.99% if you are a healthy individual under 50 years old.
But of course the whole linchpin of the lock down argument is that it would have been even worse without such a step. Sweden never closed down borders, primary schools, restaurants, or businesses, and never mandated masks, yet 99.998% of all their people under 60 have survived and their hospitals were never overburdened.
Why did we lock down the majority of the population who were never at significant risk? What will be the collateral damage?
China concealed the extent of the viral outbreak, which, if you believed its data, led many scientists to believe that 2% to 5% of all infected patients would die. This turned out to be off by a factor of 10, but academic epidemiologists have a history of wildly-off-the-mark doomsday predictions.”
And by the way, the article links to supporting documentation for these claims, for you naysayers out there. I know, facts suck, i.e. they suck the validity right out of agendas, don’t they.
There are those who say that we couldn’t have known these outcomes early on, so even if lockdowns were unjustified later they were still necessary early due to lack of information. That is plainly false. Italy’s alarming number of deaths fanned many of the early fears across the world, but by March 17 it was clear that the median age of Italian deaths was over 80 and that not a single person under 30 had died in that country. Furthermore, it was known that 99% of those who died had other existing illnesses.
A much more rational strategy would have been to lock down nursing homes and let young healthy people out to build immunity. Instead we did the opposite, we forced nursing homes to take COVID-19 patients and locked down young people.”
So why did the world march lock step into its man-made calamity?
That’s ultimately my biggest question from this ordeal. WHY were people so willing to go along with this scheme? We didn’t even QUESTION what was happening, we simply shut up and got in line. I realize fear is a powerful emotion, but that’s all the more reason to STOP and THINK before locking ourselves in our houses and allowing the government to dictate how and when we may or may not do something.
By the way, for all of those out there rooting for socialism? This is but a taste of what it’s like to have your freedoms forcibly taken away. Is it all you dreamed it would be?
If that doesn’t scare the shit out of you, then you’re not fully woke to what is going on around you. I mean the GOOD woke, the REALISTIC woke, not the FAKE woke white progressives tout with self importance.
I don’t know about you, but I have zero interest in having some entity full of hypocritical assholes telling me what I can and can not do. Go occupy your ivory tower all by your lonesome and leave me alone, thank you very much.
Now that we have more testing available and we have tested more Americans , look at the numbers. According to the CDC, the number of tests performed and the positive case results stem from:
people who have the virus and exhibit symptoms and
people who test positive for COVID antibodies but exhibited very little, if any symptoms.
Once those numbers rolled in, we should have immediately opened the country back up because this not only proved the virus was less deadly than originally projected, it also significantly lowered the death rate by showcasing positive cases with no deaths.
Yet, we didn’t open the country back up. Why? I believe it was a few reasons:
- Power hungry politicians just couldn’t make themselves relinquish that sweet control over us minions, correction, people
- The media wanted to continue painting doom and gloom, despair, mental and financial ruin so people would be too scared to leave their homes to vote for Trump this next election (i.e pushing mail-in ballots)
- Politicians wanted to push their socialistic agendas by creating an environment where people were forced to stay home and let the government “take care of them” thereby stripping away their ability to take care of themselves independently.
I can sense the eye rolls out there. If you think pockets of this country with governors that refuse to loosen the screws and instead tighten them further even though there is OVERWHELMING evidence that the virus is not anywhere near the original projected models are doing it for the “good of the people” you are delusional. And what is up with this arbitrary proclamation of what has been deemed essential and non-essential? Every job, every person, out there is essential on some level. A waitresses’ job is just as essential to her and her family as working in a hospital to someone else’s family. It’s easy for someone in an “essential” job to turn up his nose at a “non-essential” man’s outrage over the lockdown because that “essential” employee is still getting a paycheck – what about the poor “non-essential” worker that has bills to pay and food to put on his table?
Too bad so sad?
Look. The virus was scary. Our reaction to it was even scarier, in my opinion. But ultimately, it comes down to taking responsibility for you, your life, your decision. Do what you want. Stay home if you’re fearful of the reopening. You have the right to live your life and make your decisions but you do NOT have the right to ask me to do the same, whether I agree or disagree with your reaction to said disaster.
I have gotten hooked on listening to Matt Walsh and Micheal Knowles from The Daily Wire. They have some really good thoughts and commentaries on this crazy thing we call life. I highly recommend listening to them. Even if you’re not a conservative, in fact, especially if you’re not conservative, listen to them. They offer up alternate view points that should be taken into consideration.
Here is a clip from The Matt Walsh show that perfectly sums up my feelings about this pandemic:
Now that we have opened back up and we’ve had a surge of new cases, people are going crazy – again. It sort of baffles me how fast people forget things. Don’t you remember, back in April, when we forced everyone to close their doors and were told we’re shutting down to flatten the curve? Give us two weeks, they said. It’s been SIX MONTHS. It was NEVER, repeat NEVER, with the expectation that would eradicate the virus. We KNEW the spikes would happen once we opened back up – the whole purpose of shutting things down was to control that surge and the stress it might put on our healthcare system.
But people have freaked the fuck right out again with these spikes. “We need to shut down the country again!” No people, we don’t need to hide and postpone THE INEVITABLE. What we need to do is stop forcing our healthy people to quarantine and protect our vulnerable. We can’t hide from this thing forever. If we had not shut down to begin with, this spike would have happened months ago and we wouldn’t be having this hotly debated fiasco going on right now about allowing the children to go back to school.
But I suppose that was the point – hold these nuggets of fear close to our chest so that when the hoopla starts to die down we can once again throw down our hands and inject another dose of raw fear into people’s lives so they are more easily manipulated.
Congratulations – another tally mark for socialism.
By the way, this post was months in the making. I kept putting off writing about this because the situation has been so fluid and the rules changed so much, and continue to change so much, not to mention, consistently contradict one another. (Consistently contradict? There’s an oxymoron for you. You’re welcome) that it’s been hard to write about it because my feelings and thoughts have changed so much that it’s been hard to keep up with myself, let alone the shit storm we call our country right now.
I’m sure you all can relate.
*sigh* So what can we take away from this nightmare? Fear is a powerful emotion, it can turn people into animals and prod them to act out-of-character. When something like this happens, all we can do is step back, take a breath and assess the situation LOGICALLY – leave the emotions out of it. Is that hard? Hell yes that’s hard. But that’s all the more reason to do it because allowing ourselves to be spoon fed to a fear monster is not only not productive, it’s destructive. We have to stay diligent and cautious but we can not allow fear to dictate our lives. We have one life – ONE. We must not allow something, or someone, dictate how we live our lives.
Risk is part of everyday life. However, we can’t responsibly weigh COVID risks without better, unbiased, honest communication.
This excerpt is from the article titled: We Need Better Risk Communication to Combat the Coronavirus by Allison Schrager and Jessica Hullman at the National Review.
“In March, little was known about the virus, but we are now more than six months into the pandemic. There is a history of super-spreader events. There are more reliable data on mortality and individual risk factors, as well as on behaviors to mitigate risks, such as wearing masks. And even if we don’t fully understand how the virus is transmitted, we know more than we used to.
And yet, the CDC website does not offer meaningful risk communication; it merely lists risk factors, without data as to the severity of those factors. High-profile public-health officials offer ominous warnings but little in the way of sustainable ways to live with COVID-19 risks. News reports still tend to highlight stories about individuals experiencing complications without explaining the likelihoods of such complications. It is nearly impossible to find meaningful risk assessments of different activities — say, going to the grocery store or getting your haircut. Even public-health officials won’t take a clear stand on whether a crowded beach is riskier than a large protest.
This leaves non-experts to figure it out based on what they hear from their favored news sources or social-media platforms. It is no wonder some Americans are afraid to leave their homes entirely, while others flock to crowded indoor spaces. Much of the current reporting on COVID-19 requires guesswork to fill in the holes.
It’s not realistic to leave it to the government to manage all our risks. Government has a responsibility to regulate or ban the riskiest activities, but it can’t eliminate all COVID-19 risk. America is too large, diverse, and interconnected. We also can’t all stay at home until there’s a vaccine, unless we want to ignore the heavy emotional toll of social isolation and the inevitable destruction of our economy. Instead, we must rely on our fellow citizens to make smart risk decisions. Some will make reckless choices and others will be overly cautious, no matter how much information they are given. But we can at the very least reduce some of COVID-19’s spread if those who want to act responsibly are given the tools to do so. For that to happen, they need better information.”
It sounds hopeless – putting your faith in your fellow human being to be responsible in taking care of oneself and his/her community. But that’s a risk we take everyday by co-mingling with said community. Short of moving to the boonies and living off grid and not dealing with people very often, we have to come up with ways to survive and thrive on our own. There is no simple answer to how we do that, all I know is listening to agenda-driven, biased information and then reacting instead of proactively acting is not the way to responsibly live our lives. For me, I will take precautions and be cautious but I WILL NOT allow a virus, a person, or an event to dictate how I live out the rest of my life.
Life is meant to be enjoyed, regardless of the challenges it throws at us. We just have to learn to adapt, be flexible and come up with creative solutions to co-exist with our fellow humans. We also have to trust that God will have our backs.
But that’s a topic for another day. I have a whole category about knowing God on my blog, if you’re interested.
Let’s wrap this up, shall we? I feel like I’ve talked your ear off and I’m sure you’re sick and tired of all things COVID.
Let me leave you with an inspiring quote:
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. Soren Kierkegaard
Take care, friends. I’ll talk to you next time.
Write From Karen 