Giving the Right Kind of Thanks   

   The pandemic is obviously and exponentially raging out of control all across America, partly because we’ve had no coherent national plan to fight it (and still do not), and partly because we’ve simply grown weary of it and want it to end. Far too many people have adopted a cavalier attitude and are not wearing masks and not social distancing, even though we’re being told over and over by the qualified experts like immunologist Dr. Fauci that those are the best two weapons we have to effectively combat this scourge that has now killed a quarter million Americans and is breaking records for infections and deaths every day, straining our health care facilities and those who valiantly work within it to their limits.

    Masking and distancing have somehow become politicized. Not wearing a mask is for some people a bold statement that their personal freedom will not be compromised. Some are still believing that Covid is no worse than the flu or that it’s an insidious hoax, but any health care worker will testify that it is indeed quite real and is extremely nasty. Some people simply feel that mask wearing is too inconvenient and annoying.

    It’s Thanksgiving week, and despite expert advice not to gather this year in traditional celebration, many are planning to do so anyway.

    We’ve thanked our courageous, overworked, and severely stressed health care workers for their heroic efforts, and that is certainly appropriate to do once again this week. But some of those hard pressed workers are begging us to show our sincere thanks, our support for them, and our compassion for our fellow Americans by masking up and distancing and not gathering (which risks spreading the disease now more than ever) while we all await a vaccine.

   What’s really inconvenient and annoying and an imposition on personal freedom is being shut away alone in an isolation unit with a tube down your throat, choking to death on a respirator.

   Or causing fellow Americans or someone you love to suffer that needless fate.

   Please follow the advice of the experts. Mask up and distance. Avoid unnecessary gatherings. These simple measures will help save lives.

Phil

www.philbowie.com