03-18-2020, 09:55 PM
...not that HIV/AIDS is a perfect analogy...
There were plenty of denials about the seriousness of HIV/AIDS when it became infamously prominent. Many people thought that they had some solid defense against it... until people started dying of it that one never would have expected. COVID-19 attacks the body differently and has very different means of transmission, but -- pointless death is pointless death.
Could we be over--reacting? Maybe. There was plenty of wrong advice circulating about AIDS and how it could be transmitted, including mosquito bites, toilet seats, coughs and sneezes... I need not go into the means of transmission. Coughs and sneezes can spread COVID-19.
There is no deep, dark conspiracy -- but there are cover-ups, not surprisingly, in China and Iran which have authoritarian regimes hostile to anyone who tells derogatory news about the regime and its deeds.
So -- eat at home. Use wipes. Treat any suspected case of the flu as a medical emergency. Avoid crowds of any kind. Don't dawdle in any place in which contact with strangers is possible. Wear face masks in public places. Know that not getting or spreading this disease is worth a lay-off or using some sick time.
Also, know well -- this nasty situation will pass. Life will be back to normal. It is a good time for doing creative things that you put off or abandoned, or for enriching your cultural life. Read. Listen to great music (even if it is recorded). Write letters to people that you have not communicated to for years.
There were plenty of denials about the seriousness of HIV/AIDS when it became infamously prominent. Many people thought that they had some solid defense against it... until people started dying of it that one never would have expected. COVID-19 attacks the body differently and has very different means of transmission, but -- pointless death is pointless death.
Could we be over--reacting? Maybe. There was plenty of wrong advice circulating about AIDS and how it could be transmitted, including mosquito bites, toilet seats, coughs and sneezes... I need not go into the means of transmission. Coughs and sneezes can spread COVID-19.
There is no deep, dark conspiracy -- but there are cover-ups, not surprisingly, in China and Iran which have authoritarian regimes hostile to anyone who tells derogatory news about the regime and its deeds.
So -- eat at home. Use wipes. Treat any suspected case of the flu as a medical emergency. Avoid crowds of any kind. Don't dawdle in any place in which contact with strangers is possible. Wear face masks in public places. Know that not getting or spreading this disease is worth a lay-off or using some sick time.
Also, know well -- this nasty situation will pass. Life will be back to normal. It is a good time for doing creative things that you put off or abandoned, or for enriching your cultural life. Read. Listen to great music (even if it is recorded). Write letters to people that you have not communicated to for years.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.