05-02-2020, 12:42 AM
I figured I'd pop in, here, because of the whole thing with the 'rona; out of curiosity and a touch of nostalgia I looked this place up. I wanted to see what your response to the entire thing was. And you have not disappointed.
This place is exactly what it was the first time around.
That's the problem.
COVID and all that has produced a lot of yelling and hot air. Whose fault is it? Why isn't it being handled better by [politician of choice]? What could someone in power do? Which political party is good and which is an evil virus of Satan? These seem like important questions. I mean, if there wasn't a better use of my time I would absolutely have some fun (???) discussions about various deeply-held beliefs. But these are the wrong questions right now.
There are people who are dying because they live in places where the hospitals are already over capacity. There are people who are stuck in the impossible bind of go to work and expose themselves to virus, or stay home and run out of money to pay the rent with. There are children who are being abused, who no longer have teachers to check in on them or school to be a few hours of escape and safety.
Can we please stop arguing about who said what on television and help actual people, right now?
A while ago, I read this story about someone in a superhero 'verse who rises to prominence by being the one who helps people. Ever since then, I've aspired to it. I care about people. I do what I can. Only, it turns out that I am seriously disabled and work is basically impossible for me (I'm on disability), and as such "what I can" is very, very little. On the other hand, my sewing machine is currently occupied with dozens of masks made from discount bedsheets, my computer is running folding@home, and I have been looking up and distributing reliable information as much as I can: it turns out that sometimes an early sign of COVID is loss of sense of smell, COVID pneumonia patients that are likely to need hospitalization can be detected early using pulse oximeter testing, and lying flat on one's stomach ("proning") reduces the need for ventilators without requiring any equipment by helping drain more parts of the lungs.
So: go donate to the WHO or Red Cross, dig out the handful of N95 masks you have sitting in your emergency stockpile and send them along, check in on your neighbors, call up your local supermarket and demand that they let the cashiers wear masks, don't buy out the toilet paper you don't need, whatever. Just. Do something, for someone, right now. And then you can go back to gossiping about what Trump said on Twitter this time.
This place is exactly what it was the first time around.
That's the problem.
COVID and all that has produced a lot of yelling and hot air. Whose fault is it? Why isn't it being handled better by [politician of choice]? What could someone in power do? Which political party is good and which is an evil virus of Satan? These seem like important questions. I mean, if there wasn't a better use of my time I would absolutely have some fun (???) discussions about various deeply-held beliefs. But these are the wrong questions right now.
There are people who are dying because they live in places where the hospitals are already over capacity. There are people who are stuck in the impossible bind of go to work and expose themselves to virus, or stay home and run out of money to pay the rent with. There are children who are being abused, who no longer have teachers to check in on them or school to be a few hours of escape and safety.
Can we please stop arguing about who said what on television and help actual people, right now?
A while ago, I read this story about someone in a superhero 'verse who rises to prominence by being the one who helps people. Ever since then, I've aspired to it. I care about people. I do what I can. Only, it turns out that I am seriously disabled and work is basically impossible for me (I'm on disability), and as such "what I can" is very, very little. On the other hand, my sewing machine is currently occupied with dozens of masks made from discount bedsheets, my computer is running folding@home, and I have been looking up and distributing reliable information as much as I can: it turns out that sometimes an early sign of COVID is loss of sense of smell, COVID pneumonia patients that are likely to need hospitalization can be detected early using pulse oximeter testing, and lying flat on one's stomach ("proning") reduces the need for ventilators without requiring any equipment by helping drain more parts of the lungs.
So: go donate to the WHO or Red Cross, dig out the handful of N95 masks you have sitting in your emergency stockpile and send them along, check in on your neighbors, call up your local supermarket and demand that they let the cashiers wear masks, don't buy out the toilet paper you don't need, whatever. Just. Do something, for someone, right now. And then you can go back to gossiping about what Trump said on Twitter this time.