Ermintruder
The greatest risk is to risk nothing at all...
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2013
- Messages
- 6,206
There are some decidedly-odd dynamics emerging from all of this.
I do detect (strongly) that if I, or anyone else I hear making a similar comment (I mean in terms of questioning whether COVID-19 is actually the only or primary factor in a cause of death) there's often an immediate collaborative rush from others to say "shut up, of course it's Covid, you're just in denial, and trying to make it less than it is!!".
A perfect case-in-point for me was at the end of April. I read on Fadebook about someone who (although I did not know personally) has died "of the virus at the age of 44".
I have a number of shared friends and accquaintances who were expressing their individual griefs and sorrows about the passing of this person, and as I was reading down the generic sympathies and condolences, one unusually-detailed comment jumped out at me "it seems so unfair that he's died just now, he really seemed to turn a corner after his heart & lung transplant back in 2018".
I need somebody to pinch me, seriously. Am I actually dreaming this pandemic?
Although every death is a tragedy, it appears to be completely-taboo to mention that (as far as I can tell?) the vast majority of people who are seriously-stricken by the virus, or die, are either suffering a serious (perhaps undiagnosed) pre-existing medical condition or/and are in later old age. But I'm not allowed to say that.
I'm also not allowed to say that the raw baseline deathrate across the world from all causes is around 150,000 deaths per day.
Nor am I meant to say that I've heard some media commentators say (I do hope wrongly) that the overall austerity effects resulting from the economic impacts of the global lockdown could result in financial projections that are of 1800s severity, not just 1920s.
Many of us Forteans, before this all started, might've wished for a new world, in the safe knowledge they weren't going to get one.
We may be witnessing, in many senses, the end of the world we knew: but not for the reasons we might ever have expected, nor in ways we can currently see or understand.
I do detect (strongly) that if I, or anyone else I hear making a similar comment (I mean in terms of questioning whether COVID-19 is actually the only or primary factor in a cause of death) there's often an immediate collaborative rush from others to say "shut up, of course it's Covid, you're just in denial, and trying to make it less than it is!!".
A perfect case-in-point for me was at the end of April. I read on Fadebook about someone who (although I did not know personally) has died "of the virus at the age of 44".
I have a number of shared friends and accquaintances who were expressing their individual griefs and sorrows about the passing of this person, and as I was reading down the generic sympathies and condolences, one unusually-detailed comment jumped out at me "it seems so unfair that he's died just now, he really seemed to turn a corner after his heart & lung transplant back in 2018".
I need somebody to pinch me, seriously. Am I actually dreaming this pandemic?
Although every death is a tragedy, it appears to be completely-taboo to mention that (as far as I can tell?) the vast majority of people who are seriously-stricken by the virus, or die, are either suffering a serious (perhaps undiagnosed) pre-existing medical condition or/and are in later old age. But I'm not allowed to say that.
I'm also not allowed to say that the raw baseline deathrate across the world from all causes is around 150,000 deaths per day.
Nor am I meant to say that I've heard some media commentators say (I do hope wrongly) that the overall austerity effects resulting from the economic impacts of the global lockdown could result in financial projections that are of 1800s severity, not just 1920s.
Many of us Forteans, before this all started, might've wished for a new world, in the safe knowledge they weren't going to get one.
We may be witnessing, in many senses, the end of the world we knew: but not for the reasons we might ever have expected, nor in ways we can currently see or understand.