Many people, maybe most people, certainly our governments have been living during 2020 in a bubble of unreality. All due to their reaction to Covid-19. It is not the disease that is unreal, it exists, it has been the reaction that has been unreal. When the disease was confined to China we heard and saw footage of quite outrageous goings on. People dropping dead in the street, people being locked into their dwelling, police forcing people back into their own buildings, streets being fumigated. Many people saw this and panicked, even though these things are now a distant memory, they are still panicking.
What should be obvious is that most of that footage was fake, no where else in the world have people dropped dead on the street. But people still keep pushing this idea, acting in word and deed as if any minute the disease will act in this way, even though we now have 9 months of experience to know for ourselves that this isn’t happening. Instead we are told by the government that we must have perfect safety and many people push this line of thinking as well.
The reality is that people are not immortal, it is neither unnatural or abnormal for people to die. We all must die, every single one of us. But we are instead told that life is precious and that if even one life is saved then it has all been worth it. Those most at risk of death are the elderly and those who are already sick, particularly those who have more than one major medical condition at the same time. That’s not new, that is how it is everyday. But it’s as if we are hearing this for the first time. As if this was not universally true a year ago.
We are told that everything must be done to stop the spread of this disease, it is that serious. But is it that serious?
Consider this, the person most likely to get Covid-19 in Australia is a women in her 20’s, the person most likely to die from Covid-19 is a women in her 80’s. Yet our governments are treating both women as if they are the same, as if they are interchangeable, as if they are equal. Equality means that you cannot treat different people in different circumstances differently. So instead we are all treated as if we are elderly and have multiple medical conditions.
We are constantly and breathlessly told how many people have the disease, as if having the disease is the same thing as dying from it. This lie has been continuous for the past 9 months. Every other disease has vanished from public discourse. It is as if Covid-19 is the single greatest threat to mankind ever, which simply is not true.
This year around 57,000,000 people are expected to die from all causes, so far 1,000,000 of those deaths are people who have died with Covid-19. Not from Covid-19, because nearly every person who has died with it was elderly or had multiple medical conditions, or both.
The response to the disease has been extreme, entire economies shut down. Economists have been asked what happens when you shut down the world economy? They have answered that no one knows because in the entire history of the world no one had considered that this was even possible.
The Australian government has said that we are doing well, unemployment is around 6%, but most who look at the problem say a much more realistic answer is 15%. Although others point out that somewhere between 5 and 6 million Australians are currently on Jobkeeper, a $1500 a fortnight payment introduced in 2020 to keep people employed if the business that they work for has dropped in revenue by 50% or more. If those people are included then Australia’s unemployment is somewhere between 45-55%!
Between now, October 2020 and March 2021, the extra payments of Jobseeker and Jobkeeper are going to be wound back. During that time we will all get to find out how costly this has all been.
The social cost is enormous, personally I have not gone out of my driveway in over 2 months. Apparently that level of social disengagement is considered healthy now. The truth is that I’m nothing special, I read yesterday of a dementia patient in a Victorian nursing home who had not been outside or had a shower in 45 days, because the nursing home is in lockdown!
The effect on children has been just as extreme, for months they were not allowed to play in public parks, children who’s only contact with family, friends and schooling is via the internet or telephone. No hugging, no meeting new friends, no new experiences, encouraged at every stage to be scared of normal human interaction. Even your own family are spreaders of disease and death…even though young people are nearly immune from dying. The youngest person I know of that has died from Covid-19 was a 17 year old girl from Florida who had a compromised immune system. Maybe she isn’t the youngest, but the younger you are the better off you are.
Even at this late stage I still hear people and the government spreading the most outrageous fear. That horse has bolted, this is not the Black Death or the Spanish Flu, it’s not even that deadly. What it is is a panic, something that has been true right from the start.
Originally published at Upon Hope. You can find Mark’s Subscribestar here.