Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
COVID-19 All Joking Aside
The meme is pretty clever and humorous. Heaven and Hell agree, ha ha! When I first saw this it struck me as funny (as intended by the crafter). Then I went to a second thought: “Is it true?” Do heaven and hell agree because casinos and churches are closed? They may agree but we cannot know when the closures are coerced, not voluntary. There are plenty of churches that want to open. No doubt casinos do too. Would they both act in the same manner if the coercive force was removed?
My guess is yes. Both would respond to the preferences of their “customers” — congregants in the case of churches, gamblers in the case of casinos. Do church pastors and casino operators have superior knowledge to their customers about whether they should open? Not likely. Pastors and casino operators have access to the same information as their customers. Likely they are paying attention to the epidemic at the level of their most concerned individual congregant or gambler. But they are not health experts. They rely on the information they are provided by the health experts.
Now let’s flip it around: Do health experts know the needs of congregants and gamblers as well as or better than pastors or casino operators? No, not if “needs” are viewed holistically and not limited to a sort of check-the-box medical evaluation. The health expert assumes everyone needs to live and to be as free of physical complaint as they can manage. But “quality of life” beyond the physical is looking through a glass darkly. It is individualistic and a deeply internal need that doesn’t show up in temperatures, MRIs, CTs, cardiograms, or blood assays.
The pastor, the casino operator, and the health expert are all acting in what they perceive are the interests of the congregant and the gambler. All are acting from limited knowledge. Their knowledge may be superior in a narrow way to that of the individual congregant or gambler. But each congregant and gambler is best positioned to integrate the services offered by all three and make decisions about how to live his/her life. That is the nature of, and rationale for, liberty.
The only rationale for denying individuals their own agency is the same as that underlying criminal law: we, as a self-governing society, have decided that particular conduct represents a non-compensable risk to other individuals from which we will physically restrain you from engaging. In other words, we have decided that persons have an absolute duty to protect others from the possibility of infection from this virus by not getting infected themselves. And it is a duty we impose that we do not impose for any other disease.
The rationale for this extraordinary restriction must be due to extraordinary outcomes of death from other disease, right? You would think so. As data is being developed about our societal experience with COVID-19, we are seeing widespread infection but with death almost exclusively among persons with limited longevity due to other causes. The disease is profound, surprising, and sorrow-making, but not extraordinarily deadly.
My county is seeing an uptick in cases, hospitalizations, and death. As the health authorities describe it:
During the past seven days, the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals in the county has increased 42%.
The seven-day average number of newly identified COVID-19 cases has increased from 39 a day to 68 a day. The positivity rate of test results – the percentage of COVID-19 tests that came back positive – has also increased. This suggests the change is not simply due to more testing, but indicates a true increase in community spread.
We are also seeing a shift with more young people testing positive. In June, 55% of cases were 40 years and under compared to 38% for that group in April. It’s a sign that younger people are playing a major role in driving the increase in new cases and potentially infecting vulnerable individuals.
***
There is concern that these increases may lead to a surge in very ill people that could overwhelm the local healthcare system. We realize many people are eager to resume normal activities. However, if we adjust the reopening timeline, it will be because we have a chance to prevent the pandemic from getting out of control in the county.
Missing from their press release is:
- How many hospitalizations are transports from El Centro of Mexico-infected persons?
- How many of added hospitalizations are positive testing patients admitted for reasons unrelated to COVID-19 symptoms?
- Are increased infections among younger people actually resulting in more serious disease and death among the young?
Recall that my county’s population is 1.1 million. Seventy-three people have died with COVID-19 officially listed as the cause of death. Fifty of those (~70%) have been residents of nursing homes and other long term care facilities. For the group highlighted in the press release (under 40 years of age), total deaths are one. But this is cited as a sufficient concern to re-evaluate whether to give liberty to “indoor dining, bars, gyms, hotels and some personal care services, including nail salons and tattoo parlors” and their customers on July 1. They will let us know on Monday. Generous of them.
Heaven and Hell agree: Let the congregants and gamblers decide for themselves.
[Links to all my COVID-19 posts can be found here.]
Published in General
Reminds me of what happened during this other fictional apocalypse:
The crafter of this meme has not been to the parish’s Bingo evenings. I’m not sure of the degree of separation between gamboling and Mass is the poles he is looking for….
We get the same kind of coverage about the situation in my area (North Texas). It’s infuriating.
Absolutely perfect!
The tribe my wife belongs to continues to direct their members to “shelter in place”, continue to have a curfew, and continue to tell them about how dangerous COVID-19 is. Oh, and their casino is open. My wife’s interpretation: “It’s too dangerous to be out. Unless you are spending your government check at the casino.”
A silver lining in this mess is to see the strip clubs shut down. May they not recover.
You say: “Heaven and Hell agree: Let the congregants and gamblers decide for themselves.”
I concur with that statement.
And when this all issettled, if it ever will be, then the American public must start insisting that nursing homes are something other than giant warehouses for the elderly. Right now they are really truly expensive warehouses, but not at all institutions where people are dealt with in any sort of reasonable manner.
In Calif, many nursing homes do not have a doctor in attendance, and that physician may show up once a week or once a month. My profession, as elder care worker, forced me to spend a good deal of time in such places. I knew that I couldn’t take time off from a client who was in one these places. I had to visit every day, or make sure one of my co-workers did.
Among other things that were noticed over the years: Nothing by mouth orders are in place, supposedly for a few hours after a patients comes into the home after surgery. But it often happened those nothing by mouth orders stayed on the person’s chart for a week or more. Imagine lying in a bed soaked in sweat, where the ambient temperature has been above 83 degrees for days, and no one giving you ice water or even a morning tea. Because semi literate poorly trained non citizens don’t think about such things – they only do as the they are told to do, by a supervisor who is too busy to analyze why the nothing by mouth order was even installed to begin with.
My personal suspicion is that gamboling is pretty safe right now, as long as it’s not done in crowded places. Gambling in a crowded casino might be different.
The autocorrect feature on my apple ipad is not my friend. I have learn to live with it.
When the “temporary lockdown to flatten the curve” started in March our church decided to stop services even though churches were initially exempted. My wife called another Lutheran Church in town to see if they were continuing. The pastor was adamant that he was still going to hold services. A day later he called my wife back to let her know that the elders had voted to suspend services. The congregation had spoken and was okay with staying home.
Wait just a minute!
This is a nightmare I wish I could have avoided considering. I know this is reality but that is horrible.
My cousin and her family are leaving Contra Costa County tomorrow.
2007 – 2020: Orinda and Lafayette