COVID-19 does not care about politics

Responding to an article by Wyoming Rep. Marshall Burt, there is a need for “A Word” from the more rational side of the COVID-19 debate. Burt is opposed to the Biden Administration’s efforts to battle COVID-19, citing that it is an unconstitutional overreach of power.

Meanwhile, we should remember that this virus, like past ones, laughs at our political arguments. COVID-19 never gets tired, and it might be just beginning. Children are increasingly dying. All COVID-19 requires is an unvaccinated population, and Wyoming freely offers this to the virus. Because COVID-19 wants to live, it wants the exact response Wyoming is providing; “Three Percenter” tattoos, such as Burt sports, notwithstanding.

Ending a pandemic, now as in the past, takes a cooperative and total societal effort. In this case, with this enemy, what individuals want is irrelevant; COVID-19 couldn’t care less about anybody’s “Freedom” or “Liberty.” How we as responsible, intelligent, and loyal citizens-of-the-nation fight together is what counts.

What President Joe Biden is attempting, like the former president (in his peculiar way), is a defense of the wellbeing of the nation’s people. This is exclusive of any political agenda. Inexplicably, twenty-four states, mainly rural and conservative, including Wyoming, are suing the administration. What a waste of money. Even the former president encourages taking the totally awesome Donald J. Trump anti-COVID -19 vaccination.

Let us keep in mind that viruses have never cared a jot about our hallowed political documents. On the other hand, our foremost “founding father,” George Washington himself, during the siege of Boston in 1775 and ‘76, mandated that his troops be vaccinated against smallpox. The British did not vaccinate. They eventually evacuated 11,000 soldiers and British loyalists, leaving behind a sick and shattered city.

The nation’s founding documents are, these days, often misinterpreted for sensationalistic and partisan purposes. “The Bill of Rights” could have more accurately, and more constructively, been called “The Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.” Sometimes the people of a country have got to behave as “Citizens of the Nation,” and put their partisan differences aside.

We are just the pull of a hair-trigger from civil war. Flags have become rags of anger and threats. On a recent drive from Wyoming to New England, especially along the non-Interstate routes that I prefer, there were flags reading, for example, “F--- Biden.” Make no mistake about it, violence is in the air.

As of right now, in Sweetwater County, during this pandemic, 79 people have so far died of COVID-19. The real number is probably much higher, but in this region, “deaths of shame” are often announced as caused by something else.

In Sweetwater County, some 7,393 people have had COVID-19, and many will suffer sever medical issues for the rest of their lives. Memorial Hospital is bursting at the seams. Perhaps if you need to go there, you can be treated in the parking lot, because of unvaccinated sick and selfish people who are worried about their “Liberty” and “Freedom,” and putting their “Rights” ahead of an enemy that doesn’t care about such things.

Representative Burt ought to put aside his weird politics and get behind the solution, because, COVID-19 doesn’t care.

 

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