COVID Surpasses The Spanish Flu To Become The Second-Deadliest Event In American History

 

     One way or another, it appears we are definitely at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, at least in the sense that every day there are multiple major pieces of news, either good or bad. Let's start with the bad news: 680,000 Americans have now died of coronavirus in just 16 months, officially bringing the COVID-19 death toll above that of the 1918-1920 Spanish Flu and making it the second-deadliest event in U.S. history, after the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has killed 700,000 Americans since 1981. HIV has been mostly brought under control in the U.S. with the expansion of healthcare, better education relating to safer sex practices, a declining stigma around the virus brought about by the discovery that undetectable HIV in patients cannot be transmitted, retroviral pills that have lengthened the lifespan of patients, and even a possible HIV vaccine within the next few years. Because the definition of a pandemic includes a failure to control a disease at the global level, HIV is still considered one based on rising deaths in parts of Africa and Asia.

     That's not the only bad news. The entire state of Idaho is now under an emergency health protocol: doctors will have to choose which patients live and which patients die. Whether they are there for a gunshot wound to the abdomen or a severe case of COVID, doctors must prioritize patients deemed most likely to survive. Mississippi and Tennessee are playing tug-of-war in a demented contest to see which state can have the worst rate of COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths for the virus. 23 states, 21 of them having voted for Trump, are at risk for or have already run out of ICU beds, forcing the government to step in to stop this fourth wave driven by the highly-contagious Delta variant. Alabama actually had more deaths than births for the first time in history in 2020, and 2021 will likely be worse. 

     This was preventable. Last week, Nebraska's GOP Governor Pete Ricketts tried to claim that he wasn't against vaccines, just mandates. When FOX News host Chris Wallace pointed out that students in the state are mandated to get polio, measles, mumps, rubella, and countless other vaccines, he said that people had more time to see how those vaccines work. He apparently seemed unaware that he had basically just admitted that the vaccine was his problem, not mandates as a principle. Mississippi's GOP Governor Tate Reeves called vaccine mandates an "attack on hardworking Americans" in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper and defended his handling of the pandemic even as his state's healthcare system is on the verge of collapse. This mentality is killing people.

     There is a lot of good news on the vaccine front. While not approved for all, boosters were approved for the elderly and immunocompromised this weekend. Johnson and Johnson announced boosters for its shot improve immunity, while Moderna is set to get permanent approval for their vaccine within the next few weeks and Pfizer has announced that their vaccine is safe and effective for children ages five to 11. Nearly 75 percent of eligible Americans are at least partially vaccinated, and I think we can get five out of every six Americans fully vaccinated by spring. Meanwhile, President Biden has announced a pair of initiatives aiming to vaccinate 70 percent of the world by the end of 2022 and rebuild and fortify our pandemic readiness. 

     Either way, we should take today as a time to mourn, a time to reflect, and, most importantly, a time to commit ourselves to banishing this awful plague from Earth.