Stark times

Stark Times – Photo: L. Weikel

The situation we’re facing at the moment appears pretty dire. I’d say we’re facing unquestionably stark times as individuals, as families, as a country, and as global citizens.

If you don’t appreciate just how worrisome this situation is, I suggest you listen to the first 20 minutes or so of this You Tube interview. It’s chilling.

It’s chilling, yes – but it also contains essential information that we all need to hear and fully process, because hiding our heads in the sand is not going to make this situation better nor will willful ignorance help us get through it any more quickly. In fact, just the opposite.

Who’s Susceptible?

One thing I found extremely interesting (if disturbing) was that we’ve been telling ourselves that the people most at risk of succumbing to the virus are older people who have underlying respiratory issues. This is based on information gleaned from the outbreak in China.

The trouble with extrapolating from that data is the fact that so many Chinese men are smokers. Indeed, Chinese men smoke a lot more than Chinese women, which may be a significant driver as far as why older Chinese men are often those least likely to survive the virus.

What’s being discovered in the United States (with, admittedly, the limited data we have at the moment due to the dearth of test kits made available) is that smoking is not as significant a risk factor here. Rather, one of the highest risk factors in our country, besides age and respiratory underlying issues, is obesity.

Think about that! That’s a huge problem in our country. And it almost certainly makes a much larger portion of our population susceptible to less than optimal outcomes should they contract the virus.

This is huge.

It’s the Testing

There’s so much we don’t know. And man, I hate that. I hate it when I can remember when we could rely on being totally on top of our game as a nation. I love remembering how our policies were the best anyone could come up with because they were developed before a situation became a crisis.

So much of what we do not know stems from the fact that our federal government has botched our ability to test for infection. It’s been an epic fail. And sadly, we’re still not getting straight answers as far as when we can expect substantial numbers of test kits to be distributed around the country.

We need to demand accountability. We need to demand straight answers.

We need to demand THE TRUTH. And sorry, there aren’t different versions of that. The truth is the truth.

And our lives depend upon hearing it – whether we like it or not.