Lessons Not Learned

The woman at the corner table leering at me as I sat down to have lunch. It was a familiar look. Eyes angry, her jaw jutting out in maskless defiance, as if the mask I had worn coming in was an attack on her country, her freedom. Angry and so proud. Yes, I'd seen it before, and it was utterly absurd. So absurd that she didn't really register, and I had forgotten about her before I ordered. 

But as I think about it now, many months later, I realize how little so much of this country has learned from the over 600,000 Covid deaths. Most of those deaths were avoidable were it not for an incompetent, opportunistic government, and medical community, and selfish, purposefully ignorant, people.

Former White House response coordinator and career health expert Dr. Deborah Brix has stated that out of the over 600,000 Covid deaths in the US, nearly 500,000 were avoidable. Put another way, save for selfishness, ignorance, and twisted realities, 500,000 people died that needn't have.

As an ICU physician I ask, how do I reconcile THAT? Horrible, suffering, prolonged deaths, alone, separated from those that love them, and then when I do leave the hospital it’s maskless people in restaurants leering at me for not being a patriot because of a mask I wear to protect others. 

600,000 deaths exceed American deaths in all wars, combined, save the civil war. And yet it is still not enough to have touched enough people’s lives where meaningful lessons have been learned. It is 1.6 deaths per 1000 - meaning lots of families were not touched by this horrible disease. The defiant woman in the restaurant has learned nothing and in fact has reinforced her bizarre, twisted sense of reality - 'nothing happened to me - so I'm right'. Lessons learned from 600,000 deaths? For so many, none. 

I will ask again. How do I reconcile all those horrible deaths I witnessed, with that?