Even though daily Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to fall across the US., it is no time to become complacent and ignore a major reason this is occurring -- the fact that more than 80 percent of Americans age 5 and older have had at least one vaccination.
The sad news is that as of today, 975,301 souls have been lost to this pandemic in the United States, out of 80,649,244 cases reported. No doubt we will cross the 1 million deaths mark before it's all over.
“I think what’s influencing the decline, of course, is that omicron is starting to run out of people to infect,” Dr. Thomas Russo, professor and infectious disease chief at the University of Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, told the Associated Press in mid-February as the Centers for Disease Control continues to report declining numbers of cases and deaths.
According to the CDC, the current seven-day average of hospitalizations of patients with confirmed Covid-19 stood at 41,242 from Feb. 20 to Feb. 26, compared to 62,792 for the previous seven day period and 146,534 from Jan. 14 to Jan. 20.
Essay by Mike Hodges
Increasingly, the preponderance of hospitalizations and deaths is among the unvaccinated, a fact that prompted my friend, Mike Hodges, a retired airline pilot, sent me the following commentary that I am pleased to reprint here:
“Thou Shall Not Kill.” One of the ten commandments that we all know. But what does this mean? Does it mean don’t pull the trigger in anger or greed or spite. Is killing allowed for personal protection or in the case of a “just war,” however you define that?
Does it mean a conscience act only, or can it be described as the absence of personal responsibility? What about a lack of empathy for your fellow human being that leads to death? In a philosophical or religious context, I don’t know the answers to these questions. I will leave that for someone else.
What I do know, what I feel in my core, what I feel in my heart and soul, is that knowing full well that by not being vaccinated there is a chance it could lead to someone’s death, I could never forgive myself.
Knowing full well that vaccinations pose relatively few risks to me (and most of society), how could I not do all I can to protect others. Knowing vaccinations have been a life blood in our society, knowing that just about every soldier and school age child has undergone mandatory vaccines to protect our society, how could we not as a society mandate these lifesaving tools.
Maybe you think it is too late. Maybe you think we are coming out of this crisis, but let me remind you: We are killing more people with covid during the Omicron variant than during Delta.
By law, and by conscience, your freedom stops when it does harm to others. By not mandating vaccines and masks it has been proven that this pandemic is lasting longer and is leading to a huge increase in the number of deaths.
What does your conscience say? You may not call it killing--but I do.
It is not too late. Wear masks and get Vaccinated--the life you save may even be your own.