Prior to March 2020 Americans seemed to accept the inescapable reality of their own mortality. While perhaps cynical, but still true, we all begin our march towards death from the moment we emerge from our birthing person’s womb. Some never even make it that far — whether due to unwanted natural causes or wanted unnatural abortions. Mothers risk death by choosing to give birth to new life.
Some go on to live long, healthy lives and die in their sleep at the ripe old age of 100. Others live equally long lives mired in pain, their longevity only made possible by the miracle of modern medicine. Still others die before their time — taken by freak accidents, cancer, or other sudden and unexpected natural causes.
Some neglect their health. Their personal choices cause or contribute to their premature deaths. Others neglect their health and still go on to live long lives — the luck of the genetic draw. Life is neither fair, nor risk free.
Death, illness, and injury are the costs of living. Death has never been a question of if but rather, when. More than 38,000 Americans die on average per year in automobile accidents.
Some automobile fatalities are the fault of the driver. Others are the fault of another driver. Each time we get in our cars we take a risk — sharing the road with the careless, the reckless, and the drunk. Still we continue to drive.
61,000 Americans died of the flu in the 2017-2018 flu season alone. More than 30,000 perished in the years before and after. We don’t mandate annual flu shots to protect ourselves or others. Nor does the media drive us to hysteria with a constant and exhausting deluge of data about influenza related infections, hospitalizations, and deaths.
Nor did the government implement draconian lockdowns in 2017-2018 when influenza cases rose to 45 million, hospitalizations reached 810,000, and 21 million Americans sought care. This didn’t happen because it would have been insane. But that was then. Sanity died in March 2020.