An Existential Threat

Well Covid 19 continues to spread in Florida, nearly doubling again as the D variant continues its assault on the unvaccinated.    The positivity rate has soared to 11.5%.

The state reported an additional 45,489 cases the week of July 9 through 15 — nearly double the 23,747 cases reported the previous week.

Since the start of the pandemic, Florida has reported 2,406,809 cases. While Covid is currently rising in all states, Florida alone accounts for 20% of new cases.

No less than Forbes magazine recently called Florida the “epicenter of the pandemic” of the unvaccinated.

“For unvaccinated travelers, the Sunshine State is the epicenter of the pandemic, “with one in five cases occurring in Florida alone,” said Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus coordinator. Florida, where only 47% of the population is fully vaccinated, is seeing an average of 49.3 new daily Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people, according to data from the Brown School of Public Health. That’s nearly double the threshold for “red” designation on the risk-assessment map.”

Currently some 97.5% of hospitalized Covid patients are unvaccinated.

But even as many Florida hospitals are at the edge of capacity for Covid-19 patients, Governor Ron DeSantis’s executive order remains in place banning local governments from requiring face masks. That hasn’t stopped many local officials from expressing alarm. Last week, the mayor of Orange County, Florida — where Orlando and Walt Disney World are located — issued a “strong recommendation” for wearing face masks in crowded indoor places regardless of their vaccination status.

It’s also worth noting that Florida is home to the three largest cruise ports in the United States. Thanks to DeSantis’s much-hyped but unpopular law banning so-called vaccine passports, cruise lines are in the unenviable position of being prohibited from asking passengers sailing from Florida for proof of their vaccination status — even as the Delta variant rages across the state. Last week, Norwegian Cruise Line filed a lawsuit against Florida, saying that the state’s ban hurts its ability to prevent the spread of the virus aboard ships.

“Comparatively, the risk to unvaccinated travelers of being infected with Covid-19 is significantly lower in the New England states — Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont — where vaccination rates are above 60%. None of those six states is averaging more than five new daily cases per 100,000 people, and most are averaging below three.”

In Central Florida, home to a great number of the unvaccinated a recent poll was conducted asking “Why?” Some doubted the vaccine’s safety, saying it was rushed to market and they would not risk infection by injection. Others said they believed in their natural immunity and safety protocols, which had protected them so far. A few said they put faith and God over pharma.

Quite a few of the most obstinate expressed that there was a personal “loss of freedom” if they allowed the government to tell them what to do.  Same for wearing masks.

All while COVID-19 infections have spiked 200% in Florida over the past two weeks, with the fast-spreading delta variant finding a home in swathes of unvaccinated people.  But while cases climbed, vaccinations continued to wane.

So why should I care about the unvaccinated?  If they want to play Russian roulette with their own lives, well so be it.  Why should any of us vaccinated folks give a rat’s ass?

Well IMHO, as I’ve said before, I do not think Covid is going to go away.  It is going to remain with us.  And while most of the world is crying out for more vaccine. we here with enough vaccine for every man, woman and child have a substantial portion of our population which refuses to take it.

Those millions who refuse to get vaccinated are creating an existential threat to humanity.

There you go again Toritto.  Really now; a threat to humanity?

Covid has already mutated 3 times in 18 months.  There was the U.K variant, The Delta variant originating in India and now the Lambda variant originating in Peru.  Yhe latter is not yet here but you can be sure it will arrive.

Thus far our existing vaccines appear to keep the vaccinated out of hospitals. off ventilators and alive.  It is the unvaccinated who are sickening and dying.

The virus will continue to mutate in the unvaccinated.  Suppose it mutates into something  against which our current vaccines are ineffective?  Something against which no vaccine is developed for years, if ever?

What would be the affect on all humanity if this virus jumped ahead of us due to our selfishness, our politics or plain stupidity?  We would be transported back to the years of the Black Plague when there was no cure and tens of millions died, the bodies laying in the streets.

We would all be hiding, our economy wrecked, our schools closed, sporting events, concerts, plays non-existent.  Covid cannot mutate in a vaccinated person; only an unvaccinated one. If it jumps ahead of us it will be a catastrophe for human kind.  Tens of millions would die.

We are living in a world long prophesied by philosophers and long dreaded by priests, in which nothing is true and everything is permitted — or, to put it more succinctly, where truth is just a construct, which Nietzsche believed it was all along.

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