Opening America Now is A Slap in the Face to Healthcare Workers

[babylonsister]

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2020/04/16/opening-america-is-a-slap-in-the-face-to-healthcare-workers/?fbclid=IwAR3WatWKg3e2w1kLNLNlCAE_VLcR9HWCVMW3VGlqcFU6JbJ3ndqAVWFmGZI

Opening America Now is A Slap in the Face to Healthcare Workers
April 16, 2020 / John Pavlovitz



Opening America.

The President keeps teasing it in his daily propaganda, ego-stroke photo op.
His sycophantic surrogates repeat the refrain on social media and in press releases.
Soulless partisan television hosts pound us relentlessly with it.
MAGA cult members protest mask-less and in close quarters for it.

This united offensive to quickly get Americans back to work is all happening on days when we are losing over two thousand people a day, when we’ve eclipsed 644,000 confirmed cases, when 29,000 have died in the span of eight weeks.

And every single life that is threatened by this vicious, insidious illness—falls squarely on the shoulders of healthcare workers and first responders: doctors, nurses, EMTs, lab technicians, hospital staff, police officers, firefighters.

For weeks they have labored without sleep, without rest, without enough masks to protect themselves, without enough tests to identify the relentless flood of sick people in their midst, without enough ventilators to keep the gravely ill alive; continually stepping into harm’s way to attend to this unprecedented national emergency.

We share the photos of their heavily-bruised faces from marathon sessions in service of the wounded and dying, we relay the heartbreaking stories of them having to facilitate final conversation between dying patients and devastated family members via FaceTime, we pile effusive praise and glowing platitudes upon them for their courage and their selflessness, we share sweetly saccharine memes that salute their efforts.

We just don’t actually give a damn about them.

If we did, if we really grasped how overworked they are and how much trauma they’ve carried and how pushed to the brink they are, we wouldn’t be talking about re-opening America right now.

People wouldn’t be pressed together at state capitol buildings and stopping traffic and parading around in middle-finger-defiance of stay-at-home orders, while giving the virus the greatest boost it could ask for.

If we actually respected the people who take care of us when we are at our most vulnerable, and who stand between those we love and the brink of death—we’d be doing all we could to stay at home, to abide restrictions, to demand more safeguards, not less—and we certainly wouldn’t be rushing people back into frequent and large scale interactions, when millions of people can’t get tested and when a vaccine is months away.

snip//

This is a moment for sacrificing and selflessness and for grieving and for loving our neighbors enough to stay away from them.

It is a time we stopped talking about opening America, and started healing it.

Thank you to all those who spend their lives on behalf of the rest of us.

You deserve better.

(P.S. Re-opening American right now, will also endanger millions of people and risk an expansive re-emergence of the virus, causing further loss of life, longer restrictions, and greater economic burden—so there’s that.)

[OhioChick]

1. My Kids say we can NOT open up yet n/t

[babylonsister]

3. I hope most folks paying attention think the same way.

Props to your kids though.

[samsingh]

2. Every Healthcare Worker better vote against repugs from now on

[Mister Ed]

8. Except the ones who will not live to vote again, thanks to this evil right-wing lunacy. n/t

[gratuitous]

4. It's also an utter waste of the efforts of the last six weeks

Remember how talk of pulling out of Afghanistan or Iraq was dishonoring to the military personnel who had already died? We had to keep throwing bodies into those grinders because otherwise the already dead would have given their lives for nothing. The "logic" was unassailable.

Well, a dozen years later, we're looking at a situation where abandoning the field prematurely really does dishonor the sacrifices made so far. If you're exhausted from a few weeks of quarantine and social distancing and you just want to go out again, you will throw away all the progress made to this point. But as an added bonus, if you survive the second wave, you'll get to do everything all over again.

When you're going through hell, keep going. There are no shortcuts. There's no easy exit. This process will take as long as it takes, and not a second sooner.

[Texaswitchy]

5. Because of greed and a lot of immature adults.

Watching news from Houston and this old man a pure jackass was sueing the Governor over his actions over the
closings.
This white haired old dude could die from the virus.
But he wants everything opened up.

Dead and sick people do not go to work or go out spending money.

I so tired of stupid Americans.

This whole month will be for nothing.

[Nay]

6. If there's anything Trump loves, it's slapping innocent people's faces. And killing them, too.

He's a vile POS.

[mopinko]

7. he's praying for an effective treatment, because 'only' getting sick is a price

he and the rest of the leeches are willing to have us pay.