What's the opposite of "crying wolf".....maybe "the sky is falling"? Ok, so then this is a..."the sky is kind of falling moment".
Here's what I have learned from the very early phase of this Pandemic....the Normalcy Bias is in full effect. What is that you ask, well, I'm happy to tell you. From Wikipedia: " N
ormalcy bias, or
normality bias, is a tendency for people to believe that things will function in the future the way they normally have functioned in the past and therefore to underestimate both the likelihood of a disaster and its possible effects. This may result in situations where people fail to adequately prepare themselves for disasters, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its
disaster preparations. About 70% of people reportedly display normalcy bias during a disaster." In our case, I'd say it's probably closer to 40-50%.
It's the phenomenon where people believe that "this can't happen here". And...even if they kind of believe that it is kind of happening, they also believe "if it happens here, it isn't going to happen to me".
The virus doesn't care what any of us think. It really doesn't. My husband and I have been literally *astounded* at the behavior of some of our extended family members, and also successful friends who we considered to be intelligent and reasoned people. The behavior of some of our friends and family is going to take awhile for us to get over. We're witnessing incredibly ignorant and selfish behavior, the likes of which we've never seen.
And the behavior of some of our family and friends, and all of the idiots out protesting is only going to prolong our national nightmare. It will cause more deaths and more economic hardship for everyone. Not one of us gets out of this untouched. And when the history of this pandemic is compiled, it will be documented that the wealthiest nation on our planet at the time was very late to react, completely unprepared, slow to test and divided over whether or not the virus is even "real". The numbers will tell the tale.
That's what a pandemic is...it's about facts, science and math. That's it. You can keep your opinions to yourself. Or shout them from the rooftop with an AR-15 strapped around your body. Those of us who respect science, math and facts don't care. Neither does the virus.
The longer those people continue to act like *that*....the longer the reasonable among us will simply stay home as much as we possibly can.
Oh, and 40,265 Americans have died of COVID-19, so you know....there's that.