There is no willful denial, nor is there rampant feeding into it on my part either. With my scarred lungs and 3 duets with.pneumonia over the past 15 years, I AM in the at risk group. And yet, I still work everyday. I still keep people's spirits up. I find it comical that folks lambast those who do not "take this seriously". Define taking seriously, being aware and being hygenic while continuing to live, or holing up after an outing of hoarding from the supermarket?? I keep it in perspective because its true. How many die by suicide a year? By auto accident? By overdosing? People minimize those stats everyday, yet this new pandemic, while having killed over 8k has had 80k recoveries and something around 200k global cases, all of a sudden causes panic. You know what is more infectious than Covid-19?? Fear. Stealthy, silent but present fear. While home a good episode of Star Trek:TNG to watch would be "The Drumhead". It shows how much more damaging slowly rising panic is over initial causes. Don't take this as a personal diatribe or lashing out, just that I see folks starting to be fearful as if we were on the verge of nuclear war, and that is a dangerous thing.
I think your attitude and my own are very similar. I'm 73 and I'm still going out and doing my necessary errands. I've never been one to use hand sanitizer (I think -- in conventional circumstances -- it will breed more antibiotic resistant bacteria). I have my hands in the compost constantly. I handle the poo in my chickens' coop. ...and I can be fairly casual about whether or not I wash my hands after those things. I think using an immune system is building an immune system and an important part of preparing for something like this.
But, let's face it. Suicides and car accidents aren't contagious. I think this country takes an astoundingly callous attitude to how many gun-related deaths there are every year here, but, again, not contagious. This is a highly contagious virus. And we don't know the long term effects yet. Ebola, another but different corona virus, can stay in survivors eyeballs for years and re-emerge. That doesn't mean Covid-19 will have residual effects for survivors but We. Simply. Don't. Know. We need to be aware, informed, taking proper precautions AND be confident and opptomistic as we continue to do our best in this challenge.
I guess you've got it in hand but there are too many listening to a certain public individual who wants this to magically go away and is downplaying it deliberately to avoid responsibility. Those folks are demonizing the media for presenting information they need to have and to heed. There's a balance somewhere in there. We've all got to try to strike a healthy and a positive attitude for our own health and for one another.
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