THE VIRUS DOESN'T GIVE A DAMN

Be strong. That's the message the current occupant came out of his brief stay at Walter Reed where he received treatments most of the rest of us can only dream about much less afford. That virus doesn't give a damn about your religion, political party, sex or anything else. If a virus could care the only thing it cares about is a good supply of YOUR cells to hijack to make copies of itself. 

 I watch anti mask, anti social distancing and finally end up thinking "this country did too good a job at controlling infectious diseases." I grew up in rural Oregon so we weren't hit with the anuual summer "the pool is closed because of a polio outbreak." But I did see the pictures of wards full of iron lungs. My late BIL's BIL had polio as a kid. it left him with a paralyzed left arn, Didn't slow him down much.

I'm probably a member of the last generation to be vaccinated for small pox. We have letters from my great great grandmother in Kansas. "The weather has been really hot, not much rain, and there's rumors about small pox in the neighborhood." That was around the turn of the last centrury. Don't hear much about that any more. The only supplies of small pox virus are in tightly controlled places like the CDC. 

When the polio vaccines came out we got both of them. Everybody in town lined up in the local gym three times to get our sugar cubes. And guess what? Thanks to vaccines polio has almost been eradicated. 

I had, in order, the hard measles, chicken pox, and the mumps. Only lost a week of school with the mumps. Of course I swelled up like a freakin' balloon. Looked like a full moon. Kept having the urge to open up my mout all the way. Of course I couldn't. Kid sister had the chicken pox and measles. I believe the littlest sister managed take a pass on all three of those glorious dieseases. We have vaccines for those now. And we get vaccinated to protect ourselves and EVERYBODY ELSE WE MIGHT COME IN CONTACT WITH! 

Antibiotics can control most of the secondary infections. Well the ones that we haven't built up resistance to because of overuse. Most of us don't die from blood poisoning anymore. ICU's and nursing homes have put death behind closed doors. More people have probably watched death on film than have actually seen someone die for real Except for the military. And those men and women have seen far too much. 

I know this is rambling but it got me to thinking. Funny, or not so funny, I haven't seen any armed mobs demanding the right to drive while totally plastered. After all those drunk driving laws are almost as big party killers as social distancing. OK I'm sort of joking but still. Most of us don't drive drunk because we one, don't want to get ourselves killed, and two (possibly) we don't want to kill anyone else. 

That's what it boils down to. We don't want to get ourselves killed or permanently damaged. And we don't want to do this to anyone else.