Until March 2020, I worked as an occupational therapist at a small local nursing home. I opted to not work when the pandemic hit to ensure my safety and the safety of Mother Fran. This nursing home is now inundated with COVID-19. Both residents and staff are infected and it continues to spread. Three Four residents have died and I can only imagine the difficulty ensuring adequate staffing for those that are sick and those that are not sick. This virus has invaded my personal bubble, it is hitting closer and closer to home… hence todays rant. My thoughts are with my friends at the nursing home who are sick and those that are trying desperately to keep themselves and our residents safe.
This Covid outbreak is responsible for todays rant. Sorry in advance.
My fellow American’s – we are screwed. We are so busy shoving our opinions down each other’s throats that we don’t have time or even the inclination to hear the other side or opinions that differ even slightly from our own. We talk to each other like Trump and Biden did during the debates. We raise our voices, call each other names and walk away angry. We don’t truly listen to each others view because they differ from our own experience.
Are you open to change or is your mind closed like a steel trap? Could you be wrong about something or are you convinced you are right? People tend to get so caught up in their beliefs that they don’t consider any other viewpoint. Have you heard the term confirmation bias?
Confirmation bias, the tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with one’s existing beliefs. This biased approach to decision making is largely unintentional and often results in ignoring inconsistent information. Existing beliefs can include one’s expectations in a given situation and predictions about a particular outcome.
confirmation bias | Definition, Background, History, & Facts | Britannica
I am not just referring to the Presidential election or your political viewpoint. Confirmation Bias occurs in the courtroom when a juror forms an opinion on day one that the defendant is guilty. They then look for information to support that hypothesis and can tune out all information to the contrary. It occurs in the office when an employer believes his new hire is brilliant. He subsequently overlooks all of the facts that do not support this viewpoint. The rest of the employees have to deal with the under-performing co-worker. It occurs in your doctors office, in the church, in the classroom. The most damaging issue with confirmation bias is we don’t even know we are operating under its influence. We think we are being rational, fair, open-minded; but we are not.
Confirmation bias even occurs on social media and this results in people reposting and retweeting things that they haven’t even fully read or digested. I have “friends” on Facebook that I have deleted because of posts that I consider racist. I recently deleted a contact from Facebook because I disagreed with one of these posts. I don’t know if this was a good decision or not but it keeps me in my own personal bubble where I tend to retreat to when life gets difficult.
Might I suggest we open our minds, our ears, our eyes while we shut our mouths for a bit.
Masks or no masks? That is what we are focused on? Really?
Do you have someone in your life that you love unconditionally? What would you do to protect them. To ensure their safety? To keep them from harm? Would you insist they wear a seat belt, would you drive cautiously, would you monitor what they eat and ensure they get adequate sleep. Would you wear a mask?
I am not asking for your opinion on wearing a mask. I am not enquiring about your health. I am not looking for the exceptions to this simple question. I am looking for a resounding YES. Yes, I will take the simple step of placing a piece of cloth over my nose and mouth to keep my loved ones safer than if I did not.
YES I will wear a mask to decrease the likelihood of spreading this virus to your parents, to your children, to you. Even if I don’t like you… I will wear a mask to do my part to keep you healthy.
Would you wear a mask to potentially keep others safe even if you don’t have faith that it will help?
Sorry for the rant but…
This virus is growing in most parts of the county. I live in NY where we thought it had peaked months ago but apparently we were wrong. It has roared back to life and spreading quickly. In New York State, we are seeing over 8000 cases per day. As a nation, we are inching closer to hitting 200,000 cases per day. As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, COVID 19 is hitting closer to home.
The first time I reported these numbers in April, in the post My World Got Crazy, there were just over 12,000 deaths and 374, 239 people infected.
On 4/26/20, when I posted Keep the Positive Changes, the CDC reported a total of 50,439 deaths and 895,766 cases.
As I sit at my computer typing this draft on 12/6/20; the death toll in the United States from COVID stands at 277,825 and the total cases at 14,255,535.
I have been reading articles that talk about a Post Acute-COVID-19 Syndrome. Many people who “recover” from COVID-19 don’t really recover at all. They don’t return to their former baseline of function, they suffer from ongoing symptoms that mimic Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. They started noticing this in children and now in adults who may have had relatively minor symptoms. According to the CDC, “Post-COVID-19 care centers are opening at academic medical centers in the United States, bringing together multidisciplinary teams to provide a comprehensive and coordinated treatment approach to COVID-19 aftercare.”
How much more can out hospital and long term care facilities, doctors, nurses, administrators, therapist and staff handle?
I pray the vaccinations are effective and help stop the spread of this virus. This vaccination will not help people who may potentially suffer from residual effects for weeks, month, and years.
Today’s Update: 294,535 people have died from COVID and 15,718,811 have been infected.
Do your part…
Wear a mask. Maintain social distancing. Socialize outdoors with family and friends (that you don’t live with) while wearing masks and maintaining your distance. This is what we all can do to support our friends and family who are working the front lines of this pandemic.
Sorry, not sorry for this rant…
Lake Girl
Loud and hardy applause for a great and well written post. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
This one was in my draft box for a while. I had to tone it down a bit! Guess I am experiencing Covid fatigue along with the rest of the world.