A tale of two perspectives:
#1: posted by Rene Evans:
This is attributed to Dr. Fauci. The facts about the respective diseases are easy to check.
 From Dr. Fauci:
“Chickenpox is a virus. Lots of people have had it, and probably don’t think about it much once the initial illness has passed. But it stays in your body and lives there forever, and maybe when you’re older, you have debilitatingly painful outbreaks of shingles. You don’t just get over this virus in a few weeks, never to have another health effect. We know this because it’s been around for years, and has been studied medically for years.
Herpes is also a virus. And once someone has it, it stays in your body and lives there forever, and anytime they get a little run down or stressed-out they’re going to have an outbreak. Maybe every time you have a big event coming up (school pictures, job interview, big date) you’re going to get a cold sore. For the rest of your life. You don’t just get over it in a few weeks. We know this because it’s been around for years, and been studied medically for years.
HIV is a virus. It attacks the immune system and makes the carrier far more vulnerable to other illnesses. It has a list of symptoms and negative health impacts that goes on and on. It was decades before viable treatments were developed that allowed people to live with a reasonable quality of life. Once you have it, it lives in your body forever and there is no cure. Over time, that takes a toll on the body, putting people living with HIV at greater risk for health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, diabetes, bone disease, liver disease, cognitive disorders, and some types of cancer. We know this because it has been around for years, and had been studied medically for years.
Now with COVID-19, we have a novel virus that spreads rapidly and easily. The full spectrum of symptoms and health effects is only just beginning to be cataloged, much less understood.
So far the symptoms may include:
Fever
Fatigue
Coughing
Pneumonia
Chills/Trembling
Acute respiratory distress
Lung damage (potentially permanent)
Loss of taste (a neurological symptom)
Sore throat
Headaches
Difficulty breathing
Mental confusion
Diarrhea
Nausea or vomiting
Loss of appetite
Strokes have also been reported in some people who have COVID-19 (even in the relatively young)
Swollen eyes
Blood clots
Seizures
Liver damage
Kidney damage
Rash
COVID toes (weird, right?)
People testing positive for COVID-19 have been documented to be sick even after 60 days. Many people are sick for weeks, get better, and then experience a rapid and sudden flare up and get sick all over again. A man in Seattle was hospitalized for 62 days, and while well enough to be released, still has a long road of recovery ahead of him. Not to mention a $1.1 million medical bill.
Then there is MIS-C. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children is a condition where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs. Children with MIS-C may have a fever and various symptoms, including abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes, or feeling extra tired. While rare, it has caused deaths.
This disease has not been around for years. It has basically been 6 months. No one knows yet the long-term health effects, or how it may present itself years down the road for people who have been exposed. We literally do not know what we do not know.
For those in our society who suggest that people being cautious are cowards, for people who refuse to take even the simplest of precautions to protect themselves and those around them, I want to ask, without hyperbole and in all sincerity:
How dare you?
How dare you risk the lives of others so cavalierly. How dare you decide for others that they should welcome exposure as “getting it over with”, when literally no one knows who will be the lucky “mild symptoms” case, and who may fall ill and die. Because while we know that some people are more susceptible to suffering a more serious case, we also know that 20 and 30-year-olds have died, marathon runners and fitness nuts have died, children and infants have died.
How dare you behave as though you know more than medical experts, when those same experts acknowledge that there is so much we don’t yet know, but with what we DO know, are smart enough to be scared of how easily this is spread, and recommend baseline precautions such as:
Frequent hand-washing
Physical distancing
Reduced social/public contact or interaction
Mask wearing
Covering your cough or sneeze
Avoiding touching your face
Sanitizing frequently touched surfaces
The more things we can all do to mitigate our risk of exposure, the better off we all are, in my opinion. Not only does it flatten the curve and allow health care providers to maintain levels of service that aren’t immediately and catastrophically overwhelmed; it also reduces unnecessary suffering and deaths, and buys time for the scientific community to study the virus in order to come to a more full understanding of the breadth of its impacts in both the short and long term.
I reject the notion that it’s “just a virus” and we’ll all get it eventually. What a careless, lazy, heartless position!”
#2: reply by Tera Ertz
I would humbly point out that for chickenpox, herpes, and HIV there was little admonition to radically alter the way our society functions and limit the way we do life. If you are symptomatic, you stay home. If you had herpes or HIV, you don’t have unprotected sex or do other things that are likely to spread the disease. If you are sexually active or do injectable drugs, you take precautions or run the risk of possibly becoming infected with those last two. But, in none of those three cases, nor any other virus, are healthy people not only asked, but shamed for not going along with, living as though they have a dread disease and accused of being heartless, careless, and lazy because they won’t operate on the assumption that they and everyone they know is potentially a vector.
More than that, up until recent years, we have always operated on the assumption that there are things we don’t know about all illnesses, and that we’d muddle along as best we could living our lives and trusting that the Lord would take care of us. We operated with basic common sense type measures, which is why very few people actually object to washing our hands and basic cleanliness guidelines, especially in high traffic or public use areas. But, the things being demanded aren’t basic common sense type measures. They are extraordinary measures that have destroyed countless lives across the nation and have created health issues for a lot of folks to boot with causes ranging from the shut down of so much of the medical field and delays in life saving procedures and testing to illnesses contracted or exacerbated due to wearing the above mentioned masks, to cross contamination due to a lack of attention to the basic common sense practices also mentioned above resulting from a false sense of security and a subconscious compulsion for people to play with things covering their faces.
Last, the commentary mentions medical experts, as though those experts are all agreed on this virus. The science is wildly mixed, the experts are far from agreed, and the results of different approaches to dealing with this virus are also mixed. The last paragraph further asserts that the demanded measures would avoid unnecessary death and suffering. But the reality is, we don’t KNOW either that those deaths and suffering are unnecessary (only the Lord can define that) or that they could be avoided.
So, those who do not agree, who have studied the science and the data, and the reports, and have reached a different conclusion regarding what is best for them and their families and communities could just as easily ask how dare you? How dare you decide for others that they should compromise their immune systems by over-using antimicrobial cleansers that scientists have been speculating and researching for years as having a negative effect on the immune system and creating resistant strains of viruses and bacteria? How dare you decide for others that they should risk life threatening suicidal and depressive episodes due to isolation, job loss, and constant anxiety? How dare you decide for others that their loved ones should be left abandoned in nursing facilities without the human contact and daily purpose that psychologists have been telling us for years is an absolute necessity for the elderly’s health and will to live? I could go on, but you get the point.
And please hear me. I have no objection to those in society who desire to wear a mask or social distance or whatever else they choose to do to make themselves feel better or limit their exposure. But, I do want to point out that the opinion expressed above is just that, an opinion. It isn’t fact, and despite the tone, it’s not even really based in fact. It is based in several assertion strung together that have the appearance of an argument but that in the end aren’t. Because when it comes down to making its argument it operates sheerly on an appeal to emotion. And it does so by casting those who disagree or have reached a different conclusion as the enemy and seeks to shame and browbeat them into compliance with the prevailing narrative. In my experience any argument that resorts to those tactics to try to win requires deep scrutiny and a great deal of suspicion, as sound arguments, based on proven premises, are generally able to stand on their merit without resorting to emotional blackmail and coercion. Just a thought.