We are going to hit 200,000 coronavirus deaths in America soon. Depending on which source you use it'll be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, but given the appropriateness of prayer on today's date I thought it would be a good time to take stock.
We are about halfway to the about 400,000 coronavirus deaths we're going to end up with.
We are not halfway in time. We've been at this for six months and we have a year to go before vaccination is widespread enough for us to have a legitimate chance at normalcy.
We are far from halfway in the total ramifications of this pandemic.
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Over the next ten years we'll probably see an additional 7,500 suicides per year. When we've frequently seen 7,500 coronavirus deaths in a week this seems small, and when we're going to save millions of lives with the lockdowns it seems very small, but it's still tens of thousands of people... and they're not dead yet. We can continue to expand access to mental health care, we can continue to destigmatize mental health issues, we can continue to just reach out to each other both in terms of governmental safety nets and personal safety nets. We can't save everyone. We can save someone.
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We've seen a lot of people along the way talking about how more people died from coronavirus over X time than died in 9/11. This is true, but what has been less mentioned is that more police have died this year from coronavirus than all other causes combined, and that according to that site's executive director Chris Cosgriff "it is very likely that COVID will surpass 9/11 as the single largest incident cause of death for law enforcement officers." I bring this up not to illustrate the severity of the pandemic but because the 9/11 comparison in this case illustrates the length of the battle:
https://imgur.com/vhwanTH.png
There's no indication coronavirus causes cancer specifically, but we already know for a fact it has health impacts beyond the end of the infection, and that 9/11 first responders (of literally all people in the entire history of this country) are still fighting to get the government to pay what was promised. Still, as in literally today, the federal government is withholding $4 million from sick and dying firefighters and other first responders. If even they are getting jerked around almost twenty years later for what to the federal government is less than a rounding error of a rounding error, it will take all of us to ensure those on the front line of this far more controversial national disaster have a chance. The fight isn't over when the fires are out.
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We've also seen a lot of pictures during the deepest lockdowns of clear air in LA or Beijing. 'Aha!', some may have said, 'if we just telecommute we can solve air quality!' Alas, no. Houston for example saw a 40% reduction in car traffic yet "did not breathe significantly cleaner air", and also found "particulate matter is not going down at all." This is not to say that telecommuting doesn't help or isn't good, just that it is only a piece of the puzzle, and in some parts of the country (like Houston) a very small piece. We still have to do the work to clean up truck emissions, clean up power plant emissions, clean up boat emissions, clean up construction emissions. Why? Because hitting the 2° ceiling target will save 100,000 American lives a year for 50 years, per Dr. Drew (no relation) Shindell's sworn testimony last month.
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This is surely far from a comprehensive list, but in closing I'd like to paraphrase from the prayer of President Roosevelt during D-Day. Though he surely did not know it at the time, fighting on those beaches would continue for a week. A town ten miles away wouldn't be captured for a month. Berlin wouldn't fall for almost a year. The Allied occupation of Germany wouldn't end for a decade. But he surely knew the magnitude of the task at hand, and we do too, so let us pray:
Almighty God, our road will be long and hard. The enemy is strong. He will hurl back our forces. Success will not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again, and we know that by God's grace and by the righteousness of our cause, we will triumph. We will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest. Our souls will be shaken. We are lately drawn from the ways of peace. We yearn but for the end of battle, for our return to our haven.
Some will never return.
Embrace these, Father, and receive them into your kingdom. Let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage wheresoever it may be needed. And Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in you, faith in our children, faith in each other, faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events deter us in our unconquerable purpose. With your blessing we shall prevail over the unholy forces of the enemy. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace, a peace invulnerable, a peace that will let all of us live in freedom.
AMEN
