Christopher Lucero | A Trivializing Approach to COVID-19

Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor
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I recently tuned in to a program where the talking head attempted a reduction that I found interesting.

It went like this: The USA has had (at the time) 188,000 COVID-19 deaths, from which the talking head identified that of those 188,000, the deduced rate of death that could not be charged to an underlying condition reduced the count to around 9,000 deaths due to the virus alone.

The talking head’s message had an agenda: to convince listeners that the problem was not as serious as many are evaluating it, and infer that the problem should be allowed more latitude to run its course. Apparently, she is willing to be identified with a policy that is in favor of some social preference for immediate and shorter-term interaction (economic, recreational, or social entertainment like dining out).

She would favor a less restrained, immediate gratification styled embrace of the virus’ infective experience.

Her process of reduction trivializes the other 179,000 deaths by a combination of insensitivity to those poor souls — and their kin and others in their social circle — a willingness to assert a kind of Darwinian eugenics, and fatalist ignorance of medicine’s charter among human activity.

We can infer that this particular talking head — or the copywriter who wrote the piece she delivered — has examined these competing risks and adopted a risk profile that, by adopting a eugenic attitude, accepts a much higher rate of mortality than that adopted by medical professionals, who are under oath to preserve life and do no harm, and the Americans with underlying conditions, and their loved ones.

In the middle of the last century we had a practical, activist eugenicist that was more direct, but no less carefree about the mortality of others.

The USA used to pride itself on higher standards of behavior than what this talking head was propagating. Her — or the writer’s — incapacity for insight into this error, this un-American behavior, might be a telling clue as to the real underlying agenda or perhaps the raw ignorance of her position.

Christopher Lucero

Saugus

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