"Grandpa, were you alive during COVID?" "I certainly was! It was very scary." "Did you know a lot of people who died?" "Well, no. But 7 million people died!" "7 million people died in our country alone? Yikes!" "Well, no. Around the world." "In a week or two?" "Well, no. But over the course of 2 1/2 years." "What was the world population then?" "7 billion." "So 0.1% of the world's population died over 2 1/2 years. But I suppose a lot of them were children, so that's sad." "Well, no. COVID barely affected children. It was almost entirely people in their mid '70s or older who died." "Mid '70s?! What was life expectancy back then?" "Um, if I remember correctly it was around, uh, mid-70s." *awkward silence*
It's astounding that my tweet garnered >7 million views in 3 days - it clearly hit a nerve. In retrospect, I should have noted upfront that this is a deeply sensitive topic. The lives of our elders are invaluable and worth protecting. I'm not trying to minimize the impact of any life lost but offering a different perspective on the world's response to COVID-19. I continue to feel that adopting the principles of the Great Barrington Declaration may have been a better approach. Hopefully, there won't be a 'next time'. But in case there is, I encourage everyone to learn about the Declaration at gbdeclaration.org. Love and respect to all. ❤️
@stevlandambrose @Turn_and_Tempo Way less than 0.1% of Americans died on 9/11. Why am I still taking my shoes off at the airport?
@stevlandambrose Speaking of preserving seniors’ lives MAID has taken more seniors than: reported with covid deaths If nothing was done on either front many would still have grandmothers and grandfathers Gov stuck its nose where it don’t belong
@stevlandambrose @DrJBhattacharya My dad “survived” COVID - cancer killed him. But, I couldn’t see him for very long before his death and my eulogy was done with social distancing in place.
@stevlandambrose There was no pandemic, if the media had not have told you about Covid you wouldn’t know anything about it.
@stevlandambrose Nasty analysis, it doesn’t matter if there were “just 7 millions around the world” who died, we lost people we cared, beloved ones, in very painful and sad ways and they died alone... Seriously.