Pandemic Perniciousness

The pandemic is not over.

Emerging strains of COVID-19 are causing the number of new cases to begin to inch upward again. 

Deaths from COVID are on the rise.

Almost all the COVID-19 deaths last month were among unvaccinated people.

And these increasing numbers in new cases and deaths are happening in states with low vaccination rates.

As a whole, the United States is falling short of goals to have a majority of the population vaccinated by July.

And apparently this is cause for... celebration? 

At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas this past weekend, the news that the U.S. hadn’t reached its vaccination goals was greeted with cheers.  

Here's how Alex Berenson put it: "The government was hoping that they could sort of sucker 90% of the population into getting vaccinated. And it isn’t happening!” 

The assembled crowd responded to his remarks with cheering.

Berenson is notorious for spreading misinformation about COVID-19, earning the sobriquet as “The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man”.  

Berenson wasn't the only one getting applause. 

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem did absolutely jack shit during the worst of the pandemic. No mask mandates, social distancing protocols or any other measures to stem the tide of this deadly disease even as COVID-19 ravaged her state. 

While people in South Dakota were suffering and dying, Kristi Noem did absolutely nothing.

And at CPAC, she was bragging about it.  

All of which begs the question:

What the FUCK?!?!

Really?!?!

Failure to get US citizens vaccinated is not something to cheer.

Failure to protect those citizens from a deadly pandemic is not something to applaud!

Is this a meeting of the Legion of Doom or something? 

How can we get behind any strategy to finally put this damn pandemic in the rear view mirror when efforts to undermine that strategy are treated as good things? 

The perniciousness of conservatives during this pandemic has been nothing short of terrifying. There's this willingness to disregard human life in deference to conservative ideology. They want government completely out of your lives, even if you have to die for it. 

Although I expect a lot of this conservative hostility has less to do with any conservative ideology and more to do with the pandemic made Donald Trump look bad. 

No, the pandemic is not over. And if people like the attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas have any say in the matter, it will not be over for some time to come.