Covid-19: Freedom and Sacrifice in a Pandemic

Is there anyone out there who actually wants all of the restrictions being placed on so much of the planet as the result of the Covid-19 pandemic? No. The answer is no. The vast majority of people do not want to live under restrictions imposed by governments. And that is completely understandable.

We want to get back to our darn lives. We want the economies to open. We want to get back to work. We want to get back to our daily lives. We want normality. And people all over are getting pretty sick of all this...sickness. It's a frustrating time and some are starting to lose patience.

However, humans aren't really in control on this one. A stupid little spikey virus that is quite effective at killing people in a short period of time, in a truly awful way, is the one in the driver's seat. And governments are doing their best to protect citizens and the health care systems of their countries.

This is a time for patience and understanding. Not all are handling this concept too well as can be seen by protests that are being held across the US right now. Groups of angry demonstrators are showing up in some state capitals demanding that restrictions be lifted and the economy to be opened up.

Now, on the one hand, it is easy to dismiss these people as jerks who want to get us all killed. The fact that so many seem to be evangelical Christian, right-wing Trump cultists, and Alex Jones conspiracy theorist types is not helping.

But, at the core, the anger is understandable. All one has to do is look at the economic destruction we are seeing across the globe. We are on the verge of not just a great recession, but possibly a great depression. Combine that with people feeling that their constitutional rights are being infringed on, sometimes by over-zealous police enforcing some head-scratchingly odd rules and you got yourself the basis of a good protest.

So, the anger is real and partly justified, but Covid-19 doesn't care about any of that. All it cares about is infecting lungs and multiplying. And the results are deadly. It is in charge here.

As a result, humans are in a position where we have to be patient. We have to give up some of our rights for a period of time in order to fight this disease and make sure that large swathes of the population aren't wiped out. We have to sacrifice in order to preserve our health care systems so that they don't completely collapse as the result of being overwhelmed with Covid-19 sufferers. We must take harsh measures now to ensure that the future will be better.

And we should listen to experts. By experts, we are talking about actual experts, not Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz. Let's listen to people like Dr. Fauci. As The Hill reports, on Good Morning America, the good doctor explained why despite the protests, we must stay the course.

"Clearly this is something that is hurting from the standpoint of economics and the standpoint of things that have nothing to do with the virus, but unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery economically is not going to happen. So what you do if you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you’re going to set yourself back. So as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening, it’s going to backfire. That’s the problem."

The frustrations we see boiling over, sometimes fueled by false information and the urging of irresponsible leaders (Yes, this is a reference to Trump), are understandable. We are all frustrated. Face it, this sucks. Covid-19 sucks. It will be nice when we get a vaccine and can truly crush this crazy virus. But that is a ways off. In the meantime, patience and sacrifice is what we need from everyone.