Originally published at: Since June 21,000 Texans have died of COVID-19 while refusing a widely available vaccine | Boing Boing
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Volunteers.
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It’s frustrating. These deaths were absolutely preventable but people are determined to keep making medical decisions based on Facebook memes and bad information.
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I mean, it’s still depressingly sad that so many people can be convinced to let themselves die over a fucking lie. And so many families tour apart by this.
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Oh no. Anyway…
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Texass, you’re winning at a strange and dangerous game.
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I live in Dallas and mask policies are not enforced at stores. I probably see about 25% of patrons masking up. I still don’t understand the GQP strategy of lying about a pandemic and killing off your own voter base.
Alas, survival of the fittest…those with red hats are disadvantaged and biologically should not procreate.
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Can I point out how damning that list is, even more than the covid deaths being more than twice the number of the runner-up cause?
Where are the heart disease, cancer, or other medical deaths?
The 5 top causes of death in one of our largest states are ALL due to dangerous human choices, not actual health issues. (Yes, addiction is part of the drug overdose deaths, but it’s so wrapped up in things like the Sacklers.)
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I believe #1 is heart disease in California.
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Professor Hotez presumably chose to leave them out- hence why his tweet says some leading causes of death.
I can’t easily find more recent statistics, but in 2019 (according to the CDC) heart disease killed 46,000 Texans, and cancer killed 34,000.
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Nearly half of heart disease deaths in 4 months… ye gods.
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Kinda seems like people are volunteering to die.
It’s what one expects of a death cult, no?
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At least the long-term effects of death have been thoroughly studied.
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The Riddle of Steel
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worse, my understanding is that each state controls how they report covid deaths.
so in many states if you have cancer, get covid, and die. you died of covid ( because maybe you would have lived for many years, or had treatment and remission ) but in texas you’re probably counted as a cancer death ( because you might have survived covid if you hadn’t had cancer. )
especially true - so far as i understand - of heart attack and stroke which might be the mechanism by which you die of untreated covid.
i also think i read that you have to generally have tested positive before you die to be counted in texas.
at any rate, texas isn’t trying to be as transparent as other states. no surprise. so it’s doubtless an undercount
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That’s depressing, but it’s also angering as well, because they’re taking other people down with them. Not just by infecting other people with covid who might be immune compromised, etc., but by making it impossible to get medical treatment for other things, too. Deaths which are absolutely caused by covid, but which don’t get treated as such.
The strategy started at the beginning of the pandemic, when Republicans saw who was being killed - people in urban areas and in particular, people of color. It was - let’s not mince words here - a genocidal reaction. There was a very calculated and explicit response that they were happy to let those populations die and this wasn’t something they needed to do anything about (at least according to reports from e.g. the White House at the time). So they committed to that position. I think even now, the calculation is that the pandemic already did more damage to urban populations and people of color before there was a vaccine than will be done to their white rural voters now that they are gaining some benefit from other people being vaccinated.
But the anti-vaccine, anti-mask dogma brings their cult together, too - it creates a tribal, group coherence that outweighs the relatively small number of deaths (and even the deaths can help more than hurt that group identity). When millions of people have lasting health problems due to having been infected with covid, that too will be a stress on people’s lives that will keep them part of the Republican tribe, same as the economic policies that Republican politicians have championed for decades have both hurt Republican voters and made them more ardent in their political identities, as their leaders blame… someone else for the things they’ve done.
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I would suggest that these people have been murdered by false information and that investigating and prosecuting those who create and spread false information should be on our list of things to do.
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Some leading causes of death in the State of Texas
5. Homicide: 1,653
4. Drug overdose deaths: 2,989
3. Firearm deaths: 3,583
2. Accidents: 10,763
- Deaths from COVID19 vaccine refusal since June 1, 2021 even though vaccines widely available: 21,000
Depends how the categories are created. Basically, Texas lost over 40,000 people in various methods, all starting with the phrase, “Hold my beer.”
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My brother will be one of those Texans later today, as it turns out. He’s been on ECMO since mid-June. Symptoms manifested when he and his wife were on a trip to the east coast to visit grandkids. We’re not in the closest contact, so mostly we’ve been getting updates from one of his sons to our sister to us.
I saw him for the last time in May. He and his wife agreed to come to lunch with Mom, me, and our sister. James and his wife are evangelicals, and steeped in right wing nonsense. His wife, Terry, is a nurse, but she didn’t want them to be “government guinea pigs” with “an experimental vaccine”. Our relationship was so fragile that I didn’t dare push back. I just said that I was happy for any vaccine, and I had trusted Dr. Fauci for 20 years.
I was certain that the chemical plants of Texas City would kill him, as they did our father, but nope. Same age, 61, but Covid this time instead of cancer. Day before yesterday, we got a text that said his lungs were shutting down, and he wasn’t a good candidate for a transplant, and the end was likely soon. Yesterday, Terry called Mom, and let her say goodbye. Held up the phone to him, even if he’s sedated and unconscious.
I guess I don’t have any point to make or anything. I just wish being wrong hadn’t cost his life.
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