photo credit: SeattleTimes.com (David Horsey, op ed 11-17-2020)

I saw a few clips about this nurse’s tweet. From South Dakota, Nurse Jodi Doering finally had to express herself on her night off. I don’t have Twitter, but you can find her viral tweet without much difficulty, I assume. The gist of it is even while plenty of folks are in the hospital beds, hooked up to machines, gasping for breath… they deny that it’s COVID-19.

I never thought that would be the case. My mind was blown.

CNN interviewed her this morning about the tweet for some elaboration (I happened to catch it before I caught a ride to my own surgical appointment). Jodi shows up about 1:15 in:

I asked my ride about it (she works in a hospital) and what she’s heard about the denial in her own hospital. She was amazed how bad it was in this story. Maybe because my friend works in a hospital that’s about 50/50 liberal and conservative–and doesn’t have to work closely to the COVID patients anymore since surgical opened back up (her specialty).  She told me she still thinks about those days of passing up body bags on the way to her shift and getting swabbed and tested all the time when Houston started getting those increased numbers months ago.

Like me, she gets incredibly frustrated at the knee-jerk reaction about folks not wanting to mask up, or dismissing and mis-hearing things because it doesn’t gel with what they want to acknowledge or talk about. 

I don’t want anyone to get ill, but it’s shocking as hell when folks are still in denial while about to be intubated and lashing out that it’s a hoax. How the hell can that be? I mean, I know there’s the whole “drinking the kool-aid” thing, but it’s like they went back for seconds and thirds, threw it up, and went back for a fourth cup.

We’ll be dealing with this shit well into the new year, even if the vaccine’s ready and approved and distributed. Because of folks like this. Because they don’t believe, they’ll get so many infected and killed… and have been for months.

The Damage Report did a short segment on this and said that body bags should be lined up outside of FOX news and the White House to show them what the lies and misdirection have done. I’m so numb I would have a hard time saying that might not be the best idea, because that might tell a few other folks what’s going on, but the ones the message is intended for are gonna keep turning a blind eye.

Hell, the eye’s been turned so often it’s stuck facing into the back of the skull.

Wash your hands. Keep ’em away from your face.

The mask protects you as much as it protects others from you.

Wear the mask. Find one that feels more comfortable or stay the hell at home and don’t get everyone else freaking sick.

I’m just livid, and I’m trying damned hard not to give up on my fellow Americans… but these folks could make it fucking easier and think about their responsibilities as American citizens more than their fucking right to be an oblivious, in-denial carrier monkey. Who knows how many more will be infected by these folks before it’s all over with, and how many will die because of it?

Apparently even their own deaths won’t stop them.

But they don’t have to take the rest of us down with them out of stubbornness.

Wear. A. Damn. Mask. In. Public. Don’t bitch about it, because we’re all in the same boat. The 15th cashier, salesperson, medical worker, janitor, or wait staff you gripe to this week won’t give a shit. They’ve heard it from a dozen other people every day, I’m sure.

Wear. A. Damn. Mask.

Or do us all a favor and stay the hell at home.