Facebook and Corona

I’m not a big Facebook person, nor have I ever been. I was kinda shamed into starting a Facebook page by a pal ten or twelve years ago. I discovered it’s great for reconnecting with long-lost friends and old work acquaintances. I usually check in on it two or three times a week. There are a couple of “friends” I have who regularly post interesting and funny stuff I like to keep tabs on.

But since the lockdown I’ve noticed that Facebook has gone full in to the “OBEY OR DIE!” mentality. The one-sidedness has simply amazed me. I’m sure it’s a combination of rigorous editorial muscling and sheep mentality. No dissent is to be tolerated. Smiley happy people holding hands, singing praises of those who order us about for our own good. If you are foolish enough to suggest that it’s time to re-open the economy you’re immediately pounced on with angry taunts to go to a hospital and hold a dying Covid patient’s hand. Nietzsche would be amazed. On second thought, he wouldn’t; he predicted this 140 years ago

Now, forgive me for calling out those who want to shift those goal posts. I’d like to keep ’em firmly in place where they were back in March. Wasn’t this lockdown put in place to “flatten the curve”? You know, to keep hospital emergency rooms from being overwhelmed with hundreds of dying Covid infectees? Now, nearly five weeks into our possibly unconstitutional lockdown, the curve appears to have been flattened. How do I know? Not by watching the news on TV. By using common sense. By seeing videos of empty emergency rooms and prancing doctors and nurses on #filmyourhospital. By weighing anecdotal evidence. By looking at the numbers. By realizing that none of my intimate friends, acquaintances, and coworkers have died from it.

Certainly you would not know the curve has been flattened by hanging out on Facebook. Nor would you learn that there is a significant percentage of the population that does not want to be told when we can leave our homes, go to a park, get back to work to our “non-essential” jobs.

Life is a risk. Life is a roll of the dice. I nearly died in the hospital because of an unpredictable side effect from a somewhat routine surgery. I don’t want the herd mentality of social media shifting the goal posts from “flatten the curve” to “no more Covid cases.” That ain’t gonna happen. The best thing to be done is to protect the vulnerable and get the healthy back outside developing those antibodies to protect us from the inevitable resurgence of the corona in the Fall. Because that’s the only way we’ll beat it.