SURVIVAL TEST

Well, it’s looking like the totalitarian states and dictatorships will be the only nations to ultimately survive future viral pandemics.

We are giving the latest COVID variant the scary sci-fi name Omicron, so it’s starting to get real and surreal all at the same time. And it seems likely that COVID or the flu will morph into something really nasty with a high mortality rate at some point in the not-so-distant future. That’s what viruses do. Adapt and survive. Kill or be killed.

If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that a firm hand by government can definitely help mightily to keep death at bay. The strong survive.

China, the source of the COVID-19 virus — either naturally or unnaturally — is the most heavily populated nation on earth and home to almost 1.5 billion people. Before they even really knew what they were dealing with, they put entire regions of their vast country into full lockdown and shuttered the world’s second largest economy until contract tracing could work its magic and they got the virus under control. And that was without a vaccine!

When the Chinese government said, “Stay in your house!” everyone complied. When they said, “Wear a mask!” everyone complied. And when they said, “Take the Vaccine!” everyone complied. Because that’s they way the Chinese do business.

In China there are no personal freedoms — except those reluctantly granted by the government. People do what they’re told from the cradle to the grave. And when a deadly virus comes knocking, they immediately get with the program because their authoritarian system has proven that it can keep your ass alive.

In America, we have shown beyond a reasonable shadow of doubt that we are too stupid and selfish to survive, and it’s just a matter of time until some truly lethal virus will surface and we’ll all be doomed by our unquenchable thirst for personal freedom. And we will probably go down madly screaming, “Bring it on!” We are like a heavily armed Rumania (the nation in Europe with the lowest vaccination rate), sitting in the back of the classroom, shooting spitballs and making fun of the kids who are paying attention to the teacher.

We have been watching this idiotic scenario play itself out for years with our insane addiction to guns. We have proudly watched our children be brutally murdered in their classrooms and triumphantly cried “FREEDOM!” And for the past year we have refused to enforce the obvious protective public health measures throughout rural parts of the U.S. when they refuse to get the vaccine or wear masks and continue to die at criminally high rates. We love our freedom to die — and kill others — above all else. Apparently it’s the heartbeat of America.

Which brings us to this disturbing question: Why does Russia, one of the tightest run ships on the planetary sea, and a nation where almost everyone does what they’re told, have one of the highest rates of COVID deaths in spite of the fact that the Sputnik vaccine was the first on the market in August 2020? Well, the obvious answer is they are winnowing out the weak which are a strain on their thinly-stretched public services. So, while conspiracy fools in America worry about non-existent “death panels”, the Russians just let freedom ring and their seniors and sick folks die.

Twisted fate now has large segments of the Russian and American populations unvaccinated for completely different reasons. And who then is the wiser?