Celebrating Thanksgiving amid 1M COVID deaths looming

The FilAm Editorial

By the end of 2020, some 340,000 Americans were dead from COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. That was the winter from hell. Scores perished because of the dithering and neglect by the then federal administration, which caused an unmitigated catastrophe.

A mutated variant and vaccine resistance stoked by irresponsible governors has more than doubled the number of dead from the end of last year to more than 700,000 before the start of November 2021. If the measuring stick for progress is stopping the lethal march of this debilitating disease, our failure as a nation is writ large.

The only silver lining we have seen so far are the tens of millions of people who have willingly taken the jab in their arms to protect not only themselves but those around them. Many companies big and small have done their part, requiring as a condition of keeping their jobs or being hired in a new one, that employees get the vaccine.

The height of irresponsibility and sheer negligence though are some health workers, police officers, firefighters and top state officials who resist steps to contain what is a public health emergency.

The rights encased in our personal liberties for which thousands have given their lives through history should not and can never be upheld in the face of a pandemic whose murderous rampage will soon approach and result in the death of one million Americans.

We celebrate Thanksgiving at the end of this month and the holy days in December. This publication cannot fathom why a country with so much abundant resources and much to thank for is still being plagued by a disease whose control is pretty straightforward. The vaccine mandates on the federal and private level have been made necessary by the sheer intransigence of state leaders who have absconded their primary responsibility: keeping their people alive, healthy and safe.

This is particularly true of Florida as well as Texas. The leader of the first seems to care more about his political prospects in 2024 while the other is looking ahead to a future election where he wants to cling to power.

The issue of COVID is not just an overarching national issue. It intimately affects the Filipino American community just as deeply. The virus has claimed many of our health care workers. We doubt very much there is a family that has not been affected by this virus. We also doubt there is a family that does not know of kin or friend who has not been wounded by this remorseless ailment.

The FilAm expresses the hope that by this time in 2022, some semblance of sanity would have returned in the way this disease is handled. And the number of people who have died would not exceed the psychological level of one million. We sincerely and fervently hope that this would be the case. The nation we so love deserves no less.

(C) The FilAm 2021