Meandering
Thoughts


  Posted: September 20, 2021
Newberry Springs Community Alliance
Over 10 years of sharing the Love.
Commentary by Ted Stimpfel

  Remembering Good Friends  

COVID-19

    I telephoned a fellow Newberrian the other day regarding a few questions.  The call should have taken 5-minutes.  It lasted an hour.

    The conversation got sidetracked on COVID-19.  A topic that he wouldn't let go of.  He has COVID-19 fixated as an elaborate hoax, a political scheme.  He spewed incisively about it.

    It was hard to get a word in edgewise with his insistent overtalk.  Educated people are good listeners, so I lost respect for him.  He appeared to be hyper-rambling to convince himself of his beliefs.

    This unvaccinated person firmly believes that almost all of the deaths attributed to COVID are the result of other health factors.

    While there might be some truth that a few deaths are mislabeled, most are correctly branded.  COVID is quickly identified in hospitals.  It causes chaos within body organs, causing death in many different ways.

    Contrary to my friend, I take the Coronavirus very seriously.

Terri

    I am a senior citizen, and I couldn't get my vaccinations fast enough.  Last January, I signed up myself and a casual friend, Terri, to get the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

    She lacked transportation so I agreed to transport her to Ontario for the shots.  We had a two-week wait for our appointment.  During that period, she caught COVID-19.

    It hit Terri hard.  She was transported by ambulance to a local hospital where she was given a battery of tests.  She was there for two days.  As someone who is now helping in her affairs, I have seen the billing for those two days... $96,000.

    She was then transported to another hospital where she was placed in an ICU for over a month.  As COVID-19 was damaging her organs, the doctors wanted to implant a Pacemaker to assist her failing heart but while testing her for surgery, she was determined to be too weak for the operation.

    In short, she surprised me and the hospital staff by surviving.  After nearly five months of hospitalization, she was released to a post-acute nursing facility where she is mending.  But she might never leave the facility as COVID has diminished her abilities.

    Due to the facility having strict COVID lockdown protocols, I don't get to see Terri much.  Once a week, I take a long drive to bring her 4 Polo Loco tacos, chips, and her Sprite.  She hates her facility's tasteless, sodium-free hospital-type food.  Often, I can only deliver to the door.

    She has always been a very independent woman but she is now reduced to being a confined prisoner, who has lost her home and is dependent upon a casual friend to purchase outside clothing and other items.

    COVID has taken the lives of 690,000 Americans.  What isn't stated is the far greater number of "Long Haulers" like Terri who have been forever negatively impacted.

Aime

    Last January, during the same week that Terri and I were to be vaccinated, one of my very best friends also caught COVID-19.  This was someone that I communicated with every morning and evening for years.

    Aime was a caregiver.  She worked in a home that specialized in caring for up to 6 nearing death patients.  She did saintly work with those with dementia that I would never have the patience to work with.

    Aime knew medicines, probably as well if not better than many doctors.  Aime caught COVID-19 at work and took leave to her son's home.  Her son is a licensed administrator of a 150-plus bed nursing care facility so he was well aware of COVID-19 precautions.

    On January 27, 2021, he returned home after work and Aime reported as feeling OK.  A little later, Aime began to feel a bit distressed.  Under an abundance of caution, her son immediately called for an ambulance against Aime's wishes.  The ambulance quickly arrived, but Aime was already dead.

    With COVID, some victims suffer in ICUs with a ventilator and an intubated tube in their trachea for weeks, while others are taken shockingly fast.

Statistics

    I was talking to a friend of Terri the other week.  She was telling me of a friend that had passed away from COVID that morning, a young mother with several young children.

    A few days later, the husband also died from COVID, leaving the small children orphans.  It took a couple of days but the news media picked up on the Southland story and you may have seen it in the news.

    For Terri and Aime, they caught COVID-19 last January as the vaccines were coming out.  But for the parents of the orphaned kids, the parents were deniers.  People who were caught up in the politics and the conspiracy theories.  They were young and COVID couldn't happen to them.

    It is unbelievable to me that two parents would risk their children becoming orphans because they refused to acquire a couple of FREE proven safe vaccinations.  As each day passes, more unvaccinated gamblers are joining the morbid statistics.

    To those adults who are unvaccinated, WAKE UP !  The vaccines work!  We are very blessed to be in a country that have them available.

    During the past month, over 1-million U.S. children have contracted COVID.  The best way to protect kids that can not be vaccinated is for the responsible adults around them to be vaccinated.

    "Nearly 30% of COVID-19 infections reported for the week that ended Sept. 9 were in children, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

    Doctors diagnosed more than 243,000 cases in children in that same week, bringing the total number of COVID-19 infections in kids under 18 since the onset of the pandemic to 5.3 million, with at least 534 deaths."   ~ USA Today

    In San Bernardino County, nearly 63% of the eligible residents have been vaccinated.  For Newberry Springs, the number is sadly 35.4%.  30.5% fully vaccinated and 4.9% partially vaccinated.

    Newberry Springs has been fortunate with only 1 early reported COVID death.  But with the opening up of the schools, churches, and public holiday events, that luck could change.

    Don't risk a painful COVID death.  690,000 Americans have already lost.  Please get vaccinated if you haven't already.

    If not for yourself, do it for your loved ones.

 

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