{"id":2961,"date":"2020-05-15T10:29:32","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T14:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/?p=2961"},"modified":"2021-04-13T12:09:38","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T16:09:38","slug":"youre-not-taking-your-own-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/2020\/05\/15\/youre-not-taking-your-own-chances\/","title":{"rendered":"You’re Not Taking Your OWN Chances"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Surgical<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In spending far too much time on Internet forums and such, I saw a comment from someone I knew to be a sweet lady, kindly, and generous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In talking about the Covid-19 crisis, she did not agree with the social distancing, mask-wearing, and changes in her routine, saying that this took away a great deal of what made life living for her and she would “take her own chances.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My heart sank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would never <\/strong>have pegged this woman as mind-bendingly selfish. I would never have said that she was callous about other people, but that statement pulled me up short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up until then, I had in my mind the people who objected to the Covid-19 virus as callous, selfish and hostile to other people<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t think that was what was going on. I think what was going on was a misunderstanding of how disease works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you used the expression R0<\/sub> to someone (pronounced “R-naught”) pre-Covid-19, you probably would have gotten a blank look. Many of us now know that the R0<\/sub> factor is how many people will most likely catch a disease if you<\/em> catch it. For those of you who are not yet familiar with the concept, it means that if you catch a particular disease, you can pretty much bet on a certain number of people also catching that disease. The R0<\/sub> of ebola, for instance, is 1.5-1.9. If you get ebola, chances are good that you’ll pass it on to at least one person before you die, maybe two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The R0<\/sub> for Covid-19 is somewhere between 3.8 and 8.9. This is higher than smallpox<\/strong>, friends. Yes, it’s not quite the killer smallpox was, but that’s not the point.*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you do not take appropriate precautions about Covid-19 (personal distancing, hand-washing, avoiding contact with people outside your direct household, and wearing masks when you do have to do so) you are not taking your OWN chances.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you do not take precautions, you are taking risks for other people<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know how your freedom to swing your fist ends at someone else’s nose? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wear a mask in public, friends. That’s the OTHER person’s nose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*For what it is worth, I am grateful down to my bones to everyone who got a smallpox vaccine. I can’t get one, but HURRAH! it’s a non-issue now, isn’t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In spending far too much time on Internet forums and such, I saw a comment from someone I knew to be a sweet lady, kindly, and generous. In talking about the Covid-19 crisis, she did not agree with the social distancing, mask-wearing, and changes in her routine, saying that this took away a great deal … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “You’re Not Taking Your OWN Chances”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,53,52],"class_list":["post-2961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rant","tag-covid-19","tag-masks","tag-r0"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2961"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2963,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961\/revisions\/2963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}