Live your life fully, but don't be stupid. Excerprt from an article I wrote today:
"Friend of mine had no symptoms but tested positive for COVID-19 last fall. He worked two jobs and at age 64 was in great shape other than being a smoker. No family history of heart or circulatory disease and he isn’t diabetic and seemed like he’d shrugged off COVID. But couple months later he can’t work, had a heart attack, and after trying every treatment to improve his circulation, last week they had to amputate his foot. His wife has a mobility impairment, after COVID she has to speak hesitatingly to catch her breath. They raised two autistic kids through high school and into adulthood, both graduated with their class and the older one works and drives.
Life expectancy after amputation due to poor circulation is a bit over 5 years, my friend may make it to 70 and about all he’ll enjoy of retirement is Social Security and Medicare. Similar prognosis for his wife, she might make it to 60. Their kids will have to grow up even faster, rapidly becoming independent adults as well as caretakers. Across America and around the world their loss is multiplied- 37 million Americans have officially been infected by COVID, and several studies suggest that around 30% of them are still suffering from COVID symptoms, and 10% will be permanently disabled. Just that 10% of COVID survivors is 2% of America’s workforce, which explains the current labor shortage a lot better than increased unemployment benefits. In a nation that disables workers wholesale to the point that 20% of 61 year olds had been forced to retire on Social Security Disability Insurance benefits before COVID changed everything, the loss of just a couple percent of workers to disability will hobble our economy for decades.
Last fall a couple renowned Harvard economists predicted that COVID will cost America $14T if we can stop it in a year, and that’s “T” as in “Trillion” and eclipses any COVID emergency spending ever proposed. Almost a year later we’re in the second biggest COVID outbreak yet and it’s still growing. We’ve vaccinated half of Americans, but COVID has mutated to be twice as infectious. World vaccine production capacity was around 2 billion shots a year before COVID, and even after doubling that our world is maybe 25% vaccinated, and now we need boosters…"