Tempe, AZ is where we live and is a diverse, growing community with challenges like anywhere else, and its progressive lean is undermined by Governor Doug Ducey, a man who acts like someone who can’t quite decide if he wants to sell his political soul on Craigslist.
This man has catered to anti-vaxxers, has fought against school mask mandates, removed unemployment assistance early, then after all of that, has the nerve to say we are on the right track.
In AZ we have lost over 21,000 citizens, far exceeding the nation as a percentage per capita, and we are still dealing with a persistent surge that won’t go away, primarily because nobody is doing anything about it. No mask wear, no social distancing, no vaccine outreach on a state level, no education, and kids are left to fend for themselves in schools where a brawl is more likely to break out than a vaccine be distributed.
But for Jason Bennett, the most recent stages have become a puzzling nightmare, one that he can’t wake up from and one that he is unable to understand. You see this man lost five family members in 10 days. His mother, aunt, sister, cousin, and niece. All women, two with co-morbidites, and three vaccinated, perhaps underscoring the need for boosters. All gone. And now he must plan for five funerals all at once.
His message is to absolutely take it seriously. From a scientific standpoint, I can’t help but wonder if some kind of genetic marker might uncover a predisposition to severe cases, considering that these women were all related. Of course that is just speculation, a random musing not intended to be spread as fact or even a likely possibility. But perhaps it is worth exploring nonetheless.
At any rate, the holidays are coming up and this man lost a good portion of his family in less time than it takes a hold on a check to be removed. His loved ones were gone, in the blink of an eye. And he is begging us to take it seriously.
Meanwhile, in Glendale, AZ not 30 minutes away, was this scene Thursday night at the Arizona Cardinals-Green Bay Packers game.
Now some sports lovers have admonished me not to criticize football fans, but two things here-this is an indoor stadium, and they were screaming the whole game. While I have had free tickets to indoor events recently, the mask compliance has been at least, existent, and I have been able to socially distance. I am also part of the “Vax to the Max” club, meaning triple vaccinated. But if 70,000 people go to an event unmasked, with almost half of the state unvaxxed, in an indoor stadium, I don’t know what Arizona, and the nation, expects to happen.
Jason Bennett’s family members are not coming back.
For them the lockdown is forever.
All I ask is that we think when we go out in public.
But some humans haven’t been all that good at thinking lately, have they?
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