What Would You Do?
By Tim Pauley
So what would you do if you knew you were going to be exposed to COVID-19? What about if you had a reasonable expectation the care you would receive would be inadequate at best? Would you just sit around and wait? If you live in a cage, your options are extremely limited.
It won’t be deliberate. there will be no malice. It will simply be someone making a critical mistake at an inopportune moment. The result, however, will be the same. I’ll be inadvertently infected.
It seems like such a waste to go through something like that for nothing. Especially when I hear news reports from people, including the president, complaining that the FDA regulations are lengthening the time it will take to find a vaccine. How many lives will be lost in the interim?
With this in mind, I resolved to make my impending exposure count for something. I contacted numerous people, including the governor, the president, a research facility, and a number of others I thought might be able to make something happen. I volunteered to waive my civil rights, my human rights, and any other consideration that might slow the process. I agreed to self administer anything they thought might work but were ethically prevented from administering themselves. I agreed to continue doing this until they either found a cure for COVID-19 or I died.
There is no aggressive strategy that could not be pursued on such terms. It seemed this offer might at least make my whole COVID-19 experience count for something. It seemed even those who viewed me as a subhuman entity could get on board with that.
Apparently I was mistaken. Two months into my letter writing campaign and I have yet to receive one answer. Now when I hear those sound bites on TV, I must question the sincerity of the speaker. If they really thought such an aggressive strategy is the answer, then what I proposed is valid. If that were really the case, however, I would be in a lab right now.
Instead, I am locked in a cage waiting for someone to deliver my dose of COVID-19. This is a delivery I definitely don’t want but one I’m convinced is inevitable nonetheless.
So what would you do if this was your reality? No one knows whether the virus will kill them or not, until it does. Would you sit around and wait for that eventuality or would you try to make it count? Try to at least help someone else by your suffering?
It seems the protest marches have made it to Monroe. Just in case the odds of getting COVID-19 imported into this facility weren’t bad enough, there are now groups of people congregating (in defiance of the governor’s stay at home order) mere blocks away. The sad part is that they are protesting with no clear objective.
The protests were started over the police killing an unarmed black man in Minnesota. News reports indicate the authorities in that state are apparently dealing with that crime responsibly, by arresting and charging everyone involved. But why are the people here protesting that?
There are a number of local people who have suffered a similar fate at the hands of local police. Why aren’t they protesting that instead? At least our local officials could potentially do something about. If they wanted to anyway.
If the thousands of protesters from the Seattle rally/riot, for example, were to march on King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg’s house and demand justice for the Seattle police killings, there’s a high probability those responsible would be held accountable.
There is no statute of limitations for murder. He can charge them at any time. Yet the reason this sort of thing keeps happening is because he refuses to take that action. Why aren’t they protesting that? At least then they’d be increasing our risk of infection for some tangible purpose. Instead they choose to increase the risk with no real outcome in mind.
So when I see these pro tests have made it to just on the other side of the prison wall, it doesn’t require a vivid imagination to envision some guard’s bored kids attending these rallies, picking up the virus, bringing it home to their parents, who in turn bring it to me.
Why not just let me be a test subject instead? Let’s just get it over with, one way or the other. Perhaps my sacrifice can help some people avoid the entire ordeal. The only harm that could come from this is to me. And let’s face it, the authorities don’t care one bit about something bad happening to me. I volunteer…
Tim
Recent Comments