Covid strains science can’t beat
“Ignorance is a virus” — Neil deGrasse Tyson
Jeffrey Denny
Amid the race for a COVID-19 vaccine, medical science is struggling with several highly resistant strains:
Strain K
As in a “Karen” at the West Palm Beach Whole Foods who scolds a nonwhite immigrant produce section worker as he’s stacking avocados.
She rants at him because the avocados are too hard or soft at these prices but mostly because his mask isn’t completely covering his nose. (It fogs his glasses so he can barely see the avocados.)
Yet Karen doesn’t wear a mask during Sunday brunch with her BFFs. Their concierge doctors tested and determined they were Covid-negative months ago.
Plus, you’re allowed to be mask-less to quaff bespoke cocktails and munch lobster arugula salad that is way more to die for than the Covid.
Flash forward, they all got the Covid and infected their friends, families, posh private tennis club members and the art museum boards they’re on because their billionaire octogenarian husbands donated millions to name a new wing after them.
Strain P
This is found in parents who insist on schools reopening soonest.
They’re so done with spending quality time and being enslaved by their cherished spawn that they’re willing to spread a deadly pandemic to their kids and other kids and families they know, or barely know, or don’t know at all.
Demanding the work-life balance they deserve because they chose to reproduce, parents are desperate to hand off the fruit of their loins to teachers who get paid Amazon warehouse wages not only to educate and raise their kids, but to risk their health and lives.
Strain W
This is spread by Walmart shoppers who attack “customer hosts” as Socialist Nazi Communist Totalitarian Fascists for enforcing store policy requiring masks to enter.
These patriotic liberty-defending Walmart shoppers then spread the Covid, sickness and possible death to other shoppers who are innocently seeking everyday low prices.
Strain I
From South Dakota’s Sturgis motorcycle rally to San Francisco’s pop-up Burning Man celebration, to Florida beach-goers who should never wear skimpy bathing togs yet do, this strain is spread by ignoramuses who crowd to party hardy while scoffing at the pandemic, public health and America while claiming they are the most patriotic.
Many Strain I carriers still parrot Trump talking points that Covid is a liberal hoax and masking is government overreach because:
a) They’re smarter than the elite science doctors who were rendered stupid by years of education, training and experience;
b) They don’t know anyone who has it or died from the so-called pandemic so it must be fake;
c) They don’t give a rat’s about their fellow Americans they don’t know, and/or;
d) They’re shitfaced and don’t care about anything.
But then, due to karma and science, Covid deniers and their loved ones and communities catch, sicken and die from the Covid that’s spiking due to their ignorance.
At which point former deniers with a conscience express deep regret and remorse for being stupid and endangering people — including beloved elders and themselves — and seek understanding and forgiveness.
“I wasn’t aware of the severity of my actions and comments,” said a Florida spring breaker in apologizing for once declaring, “If I get Corona, I get Corona” on Instagram. He pledged to “use this as motivation to become a better person, a better son, a better friend, and a better citizen.”
Too late, my brosef!
Strain S
The stupids, also known as “irredeemable douche-bags” (or to use the Latin medical term, asshat narcissists), often are infected by Trumpism and highly resistant to facts, logic, reason and the nasty indecency and compulsive lies by the President of the United States.
Strain S blinds carriers to how Trump regards them as losers and suckers even when they’re not war heroes who fought and died for the freedom and democracy that Trumpers bleat so much about.
Symptoms also include extreme cognitive bias and motivated reasoning, so carriers know what they know, believe what they believe, and have hilariously iffy internet sources to back them up.
Many also suffer from Dunning Kruger, so they’re too stupid to realize they’re stupid. For example, they can’t master basic spelling, grammar, syntax and usage to call people who disagree with them stupid.
To quote the memes and coffee mugs, there’s no vaccine against stupid. Best to stay away from Strain S carriers for many reasons. You’ll recognize them from Trump rallies and on Facebook saying God Bless Trump.
Strain A
This general strain has infected countless many of the 6.3 million Americans who have the Covid and the 190,000+ who’ve died so far.
Strain A is spread by ornery assholes who aren’t stupid and should know better yet nevertheless supported Trump and attacked his doubters even when it was obvious — long before his Bob Woodward confessions — he was deliberately downplaying the pandemic for political gain.
When faced with the shameful, horrifying truth of their complicity, Trump lovers need to declaim, deny, dissemble or divert to blame the Democrat Socialists, Obama, the Bidens, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, the Deep State, Antifa, BLM, AOC and The Squad, the liberal lame-stream media, etc.
Have pity. They can’t handle the truth.
If Covid deniers thought for even a Kentucky minute (two weeks) about how their stupid stubbornness has kept the pandemic and life-saving masking and shutdowns going longer, and how they have spread sickness and death, they might feel devastating remorse.
If they had any last shred of morals, values and conscience, that is.
But perhaps they don’t care that denial is not just a mountain in Alaska. Or they don’t realize how Trumpism flips the old conservative attack on liberals, defining deviancy down.
In any case, noted philosopher Robert Heinlein might be wrong when he said “ignorance is curable.”
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.
