COVID Update November 15: Yesterday we hit a milestone where the number of daily new cases will equate to the number of deaths on 9/11...potentially by Christmas.

On this day I want to address the topic of sacrifice. 1/

Sacrifice is what first responders did on 9/11 when they ran into the building and up stairs. 2/

Sacrifice is what EMTs are doing every day they give mouth to mouth to a dying COVID patient. 3/

Our country is not unfamiliar with the concept of sacrifice. I bet most of our grandparents or great grandparents or theirs sacrificed greatly for us. 4/

Whether they escaped was as a refugee, whether they were part of a family brought here in chains, whether they were here slaughtered by settlers, whether they sent children to fight wars against Nazis...5/

Whether they lived through a Great Depression on rations, with little meat, no coffee or served in the war where they lost friends, limbs, or experienced trauma they can’t discuss for this country. 6/

Whether they or we marched or were jailed fighting for Civil Rights, the right to marry, to end a war, against corruption, against police violence, on behalf of the planet, or for something greater— we are not far removed from sacrifice. 7/

We are sacrificing today. But we are sacrificing others.

Essential workers
Docs
Nurses
Techs
Sanitation workers
Grocery workers

Our actions sacrifice them. 8/

In a legislative hearing I was asked if I support a mask mandate. I said:

“If we have a mandate that people have to work and be around us, we should have a mandate that they don’t need to see my face or breathe my air.” 9/

A sacrifice is not agreeing to wear a face covering.

A sacrifice is what we are doing to people when we don’t. 10/

A sacrifice is not missing a birthday party.

It’s asking someone to miss the rest of theirs. And then discounting it because they have fewer left than you. 11/

I can tell you old is just someone older than you. Sick is just someone sicker than you. 12/

A sacrifice is not a stay at home order when 45% of the country is still forced to work. That’s what we had in March/April.

Those 45% are the sacrifice. 13/

A sacrifice is not missing a football season.

Were we at war, having a draft, our young men and women would be at boot camp fighting to save the tens and hindereds of thousands of lives.

We are at war. 14/

We are at war not with each other. That’s simply a misguided choice.

We are at war where we are losing hundreds of thousands. 15/

Sacrifice is not an economy which has made investors billions while jobs < $60,000 are down 18%. 16/

Behind guarded gates, we have people calling for herd immunity. For more deaths. For more sacrifice— of others. 17/

People who are knowingly exposed to the virus like @paulgazelka who then get on airplanes rather than quarantining are sacrificing everyone else. Per Stanford, the Trump WH by this time has infected 30,000 people. Other people. And contacted no one. 18/

We will not beat this until we begin to learn our lesson. It is a lesson many have tried to teach us: “All life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied by a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all...” 19/

“...indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality.”

Many of you recognize that from a speech given by MLK, Jr. on Christmas Eve 1967. 20/

Until we learn this, we are destined to prolong agony. Until we sacrifice just a little, we are asking others to sacrifice a lot.

This coming Christmas will not be a happy one for the country. 21/

Even without Thanksgiving and travel we are in for the worst of it. We must keep each other safe. We must go to sleep at night happy in knowing we are doing our part. We must come together for each other, even if we don’t know each other. 22/

Even if it’s not you or a loved one who is intubated, none of us wants to be a link in a chain to someone who is. With vaccines next year, our time to sacrifice— a holiday, a trip, a mask— is now. 23/

If you have a friend or a loved one who is a nurse or doc or tech or maintenance worker in health care, and you want to attach their plea or their photo here, please feel free. /end https://twitter.com/marywitttn/status/1328031102968205322