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I took myself off private because I need you to understand that for the vast overwhelming majority of people who have been infected with COVID-19, it is not their individual choices which are responsible. It was caused by hostile governments unconcerned with public health.
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This is miserable. It is not a bad cold. It is not the flu. It's not pneumonia.
There are no guarantees, but you should still do everything you can to avoid infection, and avoid spreading that infection.
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There are no guarantees, but you should still do everything you can to avoid infection, and avoid spreading that infection.
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Let me tell you how I came to be infected despite our precautions and how government decisions contributed to that:
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A year ago, when all of this started, the governor of Ohio, with the advice of his public health director made the decision to issue a stay at home order and close non-essential businesses.
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My workplace converted me to full time work from home. My Spouse's workplace closed and laid everyone off and we began collecting unemployment.
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With the daycare closed, all of our children had to come home and Spouse started doing full time toddler and infant care, because a year ago, we still had an infant.
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By the end of spring, with armed white supremacists protesting outside her home and Republicans in the Ohio general assembly threatening to remove her, the Ohio director of public health abruptly resigned.
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The governor rescinded the stay at home order, the legislature declared victory, and businesses all over Ohio opened back up. Among these was my Spouse's employer and our daycare.
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I work in software engineering and I have a fancy degree and an impressive résumé. I am well compensated.
The safest thing to do would be to keep the kids at home and for Spouse to decline to resume working, to start over in a year or more.
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The safest thing to do would be to keep the kids at home and for Spouse to decline to resume working, to start over in a year or more.
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But that wouldn't be fair, for me to keep my career while Spouse has to stay home with the kids due to inequities in compensation.
So we made the decision to hire in home childcare for a sum roughly equal to Spouse's wages.
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So we made the decision to hire in home childcare for a sum roughly equal to Spouse's wages.
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If the businesses had stayed closed, we would not have had to make that decision. Spouse would still have had a job to go back to when the danger was less.
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We stayed home as much as possible. We did not visit family for the holidays. We certainly were not going to parties. Once a week we got no contact perishable groceries and once every 8 weeks I went into a store masked and alone to get things we were not able to get curbside. 12/
We paid our childcare provider to get tested and stay home any time she was possibly exposed, but with everything open and no end in sight by fall she resumed her normal life but in a cloth mask.
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We interviewed possible replacements but we couldn't afford $35+/hr.
If the government had sent us monthly checks we could have.
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If the government had sent us monthly checks we could have.
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Last week our childcare provider came to our home with undisclosed COVID symptoms. But the time I find out and sent her home and to get tested, we were exposed.
Now I can't walk to the bathroom without having to sit down and catch my breath.
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Now I can't walk to the bathroom without having to sit down and catch my breath.
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We did everything we were supposed to do. But, a hostile white supremacist government chose to allow the pandemic to spread.
And it has come to my home. My children are running fevers. They are not immune. I can only hope they will fully recover.
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And it has come to my home. My children are running fevers. They are not immune. I can only hope they will fully recover.
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My Spouse, due to working in healthcare, was fully vaccinated right before we were exposed.
If the government had prioritized vaccine production and distribution, I should have been vaccinated before now as well.
But our lives didn't matter to them.
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If the government had prioritized vaccine production and distribution, I should have been vaccinated before now as well.
But our lives didn't matter to them.
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It's only because of that vaccine that Spouse is so far asymptomatic and able to care for the children.
I truly don't know what we would do otherwise. I can't even take care of myself. We have no family who are not high risk.
There is no option.
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I truly don't know what we would do otherwise. I can't even take care of myself. We have no family who are not high risk.
There is no option.
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I'm tired. I'm tired of all of this. It was so unnecessary. So many people are dead and disabled because the stock market was more important than our lives.
Not the economy. The stock market.
I don't want to die. Not for this. Not for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
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Not the economy. The stock market.
I don't want to die. Not for this. Not for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
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I just checked, out of morbid curiosity, my 403(b) is up 21% over the last year.
Because of certain pre-existing conditions, I am not eligible for life-insurance, so this money will support my kids if I die.
How many lives, how much suffering, for that 21% increase?
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Because of certain pre-existing conditions, I am not eligible for life-insurance, so this money will support my kids if I die.
How many lives, how much suffering, for that 21% increase?
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Thank you for reading. Here is a picture of my cat.
