Hitting Home
By Lawrence Pfeil, Jr
As I walked out of my building yesterday for the weekly trip outside for groceries, there was a Mt. Sinai ambulance parked in front of it. I stopped, watching as the EMTs tore off their PPE, climbed in the front and drove off without lights on or siren. Apparently, there was no life to be saved.
When I got to Big Apple Meat Market (even if it weren’t the most affordable place to shop in NYC, I’d go there just for the name), the line to get in was halfway down the block. It wasn’t due to the store being packed with shoppers per usual but rather new city rules restricting the number of people in small markets at one time. As I waited, a hearse turned and drove down a virtually deserted Ninth Ave. A few people in line crossed themselves as it passed by. It occurred to me, in over two decades living in the city, I hadn’t seen a hearse , several Rolls Royces but never a hearse.
Arriving home, I picked up packages from the front desk and asked if he knew anything about the ambulance in front of my building earlier. He said, only that they had gone to the floor above mine. I live in a new, very well constructed building, and today I can hear the person above me who has started having horrible coughing fits.
It’s news to no one that New York and New York City are the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. When this whole thing started, I knew it would hit us *HARD* and I’m not a scientist nor a doctor. I simply knew, I live in the most densely populated city in the country and even with strict social distancing, covid-19 would spread like wildfire. The sobering statistics, Broadway closing, not having been farther from home than five blocks in over a month, those have been difficult; but coronavirus being a floor away from me is terrifying.
But still…
There is a “growing drumbeat to reopen America” and protests, encouraged by POTUS for political ambition, to “liberate” states from Stay at Home Orders. I get that people have lost their jobs and can’t feed their families or pay bills. But I don’t get, their wanting death by coronavirus as a way to reduce expenses, much less killing off their friends and family. That’s what is happening in states with Republican Governors who have refused to even issue stay at home orders to prevent needless deaths.
These liberate protesters, clearly, loudly, and proudly Trump supporters, always shout about “Blue Lives Matter.” But they don’t really care about our men and women in blue. If they did they’d stay home and not put them at any more risk of infection than they already are. So far 20% of the NYPD has tested positive for coronavirus and today it claimed the life of our 28th officer.
But as one patriotic American, liberate protester’s sign put it,
#BitchPLEASE
These protesters claim this is all about their “freedom” and America is the “land of the free.” Yet they are the exact same people trying every day to stop women from having the freedom to choose what they do with their bodies or their reproductive freedoms. They say it’s because “there’s another life involved.” Well guess what? There are thousands of lives involved and at risk of dying, because they won’t stay home. Protect them!
These people, like the President they support are selfish, egocentric, and yes I’ll say it, as stupid as he is. They don’t care about other people they may infect, or the heroic healthcare works who *will* have to save their sorry asses when they inevitably end up in the hospital for their “freedom.” What’s more they won’t give a damn that they have inflicted more of this kind of suffering on the people having to care for them.
This nurse opened up about her 'worst shift' yet, exposing the heartbreaking reality of health care workers fighting the pandemic pic.twitter.com/QBNvHKM3Yd
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 11, 2020
