This is Pastor Tim’s article that appeared in the Evening Leader on Tuesday, August 29, 2023
There are rumblings about the return of COVID. I can’t help but observe that the rumors of the rise of COVID are coming about 15 months before election 2024. COVID-19 started just about 15 months prior to the election of 2020. You can be angry I pointed that out if you want, but it does not make me wrong. You can believe it is just a coincidence, and maybe it is just one heck of a coincidence.
Before I start getting mail about the tin foil hat I wear, let me tell you my background with COVID-19. I did not then, and I do not now, believe that cloth masks do anything to protect you from any virus. I wore them when I had to because I was not going to argue with some poor kid at a department store. If you are going to wear a surgical grade mask that is properly fitted and worn correctly, that will probably give you a great deal of protection, but no one was doing that. How many of you would be OK if you were going in for surgery and the doctor came in wearing a cloth mask he dug out of his pocket? If it isn’t good enough there, then cloth masks are simply not doing anything.
In a vain hope that I would be left alone, I was vaccinated against COVID twice. Given the fact that flashing a vax card did not prevent me from having to wear a mask makes me question what exactly the vax did.
I am not saying COVID is not a dangerous illness that shouldn’t be taken seriously. I am not suggesting there weren’t people who became very sick and died from it. But that has been true about the flu every year. Some years it is worse, some years it is better, but it is always a risk. However, to pretend that it affected all people the same regardless of any other factors is simply a lie. Just like there are certain populations that are susceptible to the flu, there are certain populations who will need to be more careful about COVID.
We can not endure another shut down like we did in 2020, where 15 days to slow the spread lasted over a year. Are there segments of our population that will need to be careful? Yes, of course there are. Nevertheless, can we please learn a lesson that shutting the world down the first time did irreparable damage? It seemed the populations that were the most infected by COVID were the populations taking the most precautions.
While I have serious questions whether or not the government has that kind of authority in the first place, the two problems with the government imposing lockdowns are as follows:
First, it does away with people’s understanding that ultimately you need to take care of you. If you or someone you are responsible for is susceptible to COVID, you need information so that YOU can make the determination as to what to do. The government can only react with a one size fits all response, and that doesn’t work. In this scenario, you have an elderly grandma who should be quarantined at home, but you also have an otherwise healthy young man in his 30s also sitting at home playing video games, consuming junk food and getting depressed. You are trading the health of one person for another when it doesn’t have to be that way. Let grandma decide to stay home and let the young man who has relatively little risk from COVID go to work.
Second, lockdowns give the impression that all risk can be mediated. When mediation of risk becomes a person’s primary motivation, that is a paralyzing way to live. Even on the best day, you cannot walk out of your front door without risk. There is no way to guarantee safety in all circumstances, even locked in your house. When we become so frightened of risk, we miss everything else in life. Work is a risk, relationships are a risk, going places, doing things, all of these are risks. When the government assumes the role of mitigating all risk and making sure nothing bad ever happens, they are making promises they cannot keep. Never allowing anything bad to happen is a promise that not even God was willing to make.
Information? Yes. Guidance? Probably. Taking over all decision-making responsibility? That is a bridge too far for many reasons. We should not give that power over to anyone. We think we are giving the government power but what we are really doing is giving them our personal responsibility to make decisions for us. The question becomes, if we can’t make a decision on COVID what other decisions will we some day be unable to make?
Please, insist on the government to do their job and do it well. Give us the information without spin, and trust us to be free to decide. The alternative is we have a bunch of people running around who never take responsibility for anything they do. Turn on the news and let me know how that is working out for everyone.