Aren't you just over the charlatans and demagogues?
RFK Jr's covid comments should be a forgettable news blip. Ignore him and instead pay attention to the thousands who actually cared for the sick and dying.
It is fair to question the varied government responses to the pandemic across the world. I know I do. Those questions, if asked in good faith, will make us safer the next time we are threatened.
Here’s something from Politico that is not example of that kind of questioning:
[Robert] Kennedy — a longtime vaccine skeptic who is running a longshot primary campaign against President Joe Biden — said during a Tuesday night press event that Covid-19 was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people.” He went on to say that “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
Kennedy recently made these remarks at a New York City fundraiser captured on video and first reported by the NY Post.
A friend of mine lived a long and full life before succumbing to COVID during the pandemic. His family read Kaddish by his grave. He was hardly alone. According to the World Health Organization, Israel, a tiny country with a world class public health system, the virus killed more than 12,500 people. It seems Jews were not, after all, immune to the COVID virus. China officially reports more than 121,000 deaths, and that is despite the largest lockdown on the planet. That lockdown would not have been necessary, and none would have died had the virus somehow have been engineered to protect the Chinese.
All told, the virus has now killed nearly 7 million humans across the planet. No group was immune. If anything, the virus showed us that all humans are in the same boat where nature is concerned.
That does not seem to matter to Kennedy. His remarks ally him to other demagogues who seek to use the pandemic tragedy to divide us. Maybe he should go online and listen to his father’s words after another tragedy, the murder of Martin Luther King.
But enough about RFK jr. He’s already forgotten.
Instead, let us vow to remember those who rose to greatness during the pandemic by virtue of their love for others- the first responders and the caregivers. Let us honor those whose dedication to truth led to the scientific breakthroughs that ultimately brought us relief from danger. And let us celebrate the logistical talent that carried out a massive vaccination program that allowed us to return to crowded theaters, stadiums, airplanes, and markets. And, of course, let us remember the dead.
Shocks, like the pandemic, always give rise to charlatans and demagogues. They also make visible the best of humanity, souls at once courageous and gentle, who go to stormy seas each day and bring out us to safer shores.
I suggest the healthiest and most honest response to the pandemic is gratitude- For the lives we shared while we could, for the best of us who did so much to comfort and care for the sick, and for the work that finally ended the pandemic.
Leave the bitter cup for bitter people.