Fear Fatigue Is More Dangerous Than COVID-19
Authored by Jeffrey Barke via AmericanThinker.com,
Our daily lives are filled with risks – lots of risks.
Just look at these examples:
- Every year, 30,000 to 40,000 Americans die in automobile accidents, yet none of us is willing to give up cars to avoid the possibility of dying in a crash.
- Heart disease kills more than 600,000 of our fellow citizens annually, yet we continue to eat fast food and pack on extra pounds.
- Diabetes puts more than 80,000 Americans into their graves each year, yet we do not ban the use of sugar.
- Close to 50,000 Americans take their own lives annually, yet we have instituted COVID-19 policies that have increased the incidence of suicide to the highest levels seen since the Great Depression.
- Millions of children are infected with influenza each year, and hundreds die from the disease. But we have never closed our schools or insisted on masking the population to prevent the spread of flu.
- Child abuse and child sex-trafficking are at record levels in this country, and many specialists believe that it is due, in part, to our schools being closed while adults are unable to go their normal daily routines.
The CDC estimated that as many as 500,000 people died worldwide from the H1N1 virus in 2009 – the first year that that virus circulated. Overall, 80 percent of H1N1 virus–related deaths were thought to have occurred in people younger than 65 years of age. Despite this, we didn’t close the schools, mask the population, or shut down the economy.
In 1968, the Hong Kong Flu killed approximately 4 million people globally. Not only did we not shut down our economy in the face of that staggering number, but the three-day Woodstock Rock Festival in upstate New York was held in the midst of the epidemic.
Isn’t it time we stopped living our lives and dictating what we can and cannot do based on fear of every new danger? Instead, shouldn’t we let each individual decide what risks he is willing to take?