My mother told me, life isn’t fair.
She wanted to make me aware that human beings don’t always operate under the ‘Fairness Principle’ — to warn me that, for example, my older brother would break the cookie in half, and give me the smaller piece.
Never, in my wildest dreams, did I suspected that that even a virus can hit below the belt.
So you can imagine my surprise when I found a recent report from Magellan Strategies, one of Colorado’s foremost polling agencies, and read the summary of their latest ‘COVID vaccination survey’. (You can find it here.)
They released their survey report yesterday, summarizing Coloradans’ opinions about COVID, vaccination decisions, and when it might be appropriate to require someone to provide proof of vaccination. The survey included 586 Coloradans interviewed between June 3 and June 10, and the data were “weighted to be representative of the demographics of the registered voter population in Colorado.”
I don’t mind folks “weighting” the data, so long as they do it fairly. But as the survey team found out, the virus doesn’t play fair.
Here’s the chart that left me feeling disturbed:
Several things jumped out at me. For one thing, the virus doesn’t much care whether I have a college degree or not. 16% of college graduates got the infection, while 18% of those without college degrees caught COVID. (I didn’t graduate from college, but I can still tell, that those two numbers are pretty close.) While that might seem reasonably “fair” at first glance, consider that a recent college graduate has amassed $30,000 in student debt and probably can’t afford to take on any unexpected medical bills.
Does the virus care? Apparently not.
Then we have the treatment of Colorado women, who have historically struggled with an oppressive patriarchal culture. Then they get slammed with a 20% infection rate, compared to only 13% of men who’ve been infected. The oppression continues.
Bu the most disturbing numbers uncovered by the Magellan survey relate directly to political affiliations. As we see, 21% of Republicans are currently, or have been, infected with the COVID-19 virus. But only 10% of Democrats? Less than half the percentage of infected Republicans?
That, my friends, is patently unfair.
Oh, sure, I can already hear the Democrats trying to justify this kind of unequal treatment. (The same Democrats who are always talking about “justice” and “equality”.) They will probably tell us that Democrats were wearing masks, while Republicans refused to wear them… as if that were some kind of scientific explanation. Does anyone really believe a cheap paper masks from Walmart could protect someone against a virus smaller than… well, I can’t think of anything as small as a virus… I just know it’s really small.
And will we see the Lamestream Media discussing this obvious political unfairness? Not likely. Nor can we expect to see our Democratic Party leadership in Washington doing anything to try and address this inequity. The current administration is probably smugly satisfied to see Republican voters unequally burdened with COVID-19 — perhaps as ‘payback’ for the GOP’s ongoing efforts to hinder progressive voters from participating in future state and federal elections.
But obviously — as much as we humans want to believe we have the power to choose our own destiny — it’s the Coronavirus who’s really in control of the situation.
Maybe he knows something we don’t know?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.