A COVID-19 Conspiracy?

Conspiracy theorists provoke a weird dichotomy of feelings in me.

On the one hand I love conspiracies. I find them interesting. Listening to someone string together a hodge-podge of facts and theories to come to a bizarre conclusion is fascinating to me. I’m not sure precisely what I find so interesting; maybe its because I try so hard to understand people and their thinking. I enjoy listening to others and their ideas, to test my own thoughts and feelings and make sure they’re accurate and sturdy.

On the other hand, the mountains of bullshit some of these conspiracy theorists spew is truly mind blowing, and often hilarious.

I will happily listen and debate people on conspiracies, but I will never just blindly accept their theories. I listen, make a point of remembering their ideas, then do a bit of research and see how their thoughts and feelings stand up. No matter what a person might argue, I flatly refuse to ignore experts and their opinions. No one likes to be wrong, but I’d rather admit to being wrong than look stupid.

Which is why I don’t understand people that believe COVID-19 is a hoax, and don’t want to wear masks.

Really people? A hoax? Hundreds of thousands of people have died from this thing. Experts are straight up telling us to wear masks, it will slow the disease, but because the W.H.O. didn’t recommend wearing masks right off the bat, we shouldn’t now that they are telling us to?!?

This is a new disease. I’ve heard people question that, and wonder why we haven’t learned anything from COVIDs 1 through 18, but the disease is called COVID-19 because it was discovered in 2019, not because its the 19th version of the disease. We knew very little about it at the beginning of the year, and experts are allowed to change their suggestions in the face of new facts about the disease. Yes, there is a lot of information out there, from many different sources, but don’t be lazy, do your own research. Don’t believe something just because it aligns with your beliefs, sift through the political garbage. Go to the experts: the C.D.C., and the W.H.O. Regardless of what your personal opinion might be on these organizations, the C.D.C. and W.H.O. are the experts.

I personally take what the government says “with a grain of salt”. Most of the time they do have your best interests at heart, but if I compare what their saying with expert opinion, and they conflict, I’ll listen to the experts every time.

The sad truth is that COVID-19 has become a political disease. One of the terrible reasons the disease has spread so much in western countries is because of populist politics. Many people don’t want to listen to, or follow the advice of, the experts; and the opinions of many politicians reflect that. However, people and politicians seem to be rapidly waking up to the reality of COVID, which is good!

I personally believe that COVID is going to be here for a while, and we are going to get many waves of it; because, while I believe most people are smart, its human nature to do what we want to do (aka: “stupid things”); and COVID-19 is a disease that can take full advantage of our nature.