We could have done something. But we didn’t.
More pointedly, Gov. Phil Scott could have done something. He is our leader, after all. But he didn’t.
Sometime during the first half of August, we recorded the 1,000th death attributed to the Covid-19 virus.
The moment passed quietly, without notice, buried in a routine statistical report. And that’s a damn shame.
Would it have been so hard for the governor to hold a brief, solemn event? Top administration officials, political leaders, and a sampling of those who have lost loved ones? Everyone holding a white flag? A few words, a moment of silence? A National Guard bugler playing Taps? Flags at half staff for a day? Is that too much to ask?
I guess it is.
Hell, if done right, it’d have been a political winner. Not that that’s the ultimate measuring stick, but the point is, even if you leave out the human dimension, it should have been a no-brainer.
I don’t know, maybe the governor is uncomfortable around those who have suffered loss. He’s never been big on memorials. Maybe his comms team thought it’d be an unpleasant reminder of a pandemic that they tried to put behind them as quickly as they could. If so, that’s the wrong way to look at it.
We human beings need ceremony to bring us together and forge common memories. The 1,000 victims and all those who have suffered loss or illness deserve some measure of recognition.
Letting this moment slip by unremarked is a moral failure — and a missed political opportunity. I mean, if you’re not concerned with the moral part of it, at least be smart enough to grab an opportunity when it’s right in front of you.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
I like Turtles.
Why is Vermont governor Scott made out of paper mache?
Do Vermonters understand he is not real?
He is a wax marionette.
And like the scarecrow, his head is filled with sodden green mountain straw.
If one does the research and checks out the Vermont Dept. of Health data on Covid deaths in the first year and a half of the pandemic, they will see that only 25% of those who are listed to have died had Covid listed as the primary cause of death. And they will also find that only 18% of those listed had only Covid as the casue of death.
It’s also interesting to note that in the single largest unvaccinated cohort, those 18 years of age or younger at that time, there were no deaths. Zero.
In fact, during the first year and a half of the pandemic, only one Vermonter under the age of 30 is listed to have died of Covid… and even that listing is suspect. The 28 year-old-male is listed as having died of a drug overdose that was a possible homicide. And Covid wasn’t mentioned in the list of the four possible morbidities. It was only after an autoposy that the possibility of Covid was entered in the notes section of the report.
Why would these reports be skewed in this way? Follow the money. Healthcare providers received significant stipends when they listed patient care as being Covid related – up to $35,000 per patient in some cases.
As I said in response to a similarly-thermed tweet, “Yeah, fuck them dead people.”