The age-adjusted death rate (click here) for the total population increased 16.8% from 715.2 per 100,000 standard population in 2019 to 835.4 in 2020. Age-adjusted death rates increased in 2020 from 2019 for all race-ethnicity-sex groups, increasing 42.7% for Hispanic males, 32.4% for Hispanic females, 28.0% for non-Hispanic Black males, 24.9% for non-Hispanic Black females, 13.4% for non-Hispanic White males, and 12.1% for non-Hispanic White females.
The pandemic. The vaccine refusals. The variants. The chronic spread. The deaths that are still occurring. The stressed hospitals. It all was completely preventable.
There is a mindset to white men of the Republican and/or Libertarian variety that states masculinity is decided by toughness. That is literally killing Conservative White American Men. They do not listen to anyone, except, maybe another peer. But, for the most part Conservative White Men rather have their tombstone reflect their lives forever rather than living them.
And that is the truth.
I experienced it first hand with a member of my family. He was a self-made millionaire and golfer. He loved to golf. One day he was convinced he needed to consult with a dermatologist about the mark on his arm. It was melanoma. There is no cure melanoma. It is a life of chronically pursuing any spread of the tumor and defeating it as it erupts.
My Uncle was tougher than the tumor, you know. He went into surgery and that mark on his arm took one third of the skin and tissue on his left upper arm. The surgeon told him they got all of it, but, melanoma would occur again and he was to see his dermatologist regularly for anymore eruptions.
My Uncle died when he was 72 years old for no other reason except self-righteous neglect. The real disease for the people that rail against society and social norms is self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is a disease when every aspect of life dictates certain behaviors to save your own life, like getting a vaccine in the face of a pandemic, and a person simply won't accept that reality.
My uncle was self-righteous. He never followed up with doctors after his initial surgery, but, saw them regularly when it was too late to save his life. He died because his self-righteousness was out of control and no one, not even his wife, could convince him he was neglecting himself and not in control of his tumor's spread.
He was a great guy. He believed in God. He put his grandchildren through private Catholic school. All twelve of them. There is no doubt his faith was deep into his soul, but, faith is about the soul, not about having miracles. Expecting God to be able to care for a human body is arrogance and keeping score. That is not faith. Just because a man or woman is a devout practitioner of the faith does not mean anything about life on Earth, so much as the soul after parting the body. Don't expect God to save one's life from disease if one does not act upon the miracle of medical science in their vigilance and life sustaining interventions.
A miracle came to human beings in the form of a vaccine to fight off a deadly virus and it's deadly variants.
Indeed, acute stubbornness. How does anyone discount a vaccine? That makes no sense.
The obituary of Stephen Elliott, who died of COVID-19 on Jan. 5, 2022, rests in the hands of its author, his son Ryan Elliott, on May 4, 2022, in Palo Alto. Ryan and brother Jason tried and failed to persuade their dad to get vaccinated.
Ryan Elliott (click here) couldn’t put off writing his father’s obituary any longer. Word was already spreading through Vallejo that his dad – a well-known commercial real estate broker and civic leader – had died.
But he had to work his way up to it. He and his brother, Jason, held warm childhood memories of their father teaching them to waterski at Lake Tahoe and drive off-road along the Rubicon Trail, but like many sons and fathers, their relationship was complicated. Their dad could be difficult – especially when it came to COVID-19.
The first week in January – nearly two years after the pandemic began and a year after the vaccine first became available – Ryan sat down with his laptop and began:
Acute stubbornness.
“Anybody could read into that and understand,” Jason Elliott said, “that odds are he probably didn’t have a vaccine.”
As Americans near a cruel milestone of one million COVID deaths, personal obituaries like Stephen Elliott’s, humble death notices written by family and friends, have become a heartbreaking historical record of the worst pandemic of our lives....
Ryan Elliott (click here) couldn’t put off writing his father’s obituary any longer. Word was already spreading through Vallejo that his dad – a well-known commercial real estate broker and civic leader – had died.
But he had to work his way up to it. He and his brother, Jason, held warm childhood memories of their father teaching them to waterski at Lake Tahoe and drive off-road along the Rubicon Trail, but like many sons and fathers, their relationship was complicated. Their dad could be difficult – especially when it came to COVID-19.
The first week in January – nearly two years after the pandemic began and a year after the vaccine first became available – Ryan sat down with his laptop and began:
Acute stubbornness.
“Anybody could read into that and understand,” Jason Elliott said, “that odds are he probably didn’t have a vaccine.”
As Americans near a cruel milestone of one million COVID deaths, personal obituaries like Stephen Elliott’s, humble death notices written by family and friends, have become a heartbreaking historical record of the worst pandemic of our lives....
