death rate – Observations and Misunderstandings

The refugee crisis never really went away, it just calmed down a little and was forgotten about. People are still dying on a daily basis. Children are still drowning and we’re continuing to let it happen because of ideological beliefs, ignorance and our own self-serving desires. With the names, ages and photographs of the dead Kurdish-Iranian family being realised there is finally a human face being put on those desperate enough to risk their lives because what they leave behind is worse. Not since Alan Kurdi washed up on that Turkish beach over five years ago have refugees been treated like human beings. It is such a rarity, it stands out as novel. And here we are; Rasoul Iran-Nejad, 35, Shiva Mohammad Panahi, 35, Anita, 9, Armin, 6 and Artin, 15 months. Victims.

It would be easy to blame the current Government, they make it easy. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, Dominic Cummings, the man with the advice. They’re responsible. The leader of the opposition Keir Starmer, he’s responsible. They are culpable but to turn this into a piece going on about particular politicians or leaders doesn’t do a dead family any honour. If anything they just get used so a point can be made. It doesn’t respect them it just makes them pawns and objects in this continued war for power. They have power, we don’t like how they use it, we think we could do better, we use a dead family as a stick and next week we find something else. We just use them. We use them in the same way the other side would use the highjacking of the oil tanker by Nigerians seeking refuge earlier this week. Desperate people getting used in desperate moments.

How then can we create legitimate discussions about the deaths of these people and find a culpable party or argue about how and whether people should be able to move freely on this planet, without using examples of those who died as a consequence of a series of decision based upon those arguments. We must be able to discuss it. Is it blame? Do discussions fail the moment we allow blame and guilt in? People make errors and there will always be repercussions but it feels like both sides of the argument, the accuser and the accused, don’t want to find a resolution, or at least a resolution that doesn’t perpetuate the cycle of suffering.

In that case we, us, me, I am just as responsible as those previously mentioned leaders. Their job is to be the face of guilt and when that guilt becomes too much they’ll be replaced by a fresh face and so on. We continue to perpetuate this by deluding ourselves into believing the next fresh face will be the good one yet we don’t even know what that means because we ourselves don’t behave or exist in any morally virtuous way. But then we’re human and we’re fallible. We need to forgive ourselves for this too and accept these ideas of good and bad are simply ideas, nothing more. In the meantime a young family have died and while young families have always died and young families will always die let’s not make their death pointless. Life is never worthless and death will always be it’s equal.

I tried cutting up a big frozen roll of black pudding (blood sausage) this morning with a bread knife. It didn’t work. I tried other knives. They too didn’t work. I even tried a small hacksaw for cutting metal but because it was too fine it’s also didn’t work. Eventually I gave in and got my handsaw that is usually reserved for planks of wood. This virus is a trying time for all of us, our worlds have been turned upside down and we’re having to approach the world in ways we wouldn’t have even contemplated in the past. I’ll be honest I probably wouldn’t have bought a foot long fat black pudding in the past even though I love the stuff and the French version is partly responsible for me not being a vegan anymore, but I did. This series of new and trying circumstances led me to that moment when I found myself in my kitchen this morning sawing congealed pigs blood and dropping blood and fat on the floor like some kind of gruesome sawdust. It was ridiculous and disgusting, also quite amusing and with blue cheese really tasty in a croissant. I just discovered it is apparently a superfood. This lockdown is great for people. They have to experience their more creative sides and whatever bizarre parts of them that rise to the surface as a result. You can’t escape yourself if it’s all you’ve got.

In other more serious news, I just read a report from Iceland that only has 218 reported cases of the virus. Iceland apparently is a very interesting case for giving a better idea of the spread of the virus as apparently they have been testing large swathes of their population. With a population of less than four hundred thousand this is seemingly quite straightforward. What they discovered was that half of those who had tested positive had absolutely no symptoms of the virus at all and that there are at least forty mutations of the virus in Iceland itself. What is important about this is that it means we could and probably are far more likely to be spreading the virus as many more of us who have it are completely unaware. It does show the importance then of social distancing to protect those more vulnerable. It also though highlights the fact this virus is far less dangerous than we are being led to believe and that the death rate will be far lower than previously thought. The fact we even have a death rate for something that hardly anyone is being tested for in the first place is completely ridiculous of course. Also if there are at least forty different mutations the report suggests we may see the virus develop into a more contagious but less dangerous mutation. It would explain why some people are barely showing symptoms while some fit, young and healthy people are unable to survive.

Tag: death rate

Life & Death