You spin me right 'round

Posted

My sincere apologies if your brain, like mine, gets a song in it that you can’t get rid of.

I’ve had the song referenced in my headline going ‘round (pun intended) since reading a story on our Associated Press site earlier this week.

Luckily, it is a catchy tune and the only hit by the rather oddly named “Dead or Alive.”

Frankly, it was a nice break from the various parts of “Hamilton” that have sprung into my head at the oddest times the past couple months.

But we can talk about earworms at a different time.

The story of which I speak was in our South Dakota news feed and it quoted S.D. Governor Kristi Noem as saying, and let me make sure I get this right, “We have triple the amount of testing that we are doing in the state of South Dakota, which is why we’re seeing elevated positive cases.”

She was talking about the recent surge in positive COVID-19 cases in the state, opining that it was due to a simple increase in testing.

So, if one follows this, I don’t know...logic, that means if the state stopped doing testing entirely, there wouldn’t be any positive tests, correct?

Well sure.

Just as stopping testing for, say, pregnancy, will cut down on the number of babies expected in nine months.

What?

Just because a woman doesn’t have a test to confirm her suspicions that she is pregnant, then she just...isn’t?

The biggest difference in my ‘what if” scenario, is that a woman expecting a child doesn’t have the ability to infect anyone around her.

Not testing means not knowing, and if we’ve learning anything about this virus, it’s that as soon as something is known, things can and do change.

Some people have likely had the virus, spent a day or maybe a weekend at home, fought it off and went back to work or whatever.

Others have lingered in intensive care units for weeks, as organs shut down and death crept up to claim them.

There are those who show no symptoms, but test positive and could easily walk around and infect more people.

And of course, there are all manner of responses in between.

I don’t blame President Trump for the COVID-19 virus and Governor Noem certainly didn’t create it, or bring it to South Dakota.

But at the same time, they are elected leaders - of our state and nation - that have large numbers of people listen to them and their words carry meaning.

President Trump was recorded in a series of Oval Office interviews with Bob Woodward, where he stated that he knew as early as February that the virus was highly contagious and very dangerous.

He did those interviews with several people in attendance, according to photos that have been published, so I don’t see how it came as a surprise to him that his words came out.

The spin in this case, is that President Trump was also telling the public and his acolytes that there was nothing to fear, they could go about their daily activities without worry.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if you could rewind and, instead of spouting...whatever it was to the country, the President would have stood up, said he wasn’t sure of the implications, but that he was going to closely follow the guidance of people like Dr. Fauci and was encouraging everyone to do the same, to try to get ahead of the virus?

But he didn’t and we can’t rewind.

So, hearing Gov. Noem twist a huge uptick of positive virus cases into being the fault of a larger number of tests seems disingenuous.

You spin me right ‘round...

It seems highly likely now, as the virus keeps spreading, that each of us will have our brush with it at some point, which is scary.

Oh, what could have been with a modicum of humility.