We purchase all kinds of products that we hope we will never need to use. Most people have home insurance, flood insurance, car insurance, health insurance and life insurance. Years may go by without ever making a claim, which is actually a good thing. We don’t want to be involved in tragedies of any kind, but when and if they happen we want to be covered so that our situation is not also a financial disaster. 

We wear seatbelts in our cars even if we’re never been in a serious accident. This one is especially important to me because I’ve heard again and again that my father probably would not have died if seatbelts had been installed in cars back in 1957. There were no real safety features in his automobile and so his chest slammed into a steering wheel that did not collapse upon impact. His heart almost immediately stopped. His lack of a seatbelt changed the lives of me and every member of my family.

I have a fire extinguisher in my kitchen. It’s a new one that replaced the one that we used when our oven caught fire. With quick action we were able to prevent what might have been the loss of our kitchen or maybe even our entire house. We confined the fire to the inside of the oven so that our only cost was purchasing a replacement oven and buying a new fire extinguisher. 

We don’t always get evidence that our precautionary payments or actions have been worthwhile. Sometimes we go a lifetime without ever having to use the safety features of life that are there just in case. We might dream of countless other ways that we might have invested the money that we have paid for flood insurance until we see the homes of friends and family members filling with water. Then we are reminded of why an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

So we go through life visiting our doctors for annual checkups, being immunized for diseases, following traffic rules, installing smoke detectors, locking our doors at night, creating contingencies for unexpected dilemmas. We can’t always foresee the future, nor can we be one hundred percent certain that the measures we take will prevent us from ever having to endure tragedy. What we are able to do is mitigate some of the cost of accidents, disasters, health problems. We invest in the tools available to us hoping that we never have to use them. 

Our human responses to the current pandemic vary according to our beliefs, but one thing is certain. Covid 19 is very real and it is determined to mutate in a battle to stay alive in our midst. We may have gone past the point of being able to fully control it with a totally vaccinated population, but we seem to have prevented it from being as dangerous than is once was for those who have had two vaccines and a booster.

Insurance cannot prevent a fire in a home but it has the power to make the price of repairing the damage far less than it might otherwise have been. So it is with Covid after completing three doses of the vaccine. I may catch the virus, but the odds of it sending me to the hospital or causing my death are miniscule. Taking the vaccine is my insurance policy, one that I hope I never need but have in my back pocket if the occasion arises. 

I see the current responses to the pandemic as a no win situation. If the governmental decisions is to have a long list of fail safe responses in place, a hue and cry of wasting money and limiting liberties ensues. If the response is to wait until there is a surge, there are complaints that we should have been better prepared. 

The truth is that we have too many people who have been unwilling to get vaccinated, wear masks whenever they are indoors and generally sacrifice in a concerted effort to rid ourselves of this plague. Instead I have watched too many asserting that those of us who have done those things are fearful and hysterical, as though taking precautions has suddenly become a sign of some kind of weakness. 

We have countless measures in place that are designed to keep us safe. I follow them without thoughts of somehow losing my liberties. Why a worldwide pandemic would suddenly lead to risky behaviors in the name of freedom is beyond my comprehension. Why would we not take advantage of every possible means of avoiding the more severe consequences of this virus?

I have grown weary of those who accuse the medical community of growing rich because of Covid. They obviously do not know or understand how exhausted and frustrated all of our doctors and nurses are. A year ago we were celebrating them as the heroes that they are. Today they sometimes fear for their safety because of a spate of misinformation that is fueling a hateful campaign against them. 

I am tired of being accused of being fearful simply because I am very careful not to bring Covid to the immunocompromised members of my family or to the ones whose hearts and lungs were already weakened long before the virus came along. 

Those of us who are doing everything possible to keep our families and friends and neighbors safe are not on a campaign of hate or propaganda against those who are following rumors and unscientific ideas. We truly want everyone to be safer from the worst effects of Covid. We do not want anyone to suffer or die. 

We have made Covid 19 a political football when instead we should be as united against it as we should also be against any foul hurtfulness that befalls our fellow humans. We need to admit that no single individual is to be blamed for the shifting vagaries of the virus. Instead we should all be asking how we might sacrifice like the brave doctors, nurses, teachers, police officers, firefighters, store clerks, delivery people do every single day to finally put an end to the virus. If we can’t come together in such times then surely we should all be very worried. It’s time we all began to use the insurance that those in the know are offering us. Get vaccinated. Wear a mask. Be safer. It’s a great investment that hopefully you will never have to test.