Worried that the crisis is worse than we think

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When the pandemic started, I was really concerned that people were going to drop dead like flies and hospitals would overfill and collapse and now looking at what's happening for example, in India, the situation seems to be looking unimaginable and nightmarish and has turned those fears into reality and thinking what is happening there, is going to happen in other countries. I do hope that there will be an end to it in sight soon.

The vaccine and social distancing have had a massive effect here in the U.K. Unfortunately India has been barely socially distancing and not sure about what's going on with the vaccine either. They didn't see anything overly bad happen for months so things like social distancing was just forgotten about and now they are dealing with the consequences of that, here in the UK things are massively different so I really don't think we have anything to worry about. Restrictions are being lifted now but things are going really well here, stop worrying. hope that helps.

Still have internet friends in India which were made in creative writing groups and spaceflight fan groups on Google Plus back when it was a thing: the covid situation is a mess right now in India.
Vaccines are available but the scale of the population needing to be vaccinated is beyond what we even can experience here in US and UK.

I expect it can be accurately be said that certain aspects of the crisis actually are worse than we think while at the same time other aspects are not worse than we think, some maybe even better than we think.

The effects of the pandemic are much worse in some areas than others due to:

• Lack of sufficient medical care.  Some rural areas, especially in some third-world countries, simply lack medical personnel and facilities to sufficiently handle the massive influx of coronavirus patients.  For people in these areas, their reliance on faith-healers and folk remedies has only exacerbated the situation

• Lack of vaccine acceptance.  Disgraced British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield really screwed with people's minds when he falsely declared the MMR vaccine causes autism.  Since then, people have been reluctant to receive any injectable treatment out of fear that they will be permanently harmed in some way.

• Lack of faith in science.  Fact-based science, being a self-correcting method of examining reality, does not carry with it the absolute certainty of superstitious nonsense.  People would rather believe in "magic" jewelry, homeopathic "treatments", and endless repetition of prayers, rituals, and verses from their "holy" writings than in a simple, well-tested injectable vaccine.

• Too much faith in narcissistic politicians.  Elected or appointed government officials with no medical background whatsoever have declared covid-19 to be "just like the flu" and that it would "magically" go away when certain environmental or political conditions exist.  Obviously, they lied.

• Too much faith in fundamentalist religions.  Apocalyptic prophesies of plagues sent by divine beings against humanity have been around for millennia.  Religious leaders are exploiting people's fears of being left behind after "Rapture" events or sent directly to Hell as punishment for their lack of faith to attract more people to their religions, and to convince those people that only their sacrificial offerings of money (not livestock) will save their souls for all eternity, and that receiving coronavirus vaccines will demonstrate their lack of faith and damn them instead.

• Too much faith in conspiracy theories.  People using the term "Scamdemic" and other nonsense words are taking perverse pleasure in both the attention they attract and the fear they inspire, while taking no responsibility for the deaths of their devout followers who flout rules requiring masking, social distancing, and isolation of those infected with the coronavirus.  Some of these followers have died in horrible pain from the coronavirus while denying they were sick.  Only a very small percentage of the dead had other pre-existing conditions.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is either deliberately lying or hopelessly deluded.

• Too much faith in alternate news sources.  While mainstream media does not always get the facts right, they are at least self-correcting.  Alternate news sources are not self-correcting, however -- instead of admitting their mistakes, their "journalists" dig in and attack the moral character of medical experts who tell the truth.  Do not let alternate news sources (i.e., Newsmax, QAnon, YouTube, et cetera) do your thinking for you!

• Fear of getting a "shot".  This infantile fear is behind every lame excuse imaginable -- people are afraid of needles.  They would rather cite all manner of off-the-wall excuses than admit that they are actually afraid of having small needles stuck in their arms for only a second or two.  They would rather risk dying on horrible pain from a virus they cannot see that feel a little temporary discomfort from a needle they can see.

Get the vaccine.  It could save your life.