Opinion: COVID-19 at top in blame game

Recently, a shooting on a movie set in New Mexico was described as a gun going off accidently. The story indicated that a well-known actor was involved and that the actor had been practicing a type of fast draw on the set when the following occurred (I paraphrase): the actor drew the gun twice.

The first time nothing happened. As he drew the gun a second time, the gun went off.

The gun did it.

The headline in a Milwaukee newspaper recently read, “A person plowed their SUV through the Waukesha Christmas Parade, leaving five dead, more than 40 injured.”

While the headline takes note that the vehicle had a driver, the story indicates that, according to Police Chief Dan Thompson, a red SUV broke through parade barriers and went down Main Street. After the vehicle struck more than 20 individuals, a suspect vehicle was recovered and a “person of interest” was in custody.

Note that the vehicle begins to become an entity. The red SUV broke through, the suspect vehicle was recovered and so on. This culminated with, “an officer discharged his weapon at the suspect vehicle to try to stop the vehicle.”

The vehicle did it.

But the all-time winner in the apportioning of blame game goes to “drum roll” COVID-19.

Can’t find the Christmas present you really wanted? There is a kink in the supply chain due to COVID. Gas and bacon prices going up? COVID again. Seventy ships in the San Pedro Harbor? Longshoremen and drivers can’t be found to unload them due to, you’re right, COVID.

A Sunday editorial I read contained the line, “When the pandemic shuttered schools, parents rallied alongside teachers.” COVID shuttered the schools.

Additionally, according to media reports, the pandemic closed restaurants, bars, retail shops and churches to name a few. Governors, school boards, secretaries of education, public health officials and other assorted government individuals had nothing to do with crashing the economy, or causing children to lose two years of school.

COVID did it.

And it’s still not going to end. Public health officials have raised the alarm about a new variant, Omicron, that has the potential to fuel a global surge of COVID-19 cases. (All the variants are named after Greek letters.)

There are currently five variants of concern and two variants of interest. Three former variants of interest are now classified as variants under monitoring and three variants are now formerly monitored variants. I hope that clears things up. Maybe when they run out of Greek letters, we’ll be over COVID-19.

Hope springs eternal.

Rube Render is a former Clovis city commissioner and former chair of the Curry County Republican Party. Contact him:

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