The January 6th Committee is proceeding like it has big revelations. In actuality, it is revealing normal human behavior. Humans deal predictably with a loss.
The first stage is denial. That means if you lose an election, the first response is “I can’t believe it.” That is normal. However, it becomes abnormal when the denial lingers on. It becomes abnormal when the denial becomes an obsession. The conviction that the election was stolen is an example of that kind of obsession.
The second stage is anger. We frequently experience this. A good example of that is the anger that we have towards other drivers on the road for doing what we imagine is a loss of our freedom to maneuver.
That anger can take many forms. Sometimes it can be internalized. Other times it can be externalized. The attack on the U.S. Capitol was an example of anger about the election being externalized. It involved many individuals who were involved by proxy. However, it was still an external reflection of anger.
The third stage is bargaining. This has been a prominent part of the reaction to the election results. That is not a surprise given the extended time frame of the process.
It started with taking concerns to the courts. Our court systems work on evidence. When they were presented with none, they had no choice. They had to say the cases had no merit.
There were calls to Georgia to try and find more votes that could overturn the election results in that state. That might not have made a difference to the final result of the election. However, it was a form of bargaining.
There was a recommendation that Mike Pence had the power to overturn the results and send it back to a different set of electors in the states. That was an alternative form of bargaining.
It also took the form of doing a recount in Arizona. All that did was prove that the election results were correct.
All of this is normal human behavior. However, there are two more steps to dealing with loss. One of those is mourning. The other is acceptance. As we move further from the election there are individuals who have closed the door by accepting the results. Many of them reached that point after the events of January 6.
However, there are still many individuals who continue to hang onto their grief. They may be stuck in the denial phase. They may be stuck in the anger phase. They may be stuck in the bargaining phase. In any case they will continue to be stressed unnecessarily until they move on to acceptance.
That is always the ultimate end to the grief process. It just takes some people longer than others to get there.
COVID update- The total number of cases in Sussex County has dropped to 153.7 per 100,000 people. That moves us to the lower level of criteria (less than 200 cases per 100,000). That is about a 50 percent drop from the previous seven day period.
The number of inpatient beds with COVID patients is at 5.6 percent. That puts us in the low risk range which are less than 10 percent. New COVID admissions is at 13.2 per 100,000 people. That puts us in the medium risk zone which is between 10 and 19.9 admissions per 100,000 people.
That means that for this week Sussex County has moved from high risk to medium risk. If the number of admissions drops below 10 per 100,000 and the number of inpatient beds with COVID-19 patients remains below 10, we could drop into the low risk zone.
As far as total number of cases go, Sussex County has gone from 840 three weeks ago to 787 two weeks ago to 601 last week to 488 this week. This is consistent with the other metrics that are mentioned above.
Nationally, the numbers have not changed quite as much. They were 834,000 last week and this week sit at 769,000. That would suggest that while there are still hot spots in the country, Sussex County is becoming less of one at the moment.
A new study looked at mortality for the month of March 2022. The results show significant differences based on vaccine status.
For the low risk 18-49 year age group, there were 1.3 deaths per million people among unvaccinated people. Basic vaccine series dropped that to 0.2 deaths per million. When a booster was added it dropped further to less than 0.1 deaths per million. Thus for this age group death was pretty much entirely eliminated with initial series and booster.
For the 50-64 year age group, there were 12.1 deaths per million people among unvaccinated people. Basic vaccine series dropped that to 1.5 deaths per million. When a booster was added it dropped further to less than 0.6 deaths per million.
For the high risk over 65 year age group, there were 92.9 deaths per million people among unvaccinated people. Basic vaccine series dropped that to 11.8 deaths per million. When a booster was added it dropped further to 5.5 deaths per million.
Unfortunately, some people only choose to look at the 5.5 deaths per million among boosted high risk individuals. They try to make it seem like the vaccine is ineffective. Actually, 18 times as many individuals (92.9 compared to 5.5) died in that high risk group if they were not vaccinated.