what we should think about instead

 For a while now, I’ve been wanting to write about comparing COVID19 to HIV/AIDS. I know that just writing that might have people going, “What? There’s no comparison.”

So why does an internet search of that topic come up with way more hits than I thought it would? Am I on to something?

I hope not, coz I don’t want to be.

I just remember back in the mid-eighties, when AIDS was starting to make an impact on all of our lives, what an impact it did have. Shoot, before that, back when I first started working in the medical field, we gave injections and drew blood without wearing gloves, without even thinking about being able to get any sort of disease from exposure to someone else’s blood. Man, does that make me feel old.

In reality, at this point, yes, there may be more differences between HIV and coronavirus. I’m not sure how that pans out when you look at the microbiology or virology of them both, but that’s not what I’m thinking of.

What I’m thinking of right now, is that when you hear that someone has tested positive for COVID19, you wonder if that means a death sentence. We knew that was the case initially with HIV, but now people are surviving that diagnosis. The odds of beating a COVID19 infection have always been better than beating AIDS.

We knew early on how to prevent the spread of HIV, yet people remained fearful of it, paranoid of what it meant. For sure, there’s no such stigma attached to COVID19, but the fear and paranoia are still there.

But the bottom line is that fear and paranoia aren’t going to get you anywhere. Just read Matthew chapter 6, verse 27 – “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

No, of course not. Quite the contrary. Worry will only shorten our lives.

So what do we think about instead? Puppies and kitties, sunrises and daffodils, laughter and baby’s toes.

Have a good weekend, everyone, get out there and enjoy your world.