It is still unclear whether or not I or my parents will have some long-lasting Covid effects. However, so far it looks good. It does not look so good for one of my cousins though. The cousin in question is about twelve years older than I am. When we were kids, he sparked my interest in nature, and thus he was one of the first people who have put me on the path of actually seriously studying natural sciences. But…
My parents are an exception within the family in that they both are decidedly non-religious (my father even being resolutely anti-religious), a fact that I have not known about until my late teens. And although my religious relatives are not the “frothing-at-the-mouth-fire-and-brimstone-biblical-fundangelicals” that seem so typical representatives of Christianity in the USA, the negative effects of the religious rot on the human mind are noticeable amongst some of them even so.
That my moderately religious cousin has married a deeply religious woman was unbeknown to me for years. They both seemed pretty reasonable in our interactions and religion rarely, if ever, came up. When my cousin-in-law scolded my mother that she should not do laundry on Black Friday because it makes Jesus bleed or something like that I just rolled my eyes, but it was not a harmless superstition, she actually believes that crap. The first warning sign of really bad things to come was when she has become a part of a radical cult and the family almost broke apart – she almost left not only her husband but also her three children over religious bullshit. Once you start to truly believe moderate bullshit, apparently believing egregious bullshit becomes easier. They managed to reconcile that issue somewhat, but it was apparent from that time on that many of the problems in that family – which I won’t discuss in public in detail – stem from the fact that religion, not reality-based knowledge, and not even common sense – guided many decisions.
Things came to a culmination of sorts last year when they both got Covid and were sick for over a month. They did not get vaccines because “they did not believe in them”. They both have long Covid now and my cousin, a jolly bear of a man of rude health to whom illness was a nearly unknown thing for most of his life, is now battling chronic tiredness and depression. He did say to my mother that he will accept vaccine boosters if they will be recommended to him, as well as new vaccines should the need arise in the future.
It does make me wonder if this is “better late than never” or just “late”.
Damn, I’m sorry for your cousin. Yeah, religion can rot the mind, though it seems to me that organised religion is just the most easily accessible rot. In Germany those opposed to the vaccines were often “anthroposophes” with connections to the Waldorf schools.And old time hippies. And the believers in “personal health through fitness”.
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I think you mixed up the holiest day of consumer capitalism with the holiest day of the Catholic Church. It’s for some reason “Good Friday”, The one day when I will absolutely insist on putting on Bowie’s “Magic Dance” and dance through the kitchen.
@Giiell, you are right, I knew it was something Friday, but I did not remember the correct terminus technicus for this particular one.
The “personal health through fitness” might have played a role here too, my cousin was, as I said, always very strong and healthy. A lot of otherwise healthy people assumed that Covid is a benign risk for them, despite health officials saying otherwise the whole time and even media showing occasionally cases of otherwise healthy people who had their health ruined, and sometimes ended, by Covid.