Nonpology

Today’s prompt: “The apology a recently disgraced public figure should have offered up, in place of the one penned by his or her public relations handlers.”

The following statement was made by your governor after hundreds of thousands of people in your state, including you, died of COVID-19:

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been reported that our state has been one of the worst affected in the country by coronavirus. Let me put these rumors to rest. The increase in deaths in our state are not due to coronavirus. That’s merely one thing that’s been put on the death certificate, falsely in many cases since doctors get paid – what, are we seriously going with this garbage? This straight-up hoax the president is pushing, libeling the good men and women who take care of us in our hour of need? No, this is bullshit. First off, it’s not even remotely true. Doctors don’t get paid more if you had COVID. And to suggest these people on the front lines are on the take is simply reprehensible. Also, this effort to minimize the number of deaths by claiming that if there were other causes of death in addition to coronavirus on a death certificate, that that doesn’t count as coronavirus? That’s bullshit too. If you’ve got pneumonia and coronavirus on a death certificate, you got the pneumonia because you got the coronavirus. Let’s not be obtuse. If anything, the numbers of deaths due to COVID that you see are undercounts, because it doesn’t count people who died in their homes and never got autopsied.

“Let’s see, what else is on these cards? The liberal media, yadda yadda yadda …. Increases in testing causes increases in coronavirus – nope, that’s obviously dumb, especially when we have such a high positivity rate. What else have we got here … mask mandates don’t work, the fine people of this state wouldn’t have heeded one, some say masks cause COVID, who wrote this crap? No. Obviously masks don’t cause COVID. Y’all see that University of Kansas study comparing COVID case numbers in the counties that adopted a mask ordinance versus those that didn’t? Huge drops in COVID numbers in the counties with the mask ordinances. Big rises in the other counties. So yeah, people comply with mask ordinances. Maybe not all of them, but enough to make a difference. And yeah, they save lives.

“So, I’m sure you’re all wondering, if I know all the facts about how deadly the virus is and how widespread it is and how much masks help curb it, why didn’t I institute a mask mandate? The answer is simple. My cult’s trying to get our human sacrifice numbers up. And while I’m probably only going to get partial credit for each death given that the direct cause of death is natural causes rather than blood sacrifice, I’m more than making up for that in sheer volume. Winning!”