The Selfish Reality of the Anti-Stay at Home Movement

Today, we spoke to a nurse who was on the brink. Holding back tears, imprints on her cheeks from her face mask. She was one of the lucky nurses who was able to wear a face mask and hadn’t yet suffered from the lack of PPE. “I just had to FaceTime a family and let them say their final goodbyes to a 30-year-old-man who died of the virus.”

In covering the COVID-19 outbreak on an hourly basis, our team has been exposed to various points of data, insider information, and tears – lots of tears. We’ve received leads and stories from those inside the government, higher-ups in health networks around the world, and even a frontline nurse who is preparing for mass burials. 

Meanwhile, the world watches our friends on Instagram continue to wander outside, hang with friends, and blatantly ignore the carnage that is ravaging the globe. They now seem to function with an ego-centric mentality because they have problems; whether financial or mental, everything else in the world melts away, and they just know that “this will change at some point.” It reminds us that a good portion of the globe literally survives on selfishness and disregard for human life. We’ll get to dating apps in a minute.

The message is loud and clear: Stay home. Don’t go to your friends’ houses, and don’t invite your friends over. If you need a walk, go alone. Wear a face mask. If you need to get out, go for a drive.

In a leaked video from CNN that has since been pulled, we see people still attending church, with one woman claiming, “I’m covered in Jesus’ blood and so are those around me, I’m fine”. Where is the line drawn, when religion is an excuse to risk everyone else’s life? Is this the price we pay for religious freedom?

As of right now, there have been 902 deaths in the United States, and it’s 8am PST. Think you’re healthy and not likely to die? Think again. As of April 7th, deaths from COVID-19 in the 25-44 age range in this country rose to 73 adults (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/) – and it’s still climbing. 

Here’s the sobering reality of what happens if you come down with the virus:

Firstly, you may not know you have it. Great job on taking your temperature each day; however, you then decide to hang out with that friend who you know has been mainly staying indoors. Nevermind the fact that the friend did also meet up with another friend, who met up with another friend, and so on. Before you know it, you start feeling a little sick. Your immune system is fine, you’ve had no real illness before, but the virus attacks your body in a different way. In some cases, the virus simply attacks your immune system and you can’t recover. Just because, well, you’re you. 

You start to feel worse, your chest is heavy, and it’s taking extra effort to breathe. You’re on track to being placed on a ventilator – which there’s a shortage of. So, what happens now that you’re feeling worse and worse and there’s no ventilator in your hospital? 

Well, it’s pretty simple. You’ll die. 

Now, say that you do get placed on a ventilator. What are your chances? Well, there are many data factors that play a role here. The longer you’re on a ventilator, the more you are unlikely to survive. So what happens when you die? Your body is sent to a funeral home and your family and friends grieve? 

Not exactly – your body isn’t going anywhere. If you’re lucky, the nurse is FaceTiming your nearest and dearest to view your corpse via video so they can say their final goodbyes. They won’t be coming anywhere near you. But what happens to your body? It goes to the morgue for a burial later? Nope. Here’s two scenarios that currently exist: In London, an ice rink has been made into a makeshift morgue, and currently there are no plans for what will happen to the bodies within. In NYC, they are currently in talks for mass burials in parks to potentially relocate the bodies later. Has anyone seen what happened in Poltergeist?

So, why can’t we just stay home?

We get it; the mental strain that staying home can play on you is upsetting; it’s heavy. You’re used to sinking 10 beers every Friday night with your friends, you’re used to casual sex a few times a week, and can’t go a few days without it. The real reason you can’t stay home is discipline and selfishness. It really boils down to that. It’s the inability to survive in a situation outside of your comfort zone. It’s that selfishness that is currently helping the virus kill (as of right now) 12,748 Americans.

Casual sex you say? Yes, we do. We tested a few dating apps and the results were shocking. In fact, virtual dating seems to be off the cards and casual sex is rocketing up. Dating apps like Bumble and Tinder have blatant messages telling people to stay home and virtually date. “DO NOT MEET UP” is the message that Bumble is pouring to its users. It hasn’t stopped people from wanting some sexual delight.

Grindr, the main gay and bisexual dating app, has no such message. We spoke to a few users on the platform, some of them nurses. Our HQ is in San Diego, so we took to the virtual streets to get some information, and while we’d love to post snapshots of our conversations, it could potentially give away a little too much data, so we transcribed lines from the conversations here:

Nurse, San Diego, Male, 34 years old:

“I’m a nurse, I’ve been in PPE all the time, so I’m safe, I don’t have it, wanna come over and f**k?”

Student Nurse, San Diego, Male, 29 years old:

“Yeah, I probably have it, but am still looking to hook up.”

“Visiting”, San Diego, Male, 24 years old:

“I’m here visiting for work, can I come over?”

We then compared the infection rates against zip codes. 92103 is the approximate radius of the popular gay neighborhood, Hillcrest. In all cases reported in San Diego, Hillcrest has a reported 66 infections, the highest in the county (https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/san-diego-county-coronavirus-cases-by-zip-code/2297177/).

We then took a stab at Bumble, and the females were, let’s say, a tad more aggressive.

Woman, 27 years old, San Diego:

“If I come over right now can you f**k me like crazy?”

Woman, 32 years old, San Diego:

“I need d**k, I haven’t had it in a couple weeks, I want to meet you.”

The list goes on.

So, the next time you find yourself unable to quarantine, the next time you want to hang with your friends and catch up – because there’s only a few of you and you think it’s safe – think about the closest person in your life, imagine that person in a hospital, dead, and remind yourself that the last time you saw them was at a quarantine party that you selfishly organized.