A Second Pandemic Coming?

It's been a while since I've covered a COVID-19 related topic (almost a week!).  This is odd, considering that the pandemic is THE news story of the decade, if not the early 21st century.  I figured I'd post about the pandemic today because one in every five-hundred Americans has died of COVID-19.

On a more alarming note, I have a feeling that things are going to get worse in the short-term.  With the death of an anti-vaxxer and QAnon celebrity in a Chicago hospital which refused to pump her full of ivermectin, anti-vaccine fanatics, led by grifters like Lin Wood, are discussing storming hospitals, doxxing healthcare workers, tying up the reception desks, and calling in bomb threats:

A QAnon supporter who posted signs on a bridge overpass is in the hospital with COVID and Lin Wood has decided to send his followers to harass the hospital to free her. They are currently attempting to dox hospital workers and debating other plans to 'save' her. pic.twitter.com/JW4sVFQ13I

— Poker and Politics (@PokerPolitics) September 13, 2021

Meanwhile, Wood is exhorting his followers to 'go to war', then making insincere attempts to walk the rhetoric back:

Veronica’s death has spurred Lin Wood to declare that his followers should “go to war” he clarifies this as “non-violent civil disobedience” but he could have just said that first. There was no reason to say “go to war” other than to inflame the situation. pic.twitter.com/DVKFSpho2n

— Poker and Politics (@PokerPolitics) September 13, 2021

The majority of these discussions are occurring on off-brand social media platforms, such as Telegram, where moderation is not really implemented. More mainstream social media sites aren't much better:

Can't stress how wild the ivermectin Facebook groups have become. So many people insisting to each other to never go to an ER, in part because they might not get ivermectin, but sometimes because they fear nurses are killing them on purpose "for the insurance money."

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) September 13, 2021

Truth to tell, I'd rather see anti-vaccine whackaloons steer clear of hospitals, rather than being admitted, then becoming martyrs for an increasingly-unhinged mob of fanatics with violent ideation. Still, my greatest concern is that there will be a bomb attack or mass-shooting at a medical facility. With one-in-five-hundred Americans having died of the disease, and hundreds of thousands more deaths likely, it's the secondary pandemic of violence which is freaking me out.