I'm concerned - not because of the illness, I still believe this is going to turn out to be less-deadly than the average seasonal flu (which we already have medication for, by the way)...but I'm concerned about Western Civilization. We've shut it all down...for this. I'm lucky in that I work in an "essential" field, so I'm still working, but even so...I'm losing money and have to figure out what to do about mortgages, car payments, and bills. People less fortunate, AREN'T working. This is going to destroy our financial infrastructure.
The thing that worries me is, when a void is created...you need to be careful about who fills it in.
My honest fear is, with the "stimulus" packages being bandied about and signed into law...we're going to end up ten steps closer to Socialism. With no election required. And people are going to eat it up. With these "emergency decrees", we're going to lose even more personal liberties (2A, ammunition, fuel, right to gather, right to speak, rule of law)...and folks are going to eat it up. Socialism, and government control...no election required.
I encourage everyone to DO YOUR RESEARCH. Look at actual numbers. Listen to the actual words spoken by the President and his staff, not to the interpretations put forth by the "press". A phrase I heard last night from one of the President's staffers was "the models predicted that by this time we'd have hundreds of thousands of bodies, and that simply hasn't happened. The models are not holding true". But not a peep about that out of the press, because that would alleviate the fear.
One current model puts total American deaths at 38,000 on the low end; 80,000 midrange; 160,000 on the high end. Out of 329 million Americans...that's a 1 in 10,000 chance a person will die from it; 1 in 4,000 chance; or, on the high end, a 1 in 2,000 chance that a person will die from coronavirus (and also note, people don't "die from" coronavirus, it simply opens the door for other, pre-existing conditions to kill you such as asthma, or heart disease). And, this is an illness we don't have medication for.
A person in the USA has lifetime odds of 1 in 10,000 of being struck by lightning.
So far this season, we have seen 22,000 deaths in the USA...from the FLU. Which we HAVE medicine for. And HAVE had, for decades. Where's THAT outrage?
For perspective, I believe last night the USA topped 1,000 COVID deaths. For the whole country. With no medication. From a disease that's been free to roam the planet since...October? November?
And, we still don't know (and never will know) how many people contract COVID-19, don't show symptoms, never show symptoms...and simply heal.
Personally, I don't believe the disease merits the amount of terror being pushed on us. Numbers don't lie.
Am I being careful? Sure. I'm washing my hands more. I always cover my coughs and sneezes (those "manners" things I was raised with). I'm keeping my distance. But...am I losing sleep in mortal fear that the human race is going to be extinguished? Nope. Am I stockpiling toilet paper, and canned food? No more than usual. Am I in fear for my life? No more than usual. I play with guns. I ride motorcycles. I've been dead before (literally), and I've long come to terms with my mortality. Does that mean I'm being careless and cavalier? Nope. I won't risk others' lives unnecessarily.
But I won't live in fear, either.
That said...I most certainly AM afraid of what this will do to the Western world. The cure is, I believe, about 1,000 times worse than the disease. In my mind, this goes beyond "an abundance of caution"...and I'm curious why. Who dropped the ball on these predictions? Or, in a more sinister bent...who has an agenda that's caused all this?
I believe the human race will be fine.
I'm afraid of who fills the financial and political vacuum when it's all over.
