The Coronavirus

[pbrower2a]

(05-04-2020, 02:04 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(05-04-2020, 10:50 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(05-04-2020, 10:30 AM)David Horn Wrote: Buried in this comment is a huge dose of irony.  Yes, the Tea Party is back, expecting miracles and certainly no taxes.  We'll see how the return-to-work gig works out. I suspect that past is prologue, so the Great Return to Work will become the Great Second Wave of COVID.  What will you say them?  Should we just work and die?

The who and what do you chose to bitch about?  Nancy Pelosi and Marxism.  Well, the future of the country may come down to spending like drunken sailors (let's let the 'sailors' drink this time -- the 'Admirals' already got more than their share already), and maybe -- just maybe -- there will be an economy to restart in a year or so.

Maybe the Great Second Wave of COVID will teach people to work smart.  It should be possible to perform some functions with an absolute maximum of isolation.  Those who think the economy needs to restart should be working towards exactly how to do that safely.  If someone has a pretty good idea of how, let them give it a try.

I am also thinking now is the time to reduce the retirement age and perhaps the length of the work week.  The older people are vulnerable to the bug, and shouldn’t be out there.  There is a surplus of labor at vital jobs, and people aren’t seeking them out.  Luxuries are not going to profit just now.  Maybe people should be delivery drivers or grocery workers rather than try to sell a pretty bauble.

Think, people.  The crisis is supposed to be a time of trial and error.  So trial and error already.

Maybe, we will have significantly advanced in our overall capabilities by the time the 2nd wave hits and it won't be that big of a deal. Hint. The crisis shouldn't be a time for trial and error these days. In the past yes but not today.

 The alternative to trial and error with this plague is to do basically nothing as policy -- and let it take its lethal course, infecting everyone possible until people either recover and die. With a 5% death rate among the infected so far, that means 15 million deaths. That would traumatize America for decades  and might destabilize our system. Destabilization of our political system will not result in consequences that you will want unless you are extremely lucky.

We are rapidly (and at the rate at which Americans have been dying, we will get there tomorrow) approaching 70,000 deaths, which is a higher number of deaths than American involvement in all but three of America's wars. Next up is World War I. This is in a short time. 

Americans got impatient with LBJ when the death toll for Americans in the Vietnam War got into the low hundreds. We have had a few weeks in which we get about ten bad days of the Vietnam War for America in one day. All that prevents mass demonstrations against President Trump is paradoxically the stay-at-home orders mostly of liberal Democrats that most of us think more worth heeding than showing theatrical disdain for the President at the risk of contracting a nasty disease. On the other hand it is Trump's people who take the risk with their protests against stay-at-home orders... and they are the ones that put themselves at risk of contracting COVID-19.

Still, most of us liberals are steamed. We will be taking our anger to the voting booth in November or (ideally) mailing in our ballots.  

One  thing is certain: we will not be going back to Unraveling ways. Unraveling ways in politics, culture, and economics got us into the vile mess that we are now in. I see Americans becoming less tolerant of political failure especially when it comes with corruption and scapegoating.   

Hey, hey, Donald Trump? How many old folks did you have to dump! Considering that many of the old folks now dying are about the right age to have served in Vietnam and now face a pointless danger riskier than the North Vietnamese Army or the Vietcong... we can all chant that line, at least in thought.