The news is saturated with the Wuhan Virus. I am not going to bite on it anymore. I’ve been stuck in my place for a week. I’ve heard all the statistics and news. Let’s just talk about it from a real life perspective. And, since we’re all stuck inside, waiting for everyone to die a terrible plague-like death, lets talk about what is happening in the human terms. Not like what we hear on the news. Because what we are hearing on the news and from the government is stupid.

Then, lets talk about what we should be hearing. What we need as a society. What we need to hear from our government. What we regular people may need to do.to get through this.

 

No More News

Well, it seems that life has stopped. There isn’t any news except for this damn virus. I decided it was time to change some of the content of this podcast because there is nothing really in the news. No debates or news outside of this pandemic. Even the Presidential campaign has been put on hold. But is that a surprise? All the candidates are well in the age range for mortality for this virus. Not to mention I’m sure the campaigns don’t want their candidates saying anything because they are so dumb.

I love the politicizing of this virus though. My girlfriend came over one day and called Trump ma racist because he called the virus the Chinese flu. I asked if she was kidding. I then pointed out the different viruses that were named after where the started. That included:

• Spanish flu
• Asian Flu
• Russian flu
• Hong Kong flu
• MERS (Middle East)
• Lyme disease
• Ebola

 

All of these are named after the place they started. COVID-19 started in Wuhan, China. It’s actually known as the Wuhan virus but got its name because the Chinese government is responsible for causing this pandemic and President Trump doesn’t want you to forget it. I’ll talk about that more a little later.

Here’s the thing, and it’s so simple I won’t waste a lot of time on it: this virus started in Wuhan, China. The Chinese government hid the virus as not to embarrass themselves, which is true of any communist dictatorship. If they had alerted the world of the virus and prevented their people from just doing their thing, including traveling to other countries, this thing would be done already. The virus did start in Wuhan but it is the Chinese government nthat aided in the spread of the disease. Seriously, folks, they killed the doctor who discovered and tried to alert the people about it.

So, it is the Chinese virus.

The second thing I keep hearing is how Trump messed this whole thing up. And, in the beginning, he did. He didn’t take this seriously, didn’t think of the impact and brushed it off.But he’s recovered. He has the best doctors in the country advising him, he place Vice President Pence in charge, distancing himself to allow others to control yet showing the government is involved and taking it seriously.

This is an unprecedented event. Nothing like this has happened since the Spanish Flu in 1918. No one today knows how to deal with this. Denmark decided to perform something called Herd Immunization. What that means is people would go out and do their thing while those who are susceptible to the virus would hide out. The virus would spread, people who can weather it would get sick, develop an immunity and they would live happily ever after.

Nope. Didn’t work out that way. Denmark is now doing what we’re doing. Best laid plans of mice and men, I guess.

The reality is, no one really knows how to deal with this.

 

What Can The Government and Trump Do

Why is the stock market flipping out? Why are there no rolls of toilet paper anywhere? Why are there lines of people wrapped around the Costco parking lot? Why can’t I find a loaf of bread for my tuna fish salad sandwich?

Because we are all in a panic.

There have been over one billion references to the Wuhan virus in the news media. That is 10 times more than there was for SARS, MERS, Ebola or H1N1. And those were more serious viruses (that we know of).

The fact is, we don’t know much about this virus. So the government must walk the fine line between we’re all going to die and everything is going to be fine. That’s easier said than done.

The media went far to one direction and told us we are all going to die. Statistics show that is not the case. The virus is more dangerous than the flu and it is showing that young people are susceptible. Italy has shown that.

Trump went the other direction. He minimized the virus. He told us we were all going to be fine, this is no big deal, nothing to see here. That wasn’t true either. This virus does suck. It is more dangerous and contagious than we thought. People will die. And the administration decided this was a serious thing and adjusted. Now, they are doing well.

What do I think? It’s probably kind of in the middle. This is a dangerous virus and I should stay away from my parents and others who are susceptible. But I am not sure it is as bad as the media plays it out. I think the government should overreact because this thing is scaring people and the government needs to take their fear seriously. And we don’t know anything about this virus. So we should think the worst of it and deal with it. If it ends up not being as bad as we thought, no big deal.

We also need to realize what we are doing. We are, justifiably, shutting down the economy. Stores and businesses are shutting down, people are losing the jobs and can’t pay their bills. We’re all stuck at home. This could kill our economy. Everything the government is doing, from ordering businesses to close to giving us a couple of grand a month, is meant to suspend the economy so that it doesn’t crash completely.

Here’s the problem: I don’t trust the government. You’ve heard me say this before. The government sucks at everuything. And I am afraid they are going to do things that help make the government bigger. This week, the Senate refused to pass a $1 trillion package, supported by the President, because some of the provisions would be made permenant. That’s scary. Business cannot support paid sick leave all the time and Universal Basic Income (which is what the Democrats want) is unsustainable. We can’t afford it. And this is not a time to allow a single payer health care system sneak into our lives. This is not the time to implement the Green New Deal, which a lot of Democrats are pushing with this $1 trillion deal.

The only thing the government is suppose to do is suspend the economy for a month, maybe two. Not make the government bigger.

Finally, The last thing the government can do is give us a timeline. I have been stuck in my house for a week and I am going nuts. My girlfriend is going nuts. Her kids are going nuts. My parents are going nuts. My friends are going nuts. We are all going nuts. And if the government thinks we are all going to sit in our homes for two months, they’re stupid.

The American people are too used to freedom. They are not going to last long imprisoned in their homes. We need to know there is light at the end of the tunnel. And we need to be given an idea when we might see that light. I know that the government may not know. That’s fine but tell us what they are thinking. Not just the doom and gloom. Because people are not going to do this forever. Hell, they’re not going to do this for three weeks.

China did not have a problem controlling their population. Anyone did what they did not say, they were killed or imprisoned. This is not that country.

Please, President Trump, come up with a plan and let us know what is going on. We know this is not going to last forever. Tell us how long we are going to have to go through even if it means the bad news of a second wave of an infection.

We are Americans. We can handle it.

 

Week On in Captivity

I have been stuck in my place for six days. and this sucks.

Good news is, after five days of not knowing what to do with myself, I developed a routine. That really helped today. I do work from home and this was the first time I was actually productive from home. I am not going to talk about my routine yet. We’ll save that for tomorrow’s podcast.

But I am watching a lot of Netflix and Amazon Prime. Not much news because the news is the same. So here’s some things you might enjoy too:

• Read Loserthink by Scott Adams.
• Watched Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
• Watch 1917.
• Watched The Platform on Netflix. Reminds me of The Cube.
• Binge-watched BloodRide on Netflix.
• Am binge-watching Frasier from Amazon Prime

 

This week, I’m going to start a new book called You Can’t Lie to Me by Janine Driver. I read this book before but I never annotated it. It is an awesome book so I want to spend sometime with it.