"I am good with waiting until the 'spike' is over this month. Letting a few more go back to work in April is fine with me. But May is different. That is the month we MUST start coming out of this. Hopefully, the testing and vaccine research will be much further down the road at that time."
Here we are. Day 2 of the week which the President's medical team has warned us about. The dreaded "spike" is coming. Anytime between now and April 25th, some are saying. But now we are starting to hear the same thing coming from different docs on the team. The models were off. They are off. Not by a little, but by a lot. Like, instead of 240,000 dead at the worst of this wave, now they are thinking between 50,000 and 135,000. Some are saying even less. I know as of right now, the dead in the US count up to be about 11,000. Still not good, but a long way from the models.
Two pieces of good news I have heard as of late. That is, besides the worst case numbers probably being too high. First off, the Governor of MN is considering extending the number of days of hunkering down. HOWEVER - he is also considering allowing some of the "non-essential" professions, to return to work. THAT IS GREAT NEWS! The second one is a bit more far fetched, but I love the fact some are talking about it. Sending China a bill for what they have done to our economy. This virus came from their back yard, and might have come about due to nefarious reasons.
Right now, we have lost .000033 of our population to this virus. If we lost the amount of people as first forecast (240,000), the percentage of population lost would have still been a fraction of a percent. In the county I live in, we have had 40 cases out of 350,000 citizens, with zero deaths. Heck the entire state has had about 1,000 sickened to date, with 30 deaths. 115 remain hospitalized.
What is the purpose of reporting all these stats? First off, I think the American people have been playing this smart. They know this virus is highly contagious, and have modified their lifestyles accordingly. Bravo to us. The second point is one I have been hearing more and more as of late. In fact, it is starting to become a dull roar. We need to open things up. For example, in northern Minnesota, there are counties with either a handful or cases or zero cases. Let these people go back to work. Let my county, with only 40 cases reported, go back to work (to some degree).
So much for the flinch - now for the smart response. Americans hopefully are learning from this episode. Be smart, take nothing for granted. I know I have. The invisible world can sicken or kill us just like the visible world can. When we start going back to work, no matter what the job is, these lessons cannot be forgotten. There are dozens of ways we can make our workplaces safer from the dangers of the invisible world. What am I saying? We can have our cake and eat it too. We can go back to work, and still be safe at the same time. But we need to be smart about it.
I am good with waiting until the "spike" is over this month. Letting a few more go back to work in April is fine with me. But May is different. That is the month we MUST start coming out of this. Hopefully, the testing and vaccine research will be much further down the road at that time.
The country is ready to go back to work. We will go back better, smarter, and healthier. It is time.
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