MidPen has places a priority on maintaining community mixing above their responsibility to save lives and stop the spread.

By keeping the biggest parking lots open to enable people from different communities to drive in and mingle, they are making the decision for EVERYONE, not just the park users. They won't close Rancho lots for even 3 weeks. They REFUSE to keep the parks open, but just close the lots.
Closing the lots would GREATLY reduce the larger community's risk but the science deniers think the virus will act differently in Rancho San Coronio.

SHAME!

Yeah, it's aways something I guess.

I'm disturbed that after some initial success, California has not been flattening the curve faster. California is still at a 15% per day growth rate, while Italy, mentioned in the article, is down to 4%-5% per day growth rate. We have to do better. Web Link

The UW model you link to predicts, besides a peak of 119 deaths in April, a total of 5,000 deaths state-wide, in a population of 40m. So that roughly reduces to 250 in Santa Clara County (using 2m as a denominator).
Our current County dashboard lists 36 deaths. But if it only goes to 250 from here, then our social distancing is working and we are not NYC. (it predicts 16,000 deaths in New York state -- they are already at 3,000)

The subject line in my e-mail says "could ease by early May" while the sub-title of the article reads "could peak by early May". The article is all over the place and talks about the peak in mid-May. I get that but many people only read the title, or the subject line. Are you clueless? Be careful about your summaries people.

Stanford Department of Medicine is doing a Covid-19 antibody seroprevelance study for County use today and tomorrow with thousands of volunteers getting fingerstick blood tests at 3 locations. Initial results should be out in a few days. $10 gift card for donors. So many signed up so fast no more are needed for today or tomorrow.

reccap.stanford.edu/surveys

It will be interesting to see the percentage in our County with antibodies to see more accurate transmission rates by Zip codes here and who might be great donors for antibody serum donation for those on tough fights with the virus,

I think this depends on if Americans can take anything seriously and not just bleeding off into ridiculous partisan bickering and know-it-all ignorami(?) telling us no problem or everything is fine or this is a hoax. Our national mindset and attitude is really not very American. What is happening to us?

We need to do better, and we need to do it fast, and we need to learn from our mistakes permanently.

Thank you, Gennady and Sue, for this excellent and well researched article. The Weekly has been a terrific source of information throughout this pandemic.

I am dubious of analyses from the American Enterprise Institutie such as the one cited in the article. SourceWatch says it is:
"an influential right-wing think tank that advocates for lower taxes, fewer protections for consumers and the environment, and cuts to the social safety net."

Yea Bart!

> "an influential right-wing think tank that advocates for lower taxes, fewer protections for consumers and the environment, and cuts to the social safety net."

If anything puts the lie to the whole Libertarian Right-Wing Republican vision it is this coronavirus crisis ... and of course every other darn thing that we see every day as life and the environment deteriorates from the greed or rapacious right-wingers.

"most measures indicate that Santa Clara County will see a sharp increase in cases in April and early May before things begin to level off." I suspect that things will drag on as infections invade the SCC Jails and also all of the homeless shelters and illegal camps. Remember that contagions like this are "Zip Code dependent". Unless we're lucky and hot weather suppresses Covid-19, we're facing the end of June or July at the earliest because SCC has been unwilling to crack down on its jails and all of its homeless shelters and people.

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CrescentParkAnon, 2 hours ago you said “ridiculous partisan bickering“ ... then 18 minutes ago “the greed or rapacious right-wingers“ ... “not very American” of YOU.

As as social observer I would posit this question? Many of you of wealthy backgrounds find it relatively easy to conform to "social distancing" as you sit in your home offices and zoom your work , yoga and cocktail parties. But advocate for sure let's shutdown commerce, construction and even the garderners blowing your leaves !!

It's called hypocrisy

sherawh, you have a point there. Not a very good one because there is partisan for partisan sake, and then there is partisan right and wrong, and then there is partisan against lies, misinformation and greed ... which is more like morality.

Isn't opening more parks (and tennis courts) and longer hours help to spread the people and hence separate them? Now, I am seeing more and people at and outside Walmart, Costco and Safeway and the few parks that are still open. Teens are playing frisbees, basketball, and soccer in every space that they could find. Teens and seniors will go outside regardless of what the orders are. The only people that are staying homes are the parents.

I'm older so, as told, at greater risk but I think we need to think of this not as on (everybody sequestered) and then, on some magic date off (everyone back to normal. The nation cannot, it must not, set aside it's industry and simply wait. The nation not working is a nation's business deteriorating. Most people understand that the business of America is where the paychecks, annuities, college grants, medicines, hospitals, and welfare comes from. I think we need to begin thinking of the near future as maintaining some quarantine for some, such as the elderly and students, and phasing back to a cautious normalcy for most of the population. The elderly get extra services and the children study remotely as the school year ends, etc. everyone is obliged to practice mutual care and caution. There is, in this approach, a lot to organize and many to care for but it reminds everyone to get back to work, pitch in, and keep the wheels turning. That's the best thing for the factory and for the food coop, for the office and the charity.
Not today but surely in a couple of weeks. To do that, people can be a part of the solution by creating work from home option, safe conditions at work places, and by practicing what we have been told about clean hands, distancing, masks, etc.
nobody had experience in a global pandemic and some will be critical but it seems as though the efforts at all levels is beginning to work. Now it seems that people need to think about how we get those who can least afford to depend on a government check get back to work. Exactly when that starts is not now but as soon as possible.

I agree. That's what Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore were doing. Then, South Korea and Sweden and many Northern Europeans. We spend too much time analyzing what Italy and Spain have done wrong, instead of learning from the countries that have got it right. Taiwan (a country half the size of CA) has so much excess that they are donating their medical supplies to us. What an irony.

George,

You are champing at the bit way too soon. The country as a whole is on a serious upswing in spreading. Focus on the task at hand before you go dreaming of some future state.

Countries like Taiwan did not let it get out of control in the first place. Our national government was not taking the virus seriously for far too long, so it got out of control quickly. You can see that the Bay Area went first on tight controls and is showing some progress. But if you relax in 2 weeks, it will explode again.
If you start letting people from outside the Bay Area back into the Bay Area then, you will have wiped out the benefit of 6 weeks of tight measures.

This has nothing to do with politics (or wealth) and everything to do with trying to save lives and taking the shelter in place seriously.

Unless everyone does their part and follows the guidelines set forth we could be dealing with this far into the summer months. It will take a gathering of a bunch of people for this to explode again and then we will be back to square one. Of course this is inconvenient for everyone, but who wants to be doing this for months and months versus weeks. Adults are as bad as children who can't abide by the rules. The consequences are: A) you get the virus and get very very sick and could die B) you don't get sick but are stuck at home longer and longer because you couldn't abide by the rules - one person can potentially infect 30-40 people in one encounter. And then they infect their family and anyone they encounter and so on and so on.

George couldn't have been more wrong and shortsighted. If the nation "goes back to work", the pandemic would explode and what we experience today will seem like wishful thinking. Millions instead of thousands would die, and instead of printing 2 trillion dollars every few weeks, the government would have to print tens time that, much more often, and money would be worthless.

I hope nobody in high places listens to the likes of George, with the mindset of 'America's business is business' and everything else just follows.

I employ a gardener and together we've changed how we work together so that he can continue to work and communicate and be safe. That is really the ask, that everyone do what is needed to restructure work to get back to it as soon as possible. DMV is going more online (about time!). People who pave roads should be out there now while the roads are clear. Silicon Valley lost what it had discovered years ago that there are great opportunities to allow some work from home. Doing this now would lighten the traffic, allow people more time at home and more time for family. These are things that everyone in every line of work can think about resume the economic activity we all depend on. I did not say that everyone reintegrates today but people should definitely be working on the logistics to getting their own lives going. If people are waiting for The Plan it may be a long time. Individuals have to assess their own health and circumstances.
I hate to see comments like 'mindset of America's business' because, as I mentioned, those are our jobs and the jobs of the service workers and vendors who depend on everyone to keep going. I do hope everyone follows the health advice but I also think we need to find ways, even new ways, to get back to normal as soon as possible.

People who can work from are already working from home. There is a lot of work that can't be done from home and where people must work in close proximity to others:flight attendants, dentists, dental hygienists, hair dressers are just a couple of examples out of hundreds. There are many who carry the virus but don't even know it. There are many who don't it yet but will, and would infect others if they are in near proximity.

There are young fit healthy people who die once infected and old people who survive it, so we can't just isolate those we think are more vulnerable. Gong back to work in the forssebale future would be pretty close to national suicide and I can't believe there are people who still advocate it, it's a very irresponsible advise with deadly consequnces

Income to the vendor and service worker is meaningless if he is gravely ill or dead, and if we are irresponsible and reckless, like George wants us to be, even if vendor/service person is not infected, he won't have anybody to offer his services to.

Far Right Brazilian president Bolsonaro had the same go back to work advise to the Brazilian people and the results have been a sharp increase in infected people and deaths, and an impending financial and economic disaster.

@Crescent Park Anon
>> If anything puts the lie to the whole Libertarian Right-Wing Republican vision it is this coronavirus crisis ...

The more valuable epiphany would be for the left to wake up and realize that facts will never get the right to wake up to the problems their ideology cause to our national security, the wellbeing of our citizens (including deaths), and our standing in the world.

I have seen exactly your point being made about the war in Iraq, because the reports about what went wrong highlighted the main problem being leadership (Republican) saying and believing things that had no connection with what was actually happening.

I saw it made after the financial crisis of 2008 after eight years the majority of which were dominated by Republican majorities in every branch of government. I read analyses talking about how if anything it was a right wing economic crisis and should get people re-examining their beliefs.

I’ve seen the point brought up again and again, by people who ignore the fact that this Republican era began with and has been sustained by lies and lying, and creating a false framing that people believe like a religion (the Southern strategy). It began with Nixon and dirty political dealings to thwart democracy, and was solidified by Reagan’s trickle-down economics which favor the wealthy and not surprisingly made the rich richer (and more powerful against government of the people), the poor poorer, and squeezed the middle class. Reagan’s own budget director, David Stockman, quit because, he stated publicly, the supply side theories were just a Trojan horse, a lie, to it top tax rates. Stockman is no liberal, but listen to Bill Moyers Interview with him sometimes to see the only conservative to ever wake up to the damage of the ideology. That’s what that looks like, you won’t see it anywhere else.

While you think it is patently obvious that the wages of incompetence and greedy sociopathy in government are more American deaths, and destruction of our economy, Republican framing to gain power is incompatible with connecting cause and effect. Look at what has happened already in many spheres of life — how many millions of Americans have died since the right wing attack on universal healthcare more than a half century ago. Ever seen the film by Ronald Reagan likening Universal healthcare to communism? Even though all first- world democracies have universal affordable healthcare except ours, I.e. decades of American suffering and death for no good reason including that our system costs more by far, that fact would not penetrate that right wing framing - try screening that fifty’s Reagan propaganda for a group in both sides and see.

Every other first world country has been able to achieve affordable high quality universal healthcare and we have not, because of the right wing framing. It’s impossible to have a rational debate to fix things because the right wing mainstream arguments are built on so many decades of false framing and lies. Their whole governance model is currently built on lies.

As we speak, there is a large segment of the right who believe the Coronavirus news is fake and spew all kinds of invective against straw men democrat bogeymen,who are portrayed as scheming, lying, corrupt, basically everything their own politicians are but they have been in the framing so long, they reject facts that don’t jive with the ideology.

The right wing guy who went and shot up a pizza parlor with kids and no basement because he believed H Clinton was running a child porn ring in the basement, did not change right wing minds about anything when it was discovered how wrong he was. Most still believe the ring must be somewhere else or the Clintons are at least capable of it because they are so “corrupt” nevermind that there are no examples to base that opinion on that even come close to the corruption of their politicians. There was such a coordinated assault on the Clintons because they represented the prosperity and strong fiscal management of prioritizing the middle class and poor, and threatened the new world order of destroying democracy to favor concentrations of wealth (called permanent Republican majority and drowning government in a bathtub).

The fact that the wealthy were more vulnerable to this virus because of travel is still not going to incline them to public investments, sound and competent governance, and responsibility of those who profit from our public investments and first world standing to pay back so that all Americans can have the investments they need to succeed. The only way we get that, that this changes, is if the majority on the left wakes up to the right’s long game and just gets into the voting booths, overwhelming the voting, every every time, for all offices (not just president) while overtly countering the right’s relentless attempts to destroy democracy. It may be too late

I get a lot of the right wing stuff from relatives, and no one is saying,oh wait, I’ve been awakened to the importance of competent government, rather, they are doubling down on making “Democrats” evil godless enemies who caused this and just want to smear their angelic potus, so that 39% of the country will truly think it makes sense that a president might hold the national stockpile of ventilators for the states that voted for him. You and your California families have been demonized regularly for years by the right. It is you who must wake up to fix this, if you want to save lives, there is only evidence that no matter how bad the damage, the right will not wake up from facts or crisis.

Is this some coincidence that two areas that seem to have "bent the curve" are S.F. Bay Area and Seattle. Both are probably quite progressive compared to much of the country. Perhaps many of these geographic denizens are somewhat more aware and realize circumstance before it is media promulgated. I visited someone in S.F. more than a week before the "shelter in place" order. I noticed a little less traffic and most notably, more parking. On mentioning this to the person I was visiting I was told people aren't going out as much, "they're afraid of the virus." Perhaps some degree of credit could go to the inhabitants of these locals. Of course it would be closer to the norm if politicians who are now quiet get/take credit, if the effects of disease are lessened in these areas after it's course has been run.

@Reason, everything you posted. Their a blogger on PAO, Douglas Moran, who absolved Trump and the Right of everything, and deletes any post which criticizes trump and his administration, starting with the Ukraine scandal and continuing with his disastrous nonresponse to CV19. he describes the NY Times and Washington post as "Fake News", and uses as a source reference, as he does in his todays's latest blog post , Tucker Carlson, the most explicitly racist "commentator" on Fox, a Trump propaganda tool, and the NY Post, a Murdock owned looney Right editorialized tabloid. Interestingly, PAO does not have a blogger to balance out Moran's blog. So even in this supposedly progressive area, the public is vulnerable to Right wing propaganda, so just imagine what's going on in red areas around the country, which explains why so many Trump supporters are fooled by alternate universe nonsense.

Based on the current employment statistics, we are already in depression. The next question is whether to fall into the Great Depression or how quickly. It took decades to get out of the Great Depression. I grew up reading the Grapes of Wrath and watching the movie.
In a good economy, socioeconomic status is already one of the top five causes of excess death. It will grow by an order of magnitude from economic boom to (great) depression. The poverty rate is already on the rise. The side effects are suicide, divorce, crime rates, etc.
I agree with George that there is a middle line between keeping the economy alive while bending the curve. Many countries have demonstrated. Our experts predicted that South Korea would disappear from the surface of the world.

Since we know so little about CO19, finding a middle ground might result in both economic and healthcare system catastrophic collapse. Brazil tried that, and there is now fear that they are headed exactly there because of massive, yet undetected virus contamination. Just like the US, they have a for profit healthcare system that will favor the wealthy, with catastrophic consequences for the rest. Advanced societies with social safety nets can survive this catastrophe, the US cannot if we have massive contamination. "reopening the economy" is fool's gold that would result in a catastrophe our system and the present incompetent anti science administration are unable to cope with.

My point is that even this article is all over the map; in paragraph 8 the link cites a model that predicts 250 deaths in Santa Clara County, while in paragraph 12 it references a public official warning of 16,000 deaths here -- we can't predict within a factor of 64.
Which reminds me of the famous aphorism from Mark Twain -- presumably not the person who posted two hours ago -- a different Mark Twain -- about the difference between the right word and the nearly right word as the difference between being struck by lightning and seeing a lightning bug (firefly).
For me is this the difference between spraining my ankle or being hit by CalTrain? (Obviously if you are one of the 250 killed it's the latter).
The model had predicted 40 deaths in CA yesterday and the true number reported was 39.
Happy Passover, Angel of Death not welcomed here!

We are getting tired of the shutdown. I already see people leaking back into the stream. Just wait until the weather gets better. Soon as the panic dies down people will go back out regardless of the risk.

Anon,

That's when the police get serious about enforcement. They are giving offenders a pass now.

Maybe it comes down to what condition your condition is in [portion removed.]

This won't be over until we have a vaccine.

Don't accidentally kill someone - Stay home. Please.

To the person above who thinks this isn’t about politics, it is totally about politics. Because one party believes in destroying our government from the inside so that we are vulnerable to foreign enemies and have no ability to competently handle a crisis like this - just look at the difference between Bill Clinton’s very professional, efficient, and effective FEMA and the mess of heckuva-job Brownie under George Bush Jr and today. Ever notice how a republicans manage to always explode debt and deficit while cutting services and harming the “general welfare” (to quote the Constitution)? I’ll tell you who doesn’t notice, it’s Republican voters, whose main quibble against Obama was the deficit that Bush exploded and a Obama slowed while getting our nation out of a great economic cataclysm caused by Republican corruption and policies favoring the 0.1 percent and disadvantage for those at the bottom.

I predicted the housing collapse eight years before it happened, including the timing, because of those policies. Predatory policies that favor concentrations of wealth and suppress opportunity and circulation of wealth in the middle class and below make our nation vulnerable to economic collapse when things go wrong.

Where is the strong nation that used to be a rock for the rest of the world? Headed by a petty mean spirited tyrant who treats more than half of its citizens like enemies to be mocked and hated (you have no idea what is circulating about you even now, regardless of the momentary restraint), and who has so decimated the civil service, maybe he isn’t holding back the stockpile of ventilators as a political favor to red states, maybe he just can’t find them because he has destroyed our civil service in almost every way, replacing competent civil servants with political hacks who hate the government and departments they run or have a history of trying to exploit them, and for years now causing a mass exodus of crucial and irreplaceable expertise and institutional knowledge and function for the American people built over decades. Republican persecution had already stripped most of those agencies to the wiring and studs.

Read Michaels Lewis’s The Fifth Risk. He set out to understand what three governmental organizations did, that he had no idea about beforehand. He concluded that our civil service is largely engaged in saving American lives, often doing irreplaceable work that can’t be done by the private sector, despite a lot of mindless abuse (because of Republican ideology) , and being underpaid for their level of expertise relative to the private sector. People often go into civil service because of the calling AND ARE NOT EASILY REPLACED as , say, random game show hospitality workers. Or contractors that never got paid. Or everyone who didn’t get paid because of six bankruptcies. (Seriously, Republican voters, you claim to value business expertise and THAT’S the best you can do? Two potuses in a row who bankrupted really large enterprises? Our nation is in crisis and the ports is concerned with revenge more than people’s lives and economic futures. Our government is not a business, either, and it’s headed toward bankruptcy again, thanks to how Republicans have decimated its competency and pushed the economic seesaw so hard in favor of their cronies. Again Democratic voters, there is no amount of evidence that will make them see that, their misinformation machine has gone on too long and is in full swing - you must be less flaky about voting, and stop running stories about a few flaky young people who have to get “excited” by some personality or they’ll sit home and let our nation and world burn, and ignoring the young people who understand how power works and are trying to get their generation out to vote and being actively suppressed.)

Smart Republicans would vote for Democrats and instead of trying to relentlessly destroy democracy, try to improve things instead of just trying to mindlessly tear everything down, as S Bannon exemplified but has been happening since the Gingrich years and Watergate. The relentless assault on competence in givernance has everything to do with the crisis we’re in now, how many people have died and will die, and whether our nation will recover.

We keep hearing promises from Washington that in the past would have always been followed through on. We keep hearing double talk and false promises from this one in the midst of crisis. Why didn’t the national stockpile of ventilators get sent to New York or Washington? Why did California get just some broken ones? Why the shortages of PPE and distrust Bing quotes from the nepotism crew that the stockpile is not for the American people but for them? Competence in government matters, and Democrats, the right is not waking up to that, they are blaming straw men Democrats for everything bad that their guys cause as we speak and even hating on you for pointing out what is wrong and needs fixing. Because you know, their false idol can’t do wrong.

It has everything to do with politics, and the fortitude Democratic voters and leaders need to develop to avoid something like this again, and to get us out of this mess (again).

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Is it about ageism?
Is it about math?
Is it about healthcare?
Is it about education?
Is it about caring?
Is it about the economy?
Is it about life and death?
Is it about politics?

Yes to all.

Politics has no special status to hijack the discussion. Someone obsessed with politics will obsess. A reaffirmation that Trump is incompetent doesn’t help us deal with covid.

The first step to get out of this catastrophe is to invoke the 25th Amendment.

The poster from 45 minutes ago reminds me of the Cheryl Wheeler song -- about another epidemic. Are the two topics related?
My sense is that we need flexible thinkers -- like artists, or people who can understand art -- to work on policy.
I've been working working on that point for more than 25 years. Take it Cheryl -- by the way, she played this at Cubberley in 1998 - in fact, I'd like to hear her out on what to do about Cubberley:

Maybe it's the movies, maybe it's the books
Maybe it's the bullets, maybe it's the real crooks
Maybe it's the drugs, maybe it's the parents
Maybe it's the colors everybody's wearin
Maybe it's the President, maybe it's the last one
Maybe it's the one before that, what he done
Maybe it's the high schools, maybe it's the teachers
Maybe it's the tattooed children in the bleachers
Maybe it's the Bible, maybe it's the lack
Maybe it's the music, maybe it's the crack
Maybe it's the hairdos, maybe it's the TV
Maybe it's the cigarettes, maybe it's the family
Maybe it's the fast food, maybe it's the news
Maybe it's divorce, maybe it's abuse
Maybe it's the lawyers, maybe it's the prisons
Maybe it's the Senators, maybe it's the system
Maybe it's the fathers, maybe it's the sons
Maybe it's the sisters, maybe it's the moms
Maybe it's the radio, maybe it's road rage
Maybe El Nino, or UV rays
Maybe it's the army, maybe it's the liquor
Maybe it's the papers, maybe the militia
Maybe it's the athletes, maybe it's the ads
Maybe it's the sports fans, maybe it's a fad
Maybe it's the magazines, maybe it's the internet
Maybe it's the lottery, maybe it's the immigrants
Maybe it's taxes, big business
Maybe it's the KKK and the skinheads
Maybe it's the communists, maybe it's the Catholics
Maybe it's the hippies, maybe it's the addicts
Maybe it's the art, maybe it's the sex
Maybe it's the homeless, maybe it's the banks
Maybe it's the clearcut, maybe it's the ozone
Maybe it's the chemicals, maybe it's the car phones
Maybe it's the fertilizer, maybe it's the nose rings
Maybe it's the end, but I know one thing.
If it were up to me, I'd take (hyrdroxychloroquine....psych!)

If it were up to me, I'd have paid furlough for people who work in restaurants and cafes and grocery stores...

I think I heard Jay Leno say once, as a joke "Guns don't kill...it's those little tiny coronaviruses"

I don't mean to depress us even further, but the man responsible of getting us out of this horrible mess managed to bankrupt six casinos. Just a reminder:A casino is a business in which clients actually beg the owner to take their money.

Posted by mauricio, a resident of Embarcadero Oaks/Leland

>> I don't mean to depress us even further, but the man responsible of getting us out of this horrible mess managed to bankrupt six casinos.

Gavin Newsom seemed to be taking a different approach in some of his recent press conferences. He refers to California as a "nation state" sometimes, and, mentioned that California is going to pay what it has to on the open market to protect California health workers and COVID-19 victims. I guess the subtext there is that he has greatly lowered his expectations for what the Federal Government can or will do, and, states will have to figure this out on their own.

I don't think it will be over until we have a vaccine either. And everyone needs to stay home unless you're going to an essential job or to the store. Maybe the bank. Since too many selfish people refuse to stay home, this will continue. Of course we're all going nuts, but it's better than death.

Gavin is doing this right, using solid conservative principles.

Trump is doing it his way, lying, fibbing, denying, blaming others.

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I didn't say we need to stay home until there's a vaccine. I said this will continue (death) until there's a vaccine (and it's true). I also said people need to take the shelter in place seriously, and a lot of people aren't. If you don't want (or feel you need) a vaccine, don't get one.

Covid-19 comparison:
U.S. deaths 12,400
South Korea deaths: 192

Both had first positive case Jan 21. They had higher population density and a supercluster of cases.
But they got lots of testing and tracking going right away.

Trump called it a hoax. This is the result.

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Ther is so much talk about politics, wich party is doing what and for what reasons. Who predicted what and when. How selfish and irresponsible people are not adhering to social isolation. Those who comment here are so strong in their beliefs and I'm sure education. How could people be so irresponsible? Well our nation is not comprised of such simple assumptions. There are many rules and declarations regarding people and their behaviors. A person is smart, people are dumb. Weeks ago the threat of what we are experiencing now in lockdown, was suggested. Fanatiicists ran to their local stores and grabbed everything they could to assure they would be ok in case the world basically shut down. There was no concern for their fellow man, only for themselves. People were beating eachother and stealing toilet paper. A gang tried at gunpoint to steal a vast supply. Point fingers and blame all you want. Curse those that don't adhere to this stay at home notion. But remember, there are 100 million workers who don't and can't work from home. SO many of our population lives paycheck to paycheck. SO stay at home while a glorious idea is not practical for all americans. People are running out of food, and running out of ways to buy it. Checks are being distributed, but it has been stated that they will be distributed over 20 weeks. Programs are being put in place to help those who cannot help themselves, but they aren't all there yet. Kids are starving, many don't know how to get aid. Many cant put food on the table. It's easy to sit in a comfy house with money and food a plenty and chide those who don't sit at home too, its much harder for those who have nothing. Stop pointing fingers at who and when and why and look at the people. The real people. That same frenzy that set people on a shopping/hoarding desperate need weeks ago, shows how people don.t focus on others but on themselves, and react to the herd mentality and react impulsively. We worry about the cost, that the government has to put out trillions of dollars to aid those who are in need during this crisis. How much cheaper it is than not doing so and letting people work and spread this disease. BUt where is this money? It isn't showing up yet, and as stated it won't come to all all at once. People need to eat, people nned to pay bills buy necessities, and no support systems or government aide is arriving, at least not for everyone. How long before that same frenzied reaction over toilet paper turns to a more serious and more dangerous reaction to the lack of food, to children starving. At some point all rules will be cst aside, all laws and morality takes a backseat to survival. As with all events in history when people were starved, abused, and restrained, people will turn on those that impose those feelings. If you child were starving, what would you do to feed them? Would you care about the elderly who might just die because of your actions to take care of you and yours? Unless the government is willing to stop by every home with cash in hand every week to feed the people, people will find their own way. Whos fault it is means nothing, governments intentions mean nothing, feeding the people, letting them support themselves, or helping efficiently is all that matters. The morality of millions dying will always take a backseat to the individual and their survival. The world has always had pandemics, for those who see how nate works, nature controls population of all species in its own way. Pandemics come kill and die out. Its happened for eons. People will get out and will find ways to care for themselves, no matter what rules are in place. And the more time that passes the more desperate they will become as supplies dwindle. the damage caused by the safety measures in place to control this pandemic may very well cause more damage than the pandemic could even left unchecked.

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