OBSERVATIONS THROUGH A COVID-19 LENS DARKLY

Anybody else feel like they're living amid a science fiction dystopian novel? (May you live in interesting times!)

Too many apocalyptic novels and movies, make me fight the notion this is just practice for something bigger yet to come.

 Hope not, but is it just the first salvo?

Mother Gaia sure seems pissed about something: floods throughout the Midwest, European heatwaves, Western USA wildfires, Australian bushfires, super cyclones, country devastating hurricanes, new Ebola outbreaks. I'm sure it's all just coincidence.

Actually am surprised more hasn't been seen from the prepper crowd amidst all of this; equating all the above with the end of times being nigh. Think it's more of our reaction being tested since proaction isn't written into the human DNA on any level: there were plenty of warnings this was coming [See this]

Sure has betrayed humanity's ignorance and selfishness: like the spring breaker in Florida - some reject from a Porky's movie in the 80's - putting his own immediate gratification for getting drunk and laid above any thought of anybody else; the irrational run on toilet paper (get this one not at all); the spike in gun sales, like you're gonna shoot the virus; some governor's issuing stay at home orders, while others are holding out - as I saw it described best, it's like having a peeing section in one end of the pool, eventually it's gonna get your citizen's too. 

And then there's the faithful: the God will protect us crowd if we just pray hard enough - our freedom to worship as we please is assured. So let's continue to go to services packed shoulder to shoulder into pews, coughing all over one another. How very Christian of you! Proves to me you're nothing more than a cult who can't think for yourselves. Use the brain God gave. Ever heard God helps those who help themselves?

 To be fair, most of the religious population has gotten on board and realized the severity and cancelled services.  Will be interesting in a week to see if they still abide by those restrictions

Then there's that segment of the population who just disregard it all for whatever reason - maybe it's because they buy into the Fox News blithering head Covid-19 deniers - or it's too restrictive on their personal lifestyle, or they're not going to believe we're truly in crisis until the garbage trucks are driving around, the loudspeakers daily blaring "Bring out your Dead!"

Seems like a simple equation to me, stay home now for six weeks voluntarily - binge Netflix (highly recommend Ozark, Altered Carbon, Travelers), play Xbox (find FarCry5 very engaging), create Apple playlists (yesterday's was my essential ska - Save Ferris, Might Mighty Bosstones, & Mephistopheles among others), read (most recently The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson, or write (this) - it's not like there's nothing to do - or have the National Guard patrolling the streets for two years enforcing stay at home orders later.

 Demonstrates the logic of sacrifice. And it works, just look to the Bay area - the first major Metropolitan area to put such an order into effect - San Francisco as of yesterday had had only eight Covid-19 deaths

But then there's the Catch-22 of those shelter in place orders too. 

Are the poor going to keep themselves safe that way? A family of five crammed into a one bedroom apartment? In a tenement of similarly disenfranchised  hundreds of families? And the homeless, what about them, where are they supposed to shelter in place?

As if there wasn't a huge rift already between the wealthy and the poor, Covid-19 is going to dramatically widen that gap. When it's all said and done will be interesting to see the fatality rate statistics among socio-economic classes. 

For all the talk of states battling to get enough respirators you know there's some one-percenters out there who've gotten hooked up through their concierge medical service should they think they're at risk - as the other 99% lay on hospital floors coughing and wheezing their life away.

One of the signs of an enlightened society is they take care of the weakest and most vulnerable first. Think it's safe to say we're a long way from enlightened. Questionable whether we're even striving for it given the response of some of our Dear Leaders.

But that's a topic for another day.

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