I am having trouble figuring out this coronavirus thing.
As I write this column, less than 200 people have died in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 13,700 Americans have been infected. Many have now recovered or are in the process of recovering. I know that Covid-19 (coronavirus) is a serious problem, but how are we supposed to react?
The media reports that there has been a run on toilet paper. The Yazoo Herald showed pictures of bare shelves in local stores, and frankly, I don’t understand this.
If a person were stocking up on food, pork and beans, black eyed peas, or other staples, I completely understand. But toilet paper? Give me a break!
Schools are closing. Some studies are now indicating that young people may have more to fear than first thought. But on the other hand, some can have the virus and not know it.
Apparently, however, they can spread the disease to grandma or grandpa. It’s the old folks who may have a serious problem if they catch the virus. Because I’m in the “Old Folks” category, this worries me – a lot.
We are in full panic mode, and time may reveal that we should be. If you want to raise your anxiety level just watch the news. Some news anchors are enjoying this. It’s crazy. They get more attention when they try to panic everyone by reading the most frightening news available. Like the old Dick Tracey movie, “Just the facts ma’am, just the facts.”
According to the CDC, 18,000 Americans died of the Swine Flu, yet I don’t recall anyone having a panic attack. Help me out here. Any death is terrible, but what am I missing?
I tried to get some relief from the coronavirus news. I tuned the TV to an astronomy show. After watching a few minutes of this depressing nightmare, I had to switch the station. Some scientists are saying that the earth will be hit by a rock so large that it will make the one that killed off the dinosaurs look like a small pebble. Of course, the earth and everything on it will be destroyed.
Talk about panic. I was happy to rejoin a Fox News personality and have her tell me how the coronavirus was going to kill me. At least I will have a fighting chance.
In the 1970s, the County Health Nurse, Mrs. Laverne Kirk, recruited me to give immunizations for some type of flu, perhaps the Swine Flu or Hong Kong Flu. I had to be trained to give these shots.
Several of us went through the training, and Mrs. Kirk had done her homework. She had announced that shots would be given at the Health Department at no charge. This word had been placed in the local paper. Joel Netherland announced over his radio station that flu shots were to be given at the Health Department.
Announcements were made all over the county, so when I arrived at my duty station, I expected to see hundreds of people waiting in line to get their shots. To my disbelief, not a single person came to my station nor did any go to the other stations. Nothing! Zero! Absolutely no bodies! I failed to pull the trigger on a single shot.
In spite of failing to get their flu shots, I don’t recall anyone dying in Yazoo County.
Today in America, we are destroying our economy, scaring the living daylights out of our citizens, buying up all of the toilet paper, crashing the stock market, and relegating March Madness to the ash heap of history. College sports are canceled, including baseball. Major League baseball is postponed indefinitely, and even most churches are canceling services. There is no basketball on ESPN.
Remember this. The Aztecs mysteriously disappeared, and we have no clue why. At the rate we are going, our society may disappear, and if there is anyone left to write our history, that historian may not have a clue why.
Our extinction will not be the result of a giant rock that fell from the sky, but a tiny virus that caused the society to panic and go insane.
Where are those fearless Americans who refused to get their Swine Flu vaccinations? The Covid-19 virus is bad news, but this too will pass. Count on it.
