I have been silenced all day. I have watched the numbers climb for the virus and plummet in the markets. Just watching it burning. As I try to sweep away the speculative and stick to just the numbers, data not drama, it solves nothing. What’s left as a best case is a tsunami. That is the big story, the lead no matter where you get your info.
Hell, Hannity thinks there may be an issue.
But with that as the irrefutable near future, it’s not what I’m feeling. I have my personal terror of this as I am a good candidate for a bad outcome, but my story, whatever its conclusion, is being relived all across the country. Millions affected, all of us really, if not directly by the virus than by the impact it will have on our economy. If that sounds cynical, unseemly to be a bean-counter at a time of crisis, the extremity of the economic impact has not broken through to you yet. Change the channel.
Because what I’m feeling most of all is compassion for every last one of us. I don’t care what flag you fly, I feel for you right now. You are my brother, my sister under duress. I can get little sympathy for my own fears, for who doesn’t share them? It is only natural to be concerned for our own safety over that of others if it comes down to that. But tonight it seems bigger than me.
People are going to suffer in ways they have never experienced, and there is no question that this was made worse by the most dangerous executive our country has ever known. We have been undermined by the very person we were most dependent on and people will die unnecessarily because of President Trump. Months of prep time were squandered by denial. Ventilators were not built, hospital beds not expanded. Screening was delayed for reasons of ego, and for no other reason. We are weeks away from preparation for an event that grows worse daily.
And there is very little you can do about it.
Unless the Administration and Congress move to shut down all non-essential businesses and compensate people for the need to sequester themselves, it will explode. They won’t close themselves. Zero revenue is not a voluntary business model. Businesses will desperately try to survive, and that means the doors being open to the public and infection. The spread will go on unabated, the hospitals will be overwhelmed and our lack of preparation will kill people. This negligence is going to be fatal for some, people that would have lived had we done things promptly, seriously, competently.
So my heart is going out to all of us today. If the need arises, I hope you get a bed and the treatment you need, but that is now a coin flip. Massive action like we have never seen before will have to take place right now for that to happen, and there is serious doubt that there is enough time to impact this in a significant way. In short, President Trump’s gross mismanagement of this crisis will kill lots of people. He finally shot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue. Now we see if you still vote for him. He’s betting you will.
What you never imagined is the person he shot was you.