Pandemics are exhausting. I’m exhausted. But I better pull up my britches because there’s more to go. So now over 100,000 cases in the USA. We’re Number 1! We’re Number 1! Go USA!! Sadly, this is not the occasion we wanted to be number 1, but it was inevitable. We are the largest and most democratic economy in the world. There is a lot of movement into and within our country that is difficult to control. It’s that movement that exacerbates the pandemic. The virus cannot move. It cannot fly or swim. It has be carried from one human vector to the next. That’s all we are to the virus, a womb and a taxi.

There is no treatment. There is no vaccine. There is barely even a test! So there is only one thing we can do. Stay home. And we’re not doing it. You might think YOU are doing it. Well good for you, you’ll live. Moreover, you will stop the spread of disease. However, the idea that each state and the country need to be locked down is still not resonating with the powers that can make that happen. In Texas, our governor has not locked down the state. Each major hub of the state Travis County, Dallas County, and Harris County where Austin, Dallas, and Houston are located have locked down. There is a hope that this will be enough along with not gathering in numbers greater than 10. Because the economy needs to continue and there are few cases reported in rural areas. Let’s wait for 5 days after Sunday and let’s see what happens. Enough people will gather at church this Sunday and five days later come down with the illness. Then they will be transferred to the big City looking for a ventilator around day 10. The rural areas won’t look so pristine no more. I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong and a blowhard.

The idea…..I mean just the idea of some that for the sake of the economy, that those older than 70 would be willing to suffer the potential of infection and death is so unfathomably stupid that it is going to gain traction. I can’t remember who said it, but a wise person obviously said: “In order to fool a lot of people, you have to tell a really big lie.” This is a whopper. Opening up the economy and loosening restrictions will certainly put the elderly at further risk of infection and death. It will also put the healthcare workers of which I am one at further risk of infection and death. My friends in medicine post every day of our colleagues that are dying. So that noble 70 year old politician I bet is not going to stay at home alone in his bed as he gets febrile and short of breath. Praying to God and the dollar. I bet he gets taken by EMS (exposure) to the local hospital, goes through the ER (exposure), up the elevators (exposure) to the ICU where at least a nurse, a respiratory therapist, and the critical care doctor will all have the virus coughed into their faces. All the while, re-using the Personal Protective Equiqment from last week. So taking a lot of other people down with him and only serving to prolong the pandemic. It’s so wrong that so many people are going to believe it.

Don’t believe it. Stay home.