We wasted the last two months. That’s what historians will focus on. Why did we shut things down and not aggressively test? What good did it do us other than bring record unemployment and no clue how widespread the virus is and who has it?
What’s happening now is the country is piecemeal re-opening and we will experience new hot spots, because we don’t know who has it and who doesn’t, and then the second closing will be crushing and will take at least a decade, if not a generation, to recover from.
While we have numbingly accepted our president lies more than he speaks the truth, the biggest daily lie he’s telling (and believes) is that our testing the best in the world. It’s not. The term “per capita” just doesn’t resonate with him.
It’s not easy to get data on testing, which is weird, since it’s the single most important number we should be focused on right now in addition to deaths. The CDC site makes little sense. The data at the top comes from this web site: www.covidtracking.com
Our population is 328.2 million. We haven’t even tested 10 million; and the disease tends to be very asymptomatic. Which means we’ve tested barely 3% of our population. Even South Korea, which aggressively tested a much larger percentage is having to backtrack on its re-opening. We’re going to get slammed.
I’m sure people will scream “fake news”. Whatever. Please, then, direct me to a better site? DOD is hiding its data because of operational reasons. We now know some states are fudging their data to look better. Bottom line is we don’t have the data because we don’t have the testing, both because we have a leader who doesn’t want to know bad news. If you’re read Art of the Deal and been conscious the last couple of decades, you know Trump very much believes his reality is reality, regardless of how many people die.
Bottom line: we’ve blown it. We’ve wasted all the time since the first urgent alerts about this pandemic were sounds and the federal government is still sitting on its ass as regards testing.
The irony is that the president’s reality is changing in front of our eyes as it appears the White House despite all its testing, is now a hot spot.
I know we’re worn out and numb, but unless we turn things around soon, it’s going to be much, much worse. The signs are all there. Not only the virus, but the dismantling of the Republic via DOJ’s recent actions, the Supreme Court facing critical cases as to whether the Executive Branch is exempt from Congressional oversight. If things continue the way they are going, the United States will be done before the election. And there won’t be one.
What can we do? I’m going to shift the focus of this blog down to a more basic level: since the worst case is bubbling up around us, we must prepare for the worst case.
I hope I’m wrong.
The Green Beret Preparation and Survival Guide. Also now in Kindle Unlimited.
The Green Beret Pocket-Sized Survival Guide (same as above, minus the preparation part in order to be smaller in print)
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