What's it like in your neck of the woods right now?

[Nanno]

Its hard to say whats worse-- that they have a plan for this or that they dont.

HA! Ain't that the truth! 

I'm suspicious this'll be used to achieve something bigger than Corona. Some kind of system reset. Government upheaval. We'll have to see. 

Government never wastes a crisis. One party champions something as "necessary" while the other "reluctantly" goes along (because, "It was an emergency! What else could we do??"). Then later when the government is abusing that power, one party accuses the other of passing this terrible legislation while the other says, "Well OUR party would never have abused this power the way your party is abusing it!" 

Clown show. 

On the other hand - not sure how well news from Europe are transmitted to you - the situation in some countries is desperate. Italy is close to a complete collapse of the health system. In Bergamo - small Italian town - they drive at average 60 (!)  coffins per day (!) from the hospitals to make-shift mortuaries in schools and other public buildings.

We do know about Italy. It's what inspired our country to go into lockdown a week ago. Almost ten days ago they said we were about ten days behind Italy, which was in dire straits at the time. The dire straits have not hit us and I honestly do not think they will. Italy is not a good example because it has the oldest demographic of any country in Europe (much older than the U.S.) and they live very differently there than we do here. I don't think the experiences in one place always translate very well in others. 

I also think this virus hit a lot of areas, including the U.S., long before governments were even aware of it. There is so much traffic between China and the U.S. I don't think there's any possible way that this virus was not spreading here within 2-3 weeks of starting in China. How long was it already circulating before the Chinese discovered that they were dealing with a new thing? It closely resembles the flu so probably at least a month or two. That makes me think it was already spreading in the U.S. before anyone even discovered it in China. I'm not saying that taking precautions is foolish though. Every year tons of people die from "common" cold and flu because people don't take precautions about staying home when sick and washing hands regularly. Even in hospitals, doctors and nurses forgetting to wash hands is one of the #1 killers of patients (an estimated 400,000 people die from perfectly preventable hospital mistakes every year in the U.S. and nobody bats an eye). Currently, 10% of people who are hospitalized for the flu end up dying from it. The good news is that most people with the flu don't require hospitalization, and that seems to be the same for COVID-19. 

It remains to be seen what percentage of the population will actually become infected, what percentage of those infected end up developing serious symptoms, and what percentage of those end up dying from it. I think in the end both infection and death rates will generally be much lower than people are currently predicting. I think not knowing is what makes people afraid. That and watching the news, which thrives on whipping people into a frenzy. The scarier and more sensational the story, the more relevant the news stations become. Their revenue depends entirely upon "clickbait" so if the media can turn this thing into a train wreck that nobody can avert their eyes from, they win. I think if everybody turned off the news and spent more time outside in the fresh air and sunlight, it would help us all stay a lot healthier. I went out to ride my horse the other day and I was very pleased to see so many people walking around the lake.