I’m looking at this post as a kind of PSA, an urge to get folks to take a deep breath and stop spiraling into panic and madness over the Coronavirus. Just think, we’ve lost trillions of dollars here in the US stock market over 2 deaths. That’s right, as of today, we have 2 deaths in the US. More diabetics have died from toe infections in the past week.

If the Coronavirus was put here on Earth as a kind of intelligence test, we’ve failed. When people are not buying Corona beer out of fear, well, we’ve lost.

Did you know that there have been over 4,000 death from the common flu in the US this year alone? The good old flu has a just over 5% mortality rate here in the country with the best access to medical care in the world. The Coronavirus has a 2.3 (and that’s rounding it up!) mortality rate. Don’t believe me? Click here to see the website that is tracking all of the madness. 

We can’t compare ourselves with other countries that don’t have our healthcare underpinnings. Sick people come here when hope is running out, not the other way around. Trust me, I know. With a handicapped wife who has been given last rites twice in her life, only to keep the fuck on trucking, we’re well versed in where to get the best treatment. In China, where the virus has hit the hardest, the mortality rate is 3.6%. Again, less than the flu in the US. And do you think communist China has healthcare than even deserves to stand in the same room as the US? If you do, you need to get back to school.

Nothing makes me angrier than blind hysteria, especially in a time when cold hard facts are at your fingertips! Does critical thinking exist anymore? Or are we just programmed to react to anything spoonfed to us by a corrupt, fear-mongering media? What I’ve witnessed here in New York over the past few weeks has left me shaking my head. What’s really behind this beating of the drum?

And now it’s being politicized. I saw a commercial for Mike Bloomberg last night extolling how the current administration has bungled the Coronovirus and only Mike can save us. Hey, moron, by the time you’d win, according to you, we’ll all be dead anyway. Have fun running an empty country. This kind of fear mongering should get people thrown in jail, just as you would a person yelling ‘fire!’ in a packed movie theater.

You can’t find hand sanitizer on store shelves (or plastic bags now that the ban is in effect in NY. Imagine if plastic bags were the cure to Coronavirus?). I see people stockpiling food and water and talking of self quarantines, even if they’ve been working from home since the so-called outbreak began and haven’t so much as walked by another human being. Hell, I want to quarantine myself if it means I get to not go to work for a couple of weeks and binge on horror movies and books. Hmm, maybe in that sense, the panic does have a silver lining. A nice two week vacation. Two weeks of sipping on cold Coronas.

Maybe you think this whole post sounds harsh and I’m a cruel, uncaring person. Truth is, I do care. Mental health is as important as physical health. And right now, the head ain’t right. It’s listening to voices and losing the plot.

My advice. CALM…THE FUCK…DOWN. Please. Look at the facts and think!

Oh, but always wash your hands. Because if you get the flu, you really have something to worry about.

Or again, you get to stay home for a few days and catch up on that TBR pile.