h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Give me a break!

Do they think there's anyone on the planet that hasn't heard about how awful the virus is? We aren't 14th-century peasants afraid of a plague outbreak and superstitious about it. Enough people are throwing enough money at finding cures and treatments that we have plenty of hope for the future.

Even without cures or treatments, we have the sterling example of Germany, which has sent Covid-19 patients to topnotch hospitals, where the death rate is much lower than it is anywhere else. (Okay, they got lucky with a somewhat younger patient base, but still...)

Massachusetts and Ireland are lucky in that their chief executives have had experience in medicine and health care. Massachusetts has ensured that there will be enough hospital beds for all who need them. Medical care will be where a difference can be made. On the down side, half the virus deaths in Massachusetts have been extremely elderly people who had the bad luck to be in nursing and convalescent homes. On the up side, Massachusetts is justly proud of its hospitals and HMOs and medical schools.

I think it will soon be time to start reopening businesses so our economy doesn't go down the tubes. So, here is some choice pushback against the people who have no common sense:

1. Too many "leaders" have been throwing orders around, expecting people to do the impossible. For months the CDC has been telling people not to bother with masks, as they are ineffective. Then they reversed their opinion, and the *next day" the mayor of Boston was ordering Bostonians to cover their faces with cloth. Wait, I thought those things were "ineffective." As I wait outside grocery stores, I see plenty of showoffs who have real, legitimate masks, while I'm
making do with strips of sheet, or bandannas that I hurriedly ordered from Amazon. Mostly these are people who can't be over forty,. if that. I'm in my seventies, a vulnerable demographic. Not one youngster has offered to swap his/her good mask for my inadequate one. They're not facing the risk of death that am.

2. I go walking to the corner coffee shop, and lots of teenagers pass me, talking and having a good time, with no face coverings. I don't blame them (this isn't life or death for them), but could they art last be carrying a cloth covering just in case someone vulnerabl;e passes by?

[I thought this had been erased, but since it hasn't I will post it. but a much better one has been posted in another thread b y TC

Time for an update:

The first vaccinations have been given this week. Pfizer's vaccine is the first one. Health workers in Mass. have been vaccinated. Other nations have authorized vaccines too. Trump is encouraging people to get vaccinated. Biden is considering it.