WuFlu Panic: Are You as Confused as I Am?

I'm not the kind of guy who believes everything he hears. Even some things that play into my preconceived beliefs, I look at with a cynical eye. I don't believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. I don't believe Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone shooter. I don't believe George Washington chopped down a cherry tree as a lad. I don't believe FDR saved us from the Great Depression. I don't believe Jonah was swallowed by a whale and then spit out again fully intact three days later.

I do believe in the Holy Trinity. I do believe Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon in 1969. I do believe Stalin murdered 20 million of his own people. I do believe Muslim terrorists crashed planes into the Twin Towers on 9/11. I do believe Ted Williams is the best hitter in the history of major league baseball. I do believe the Road Runner is smarter than Wile E. Coyote. And, I believe in the resilience of the human spirit.

In the end, what I believe shouldn't matter to anyone, but me. No matter. I use Clanging Bell to let you know what I think anyway.

I am no physician. I didn't even stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night. I am just an old guy who tries to put life into some sort of perspective. And, as I sit back and watch us turn our world upside down in response to the WuFlu. I continue to ask myself, What in the hell is going on?

I am composing this post on Friday morning, March 20. As of this morning, there are just over 14,000 reported WuFlu cases in the U.S., translating into nearly 220 deaths. This among a population of over 327 million souls. World wide the number infected is 255,000 with 10,500 deaths among a population of nearly 8 billion.

Italy, the country of 60 million souls with the most deaths from WuFlu, today has 41,000 infected with 3,405 deaths. What these infected/death numbers don't tell us is that the average age of the dead in Italy is 80 years and 99 percent of them had previous health conditions. So, basically, Italy reflects what the experts have been telling us about WuFlu all along: Fatalities will be primarily among the elderly and those with preexisting immune or respiratory issues.

If you can find an average age for those WuFlu has killed in the U.S., it will be somewhere between 75 and 80 years, depending on the date released. But, the best of luck in finding a news source publishing the average age in the U.S. Apparently, our “need to know” doesn't extend to this important statistic.

Again, from the get-go we have been told that this virus is most likely to kill the very young, the very old and those already suffering from some sort of immune or respiratory issues. Seems like the medical experts were correct about that, right? Or am I missing something?

At the risk of sounding cavalier, I have no dog in the fight where the stock market is concerned. That it has lost most of its gains of the past three years has no direct impact on me. I have no stocks, nor do I have any retirement accounts tied to the stock market. I am generally affected, though, because major drops in the market affect how businesses invest and spend money. When the market drops, so does investment and spending. All of that is to say, I'm not wringing my hands over the recent losses. The market will recover at some point. When that recovery comes is more a function of how much panic can be whipped up and how long that panic will last. Right now, I don't see an end. Certainly, the media isn't going to calm down any time soon.

No, my economy concerns rest more on the retail (pedestrian) level: People being able to work and businesses being able to function. This seems like basic stuff to me. We want people employed and businesses thriving. Most of my family members and other people I know have limited savings and at least some debt. These folks need to be able to earn a living to pay the bills and put food on the table. No income, no food, no car, no home, no hope.

So, here are four my questions relating to the WuFlu and, what I think is, our rather radical response to it....

1. What are we so damn afraid of? Yes, WuFlu is deadly, but so is whichever strain of the flu sweeps this country annually. There are tens of thousands of deaths from that flu (for which hudreds of thousands have been immunized) in this country each and every year. Why now? The Hong Kong Flu in 1968-69 killed more than 2 million people around the world with around 34,000 of those deaths in the U.S. I was around for that. I was going to college at the time. We weren't sent home from college and I don't remember restaurants being closed. There was no panic. People got sick, some of them died, but life went on. It was the flu!
2. Is the prevention more devastating than the disease? I don't think any sane person will argue that shutting down half of the economy to “flatten the curve” of this outbreak isn't a radical measure. It is. The government (in this case federal, state and local), urged us to stay home. Almost no one followed that directive. For one, humans are social animals. We like to mingle. We like to make contact. Secondly, most of us need to earn an income, which involves a majority of us heading to a job somewhere. The result of our indifference: The government shut the doors of many businesses, throwing their employees out of work. I have service-industry friends sitting at home wondering how they are going to pay the rent, the car payment and, maybe, buy formula for a newborn. Meanwhile those shuttered businesses are also at risk. How long can they sustain closed doors? I have friends who own breweries that won't survive if this lasts longer than the end of the month. It's one thing if this lasts two weeks. It's another if it goes on for months. Even if the $1 trillion bailout is passed, bureaucrats will pick winners and losers. How much of that will really trickle down to the street level? Very little, I wager.
3. What is the obsession with WuFlu testing? In the early stages of this breakout about all we heard was the shortage of testing kits. There aren't enough kits to go around! What will we do, what will we do? The only people showing symptoms who need testing are those at the highest risk. For the rest of us, it doesn't matter if we have the virus or not. There is no cure. Have you ever been tested for the flu? I never have. When we get sick, we stay home in bed and a few days later we feel better. Anyone showing symptoms, who is tested, is supposed to follow the same procedure whether the test is positive or negative for WuFlu: Stay home, get plenty of rest, and so on and so forth. It's the flu! There is no cure! The only reason for widespread testing is to keep track of the spread rate. But, is that really important? To be tested, you have to go somewhere for the testing, right? If you do have WuFlu, you risk infecting others while out and about getting the test. And, to what end? Now you know you have WuFlu? It doesn't matter unless you are one of the high-risk people, requiring extra care or hospitalization. Otherwise, it's go home, stay home, get plenty of rest and wait for it to play out.
4. What are the chances the population continues to voluntarily follow government orders if the government-imposed economic shutdown goes on for longer than three or four weeks? Right now most of us are willing to go along with all of this self-imposed quarantine silliness because we can put up with just about anything short term. But, at some point, our patience will run out. This will be particularly true if it becomes more and more apparent that nearly everyone who is infected recovers. If the death rate remains statistically low, confined primarily to the elderly and, indeed, the vast majority of those infected recover, how many of us are going to be willing to stay cooped up at home? How many of the surviving businesses will be willing to keep their doors closed? How many of those unemployed by the government shutdown will quietly remain docile? And, if we don't continue to tow the government line, what will be the government's response? There are already cities with curfews. Is Marshall Law on the table? I shudder to think what the public's response to that would be.

As you can probably tell, I am really confused and frustrated by what is going on right now. I think government reaction is way over the top. This isn't Smallpox or the Black Plague. It's a unique strain of the flu. I'll turn 69 years old in a few months. I'm relatively healthy and probably not in that top tier of at-risk Americans. But, I am at higher risk than most of the population. More than a week ago I was in a crowded bar in Boca Raton, Florida. There were probably 250 people in the joint. Thirty of them were part of a pipe-and-drum corps from Boston. I met a table of three couples from Iowa and there were many others there from around the country. They were in South Florida for the Delray Beach St. Patrick's Day parade and celebration originally scheduled for that following Saturday. It had already been canceled, but a lot of people traveled in anyway.I did.

Strangers hugged, shook hands and toasted one another. I was party to all of that. Guess what? Neither I nor any of the several friends I was with is sick. I don't know anyone who is sick from WuFlu. Do you? Do you know anyone who knows anyone? Do you know anyone who has died from it? We could Kevin Bacon that question, as well with probably a negative outcome.

As someone who is in the higher-risk pool, I'm ready to end this shutdown today. I want my friends and family back to work. I want the restaurants open. I want kids back in school. I want to go back to the gym. I want to see the people in charge to stop politicizing this thing, stop trying to one-up each other and get the country back on track. And, as a higher-risk person, if that happens, I'm more than willing to take my chances. It's the flu!