Jack of Harts

We’ve built the greatest show on Earth.

Now we’ve had our two weeks of staying at home to blunt the curve of this virus and keep our hospitals from being overloaded.

We’ve had a couple more months of rather draconian lock down orders from some of the State governors that have crippled large parts of our show. The price of meat has nearly doubled because the packers can’t get what they have to market, while the farmers are taking a loss selling their cows to the packers. Dairy farmers are dumping milk and eggs because they can’t sell them to the dairies, but milk and eggs are rationed at the store because the distribution chain is reeling. Hospitals are laying off their staff because nobody is coming for life-saving treatments.

We’ve built the greatest show on Earth, and we’ve fed billions of people on this planet with it. And right now, certain elements in the government seem determined to shut it down, while others are only worried about what they can loot out of it while they have the chance.

I get it. We have a virus flying around right now that will kill you given the right situation. The elderly. Those with other life-threatening conditions. We’ve got some anti-viral drugs that seem to help based on what doctors say, but certain people say we shouldn’t use them. Now here’s the thing. Whether or not we use those anti-virals against this virus or not, the key is to protect those who are most vulnerable to this virus. Keep it away from them. We shouldn’t be sending patients with it to hang out at old folks homes where they can pass it off to others and kill tens of thousands of our most vulnerable.

And people wonder why I don’t trust the government.

Now we’ve been harried by this virus for six months, give or take a month or two depending on which timeline you look at. We’ve learned a LOT about it since the Chinese and WHO misinformation campaign got well and truly ignored by everybody with a brain. We know what kills it. We know how to keep others from getting it. We’ll learn more as time goes on, but I trust the majority of my fellow citizens to know what to do to minimize the chances of further transfer.

Winter is coming, and if we don’t get our harvest well and truly harvested, if we don’t get our meat and our poultry and our dairy flowing again, people will starve. If we don’t get our hospitals working again, people will die of utterly preventable diseases.

We’ve built the greatest show on Earth.

Now the show must go on.

Or millions will live, or perhaps die, to regret it in the months to come.