Too Stupid To Live?

"Some people are too stupid to live" was a favorite saying of a former coworker.

It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw a photo this morning of people crowded into a swimming pool at a Lake of the Ozarks venue.

It's true that COVID-19 doesn't spread in water, as far as anyone yet knows. But in a pool environment people pop up snorting, spitting and blowing. That's a lot of potentially infected air moving around, and the chlorine in the water will have no effect on it.

"Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" has been another phrase running around my head since the well-publicized opening of bars in Wisconsin on May 14. Just about a week later, Wisconsin saw a spike in new COVID-19 cases almost doubling the number before the opening, and the state's numbers remain high.¹

This Memorial Day weekend will be another key date to watch. The traditional opening day of summer is bringing Americans out in droves where weather permits. One can hardly blame them after months of isolation, but one can at least hope they wear masks and keep their social distance. But we know they won't.

People who seek out beaches, bars, and other crowd-oriented venues tend to be gregarious. It is not in their nature to stand apart. They like to congregate, mix, and mingle. That isn't a judgment, just a statement of fact. They can do so masked, but it's hard to drink wearing a mask, and dancing wouldn't be much fun, either. They also enjoy physical contact--the "rubbing elbows" effect. Despite best intentions, after trying to sip a drink around a mask, almost anyone would ditch the mask.

It's difficult not to have some sympathy for governors who are doing their best to manage this mess. Absent any guidance--indeed, with contrariness--from the alleged chief executive they have to rely on the best teams they can put together.

We're Americans, and we don't like being told we can't carry on as usual. As the saying goes, this is a free country. But we are not free to shout "Fire!" in a crowded auditorium or to bring a valise labeled "BOMB" onto an airliner, which I have actually seen.

We should be savvy enough to know that endangering public health is tantamount to endangering public safety. Adapting to a new status quo isn't easy. It's inconvenient and uncomfortable and weird in some cases, but we have to get it through our heads that there is a potentially deadly pathogen floating around everywhere, and it's easy to catch.

COVID-19 kills about 6% of the people who get it.² By contrast, the annual flu that the Pretender-in-Chief likes to compare it to kills only about 2/10 of one percent of its victims.³ That makes COVID-19 about 54 times more deadly than any garden variety flu.

If we can keep those numbers in mind, maybe we can be smart enough to live.


--- Diogenes, 5/25/20




¹ Disclaimer: The numbers in this paragraph are based on a New York Times database of Wisconsin cases. Other sources differ in the actual numbers but not in the shape of the curve. The spike may be coincidental and/or may be the result of factors other than tavern attendance.
² https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?utm_campaign=homeAdvegas1?
³ https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm