I keep asking where are the bodies? Where is the evidence that the Chinese virus is so much worse than the regular seasonal flu that it warrants destroying the economy and upending the life of every person in the United States?
I finally got the message that COVID-19 infections are doubling at a rate of every one to four days. Then I remembered a comic book story from my youth. The story asked if you would prefer a million dollars immediately or a dollar today, two dollars tomorrow, four dollars the next day, and so on for thirty days. In other words, your income stream of dollars would double every day for thirty days. Almost everyone went for the million dollars, but this is what happens to those who took the dollar option. In thirty days, they became a billionaire!
This is the COVID-19 concern, or panic! Depending on the doubling rate, It could infect the entire population of the country in less than 30 days. That would overwhelm our health care system. If we can slow the doubling rate down to four days, we could make it to the summer months where the weather is more likely to send the virus into remission until next season. By then, we are likely to have a vaccine. Given the number of current cases, if we could slow the doubling down to every eight days, about 60,000,000 will still have been infected with COVID-19 within the next four months. If we could lower it to every ten days, that number drops to 8,000,000.
So, we are said to be teetering on the edge of a disaster, and we are paying a terrible price in an effort to avoid it. If we are successful, or even if we have just overreacted, we will have quite a story to tell about the time we shut down the country. If it is doubling concern is real and we fail, there will be a lot fewer of us to tell the story.
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For signed copies of books by Tom Collins, go to TomCollinsAuthor.com. Unsigned print and eBook editions are available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online bookstores. Audio versions of The Claret Murders and Diversion are available from iTunes, Audibles and Amazon. eBook editions are also available through Apple iTunes’ iBook’s Store and Smashwords.com.
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