“Welcome to The Virus Factory”

A. Sports stadiums are packed with 25,000+ fans—No masks, No distancing required. Zero community transmission of virus, after a 49 day hard lockdown.

B. “It’s like everything is normal….” ZERO cases of the virus (excepting one diplomat who arrived from abroad).

C. Disneyland is open, with no outbreak anywhere in the region.

D. Baseball games are being played—with fans in attendance.

E. Tourists traveling among the 27 countries of the European Union—seeing the Eiffel Tower in Paris, medieval cathedrals of Germany, Roman ruins in Italy, Mediterranean beaches….

F. My major complaint about living here is just that “people are too nice…too respectful to others.”

G. A people standing as ONE to defeat a common enemy. WWII-style patriotism and solidarity.

This sounds like the United States I knew before; the one I hoped to return to when I sought refuge here in March.

A land largely of opportunity, adventure and peace. A land where most folks would extend a hand to strangers in need.

What the f**k is happening to us now?!

I don’t know about you but I am enraged.

Who will join me in being pissed off at those in power who are failing us? Our federal government placing profit over people, hellbent on pushing schoolchildren into classrooms in Florida, of all places. Florida.

Billionaire cabinet secretaries who tell us everything is okay…just get all those kids back into those classrooms. Full capacity. In the midst of an unceasing infectious viral pandemic.

Wait! Didn’t the federal CDC tell us we MUST meet two critical benchmarks first? 14+ days of falling virus cases and a positivity rate less than 5% [about 15 states currently meet this standard, over the past 7 days]

Florida: America’s Virus Factory*.

With a governor—remember his name lest he dare run for office again—who persists to this day on showing more allegiance to Trump than to Floridian children killed by this virus: DeSantis.

A 9 year old girl from Putnam County just perished a few days back.

Where are the resounding statements about protecting all children from Trump and his acolyte DeSantis?

Are you angry yet?

Will our nation finally once and for all choose to confront and defeat this virus?

Are we willing to use our American ingenuity, compassion and patriotic solidarity to face this bastard down and WIN?

It CAN be done. Then we can actually return to normality. No more needless deaths.

United as ONE. E Pluribus Unum.

Out of many, ONE.

Wouldn’t that be truly wonderful?

As of this moment, I can only long for us to emulate the nations whose leaders and citizens have banded together to successfully keep the virus sidelined, if not defeated (see top):

A. New Zealand [photo taken in New Zealand stadium on June 13th]

B. Thailand

C. China

D. South Korea

E. Citizens of the 27 nations of the European Union, plus citizens of other carefully selected nations such as Algeria, Canada, Rwanda, Morocco, Uruguay, South Korea, and a number of other nations.

F. Thailand

G. Virtually every nation in the world, even most lesser developed ones

*Term my friend D, living in Thailand, has used to describe his current view of America.

Sources: CDC, The Washington Post, European Union, The New York Times, Johns Hopkins University, Courier Journal, Tampa Bay Tribune