Let’s Defy the Enemy Instead

   For months, many Americans from the top down have been defying the best advice from scientists and virologists and doctors who’ve been exhorting us all to avoid gathering, to mask up, and to social distance.

   As a result, our record remains by far the worst in the world among developed comparatively wealthy countries for disastrously mismanaging the pandemic. Even in the face of more than 210,000 American deaths to date and increasing infection numbers, way too many of us are still flouting mandates and defying the maskers and distancers, sometimes even violently. In so doing we’re perpetuating the pandemic and extending and deepening the damage to our entire economy.

   It's not like we have any reason to doubt that the recommended measures work, because we can see that they certainly have worked quite well in other countries. In Japan, for example, with its densely packed population, and in New Zealand they jumped on the virus fast with strict lockdowns, and they’ve had near total cooperation from their people to mask up and distance. As a result, their per capita infections and deaths are only a tiny fraction of ours, and they can now open up cautiously in conjunction with rigorous testing and tracing.

   We’re being told by the qualified experts, including the CDC and widely respected Dr. Fauci, that if 95 percent of us simply wear masks in public and keep our distance we can save 100,000 American lives over the next 100 days alone. It’s not a political thing or a severe imposition to restrict our cherished freedoms. It’s merely well-proven common sense and common courtesy if we care about each other at all. Masking and distancing are the best weapons we have.

   So, instead of defying those who are trying to save us, let’s defy the evil common Covid enemy that’s trying to destroy us. In the words of the prominent newsman Chris Wallace, the unfortunate moderator of the recent debate that was anything but presidential:

                                             JUST WEAR THE DAMN MASK

   Please pass that simple lifesaving message on to everybody you know.

Phil

www.philbowie.com