Coronavirus It is hard to ignore what is happening with the coronavirus. Everywhere I look it is the main topic of conversation. Originally, I had other ideas for the article I was going to write but it is just too hard to ignore what is happening. Common sense does not always seem to be taking place. Take for example the mayor of New York City refusing to close the schools. He states the reason he’s keeping the schools open is because he wants to make sure the children get fed the meals they would be missing. This is a one-dimensional look at the problem. Instead of trying to come up with another solution he is going to make sure that all the children keep interacting with each other, thus making the chances of spreading the virus even worse. It would be much better to allow the children to come in and pick up the meals and bring them home. Everything is not rosy if the schools are closed however, because it may mean working people will have to stay home to watch their children. This is why the government is proposing giving money to families if they do have to stay home or in some cases making sure they still get paid. It is good to see the government actually trying to help the common person for a change. As of the date of the writing of this article some of these measures have not been passed yet by Congress but I certainly hope they will be. This includes waving of the payroll tax as long as the tax does not have to be made up for when we fill out our tax returns at the end of the year. The hoarding has to be stopped; it has reached ridiculous proportions. There are some people who are out of toilet paper because others have purchased far more than they should have, and more than they could possibly use. The same is true for many other items. I usually get my groceries delivered and the last time around many of the items I had ordered were out of stock, including toilet paper, paper towels, meat, and many other items I commonly use. Even butter was in short supply. I could not even buy a case of water, and I really hate to drink the water from the faucet where I live. Some items the store still had but not in the brands I had ordered. I can’t figure out the rationale store uses when substituting items. Let me give you an example, I ordered a 16 ounce package of frozen corn. The store substituted two 32 ounce packages of their brand of frozen corn. I have now become the king of corn. I am only one person and frankly that is far too much for me to consume. Another thing I have to wonder about, and it has nothing to do it groceries, is why Saudi Arabia and Russia would dump low-priced oil on the market at a time when the world is experiencing a pandemic? Some say while the timing is strange the reason Saudi Arabia is doing it is to target the oil refineries Russia is establishing in Europe and Asia because Saudi Arabia wants a bigger market share. On the other hand, many believe Russia is doing it to knock out the producers of shale oil in the United States. When oil gets really cheap, shale oil produces cannot compete since it costs more money to drill for shale oil than conventional oil. Saudi Arabia and Russia had a long-standing deal which fell through and some believe it was caused by the coronavirus which caused Asia to have a drop in oil consumption. One of the questions we have to answer is will the coronavirus change the way we live? We know it will temporarily, because people are being asked to stay home as much as possible and this may cause small businesses such as restaurants to lose business and possibly close. Many of these places have a high rent to pay and if they’re not doing any business and taking in any money the time may come when they have to give up. Another question is how will the virus affect our services? Will trash pickup continue on a regular basis? Will we have any interruption in electrical power or gas? As more employees take off to care for others or because they are sick themselves will they get to a point there are not enough employees to continue the services we have gotten used to? Even the Catholic Church has suspended masses in some areas and in others allowed parishioners freedom from mass for several weeks. They also suspended some of the rituals where contact was made with others. I can’t recall in my lifetime this ever happening before but it might have before I was born. I’m sure other religious communities are either doing the same thing or considering it. I believe one of the major problems is the news media has latched on to the coronavirus like a dog grabbing a bone. Hardly any other news is taking place. Perhaps if we had normal reporting on the subject some of the panic would not happen and in turn the stores would not be bare of essentials. It is much harder for things to happen in the United States than it is in some other countries because of the way our local governments are set up. For instance, when schools closed in Italy, it was because the federal government ordered it. Here in the United States it is up to the states, counties and sometimes local jurisdictions. It is almost impossible to get everyone to agree on what to do. For example, Nassau County has closed schools for two weeks while New York City is keeping the schools open. So exactly what are we talking about here as far as fatalities from the virus? According to an article in LiveScience from eleven days ago the virus had infected 95,000 people and killed about 3,200. The rate of deaths was about 3.3%. It is said last year the amount of people who died from the flu was over 80,000 in the United States. Remember many people were vaccinated. Last year was the worst year for the flu in four decades. All the experts agree the flu was much more deadly than the coronavirus, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile we shouldn’t be making things worse by panicking and we should be taking those measures which we have been advised to take.
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