COVID-19 and Scary Numbers

Little by little, people (even the President, at last) are facing the shocking reality that exponential growth of COVID-19 cases and deaths is staring us in the face. Last night, a somber President Trump abandoned any pretense that we'd be getting back to normal by Easter. He said, instead, that we are looking at a very, very bad couple of weeks and that we need to practice social distancing at least until the end of April.

Current projections are that if we do most things right, between 100k and 200k people will die. If we do nothing, it will be more than 1 million. It's both terrifying and unbelievable. Even though we are essentially locked in our homes except for walks around the neighborhood or brief trips to the grocery store, it still seems unreal. We don't see evidence of disaster except on TV (and on the empty streets). On the other hand, it is hard to imagine how we will emerge from this situation any time soon. We were woefully unprepared to fight the virus, and we're equally unprepared to figure out who can safely return to work

People are working frantically to come up with answers and solutions. When pushed to the wall, Americans usually come through. At this point, it's a waiting game.