Covid 19

This is quite a predicament we find ourselves in. In a matter of a few months the Covid 19 pandemic has thrown the world as we knew it into a tailspin.  I am a firm believer that adversity brings opportunity for growth and have considered what opportunities this pandemic might be presenting us.

Random thoughts bouncing around inside my head concerning this:

* Do the Amish know what’s going on?  What about isolated tribes of people?
* What an opportunity for family time “stay-at-home” is!
* Well, maybe not so much for those in abusive situations?
* Opportunity abounds to help our fellow man
* What are spring breakers and other Covid 19 tough guys motivated by?
* What is behind this compulsion to hoard toilet paper?
* Not all opportunities are good: Take the slow response of Congress to this crisis.  Republicans want to bail out big business and Democrats want to use the quarantine of Republic Senators to gain a majority a push through a radical agenda attached as pork to the relief / stimulus bill.  Who the hell elected these people?
* It’s going to take the death by Covid 19 of a famous young person to wake spring breakers and Covid 19 tough guys to the fact we are all in this together.
* Is it even possible to get 100% compliance with stay-at-home?
* What exactly is an “essential” worker?  Have we become so reliant on restaurant food that someone making $4.20 an hour is an essential worker?
* If entertainers and athletes making millions of dollars are not essential workers why are they paid so much?
* Essential workers are people like ... those who work in utilities, healthcare and support personnel, first responders and their support personnel, farmers and food industry workers - packaging / logistics / distribution.  Others?
* President Trump has closed our borders and greatly restricted travel into the country. The United States are 50 individual states / countries that unite for the common good. As individual states, shouldn’t each be closing its own borders to all but essential commercial traffic? I’d be fine if Ohio closed its borders to this degree. Flatten the curve, ya know.
* There has been an increasing attack on our liberties these past couple of decades. Wow, that movement just went on steroids. What will we have lost long-term when the fog of Covid 19 finally clears?
* Spring cleaning has suddenly become a thing.
* We could all take lessons on social distancing from Adrian Monk.
* The Champion of Social Distancing has too be Big Foot .. or Nessie.  How would they fare pitted against one another in a contest of social distancing? How would such a competition be judged?
* The local basketball team was 25 - 0 and in regional play before their season was postponed indefinitely. Will they ever get to play it out?
* What about high school seniors missing out on prom, musical and drama performances, spring athletics, graduation. Poof! All gone ... maybe with no chance to recover them ... unless they are required to put adulthood on hold and attend high school another year?
* On-line learning is the wave of the future. It has arrived earlier than expected. A trial run for sure, but how long before it is “thee” thing?
* The age of social media has already eroded in-person social skills and certainly much of the civility in-person communication mandates. What will relationship building be like if we continue to withdraw from in-person interaction with one another?
* Society has become so accustomed to instant gratification the very notion it could take 18 months to fully develop a safe vaccine for Covid 19 seems unconscionable.
* What if Stay-at-home for 15 days becomes Stay at home for 15 months?
* Is Martial Law looming? Talk about diminishing liberties and freedoms? Is this what our Founding Fathers had in mind with the 2nd Amendment?
* Religious folks seem divided about the source of Covid 19. Some say God is benevolent and would not send a pandemic upon His people.  Have they forgotten the plagues of the Old Testament or the prophecies in Revelations?
* What if God is using this pandemic to “cull the herd”?  This disease seems to affect the old more severely than the young and the worlds population is aging. Maybe God is issuing a mass call to come home?
* For the atheists among us, maybe Mother Earth is at work here? Reports of air pollution greatly diminishing in Wuhan and the waters clearing in Venice due to quarantining. Hmm ... our planet is a living breathing thing, is she trying to heal herself?

I’m sure there will be more to follow.  Care to share yours?