The New Normal

I am still working on a post from my own perspective here in Traverse City, but until then, I wanted to relay something I wrote on Facebook, here it goes...

I keep seeing a bunch of people on here acting like children, talking about the "little number" of confirmed cases. I am going to have to skip the building blocks, flash cards, and the mid-afternoon book-read snack time for you, and try to explain this to you in short, even though I am pretty sure I am talking to a wall, and you are going to find out the hard way.

First some statistics for you...

The stock market crash of 2020 began on Monday, March 9, with history's largest point plunge for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) up to that date.1 It was followed by two more record-setting point drops on March 12 and March 16. The stock market crash included the three worst point drops in U.S. history. The one on March 16th was the worst in 30+ years (1987).

From the morning of March 17th to March 18th, we saw a 34% increase in CONFIRMED cases in one day.

There is no vaccine at the moment for COVID-19

This is only the beginning, they are talking 18 months now, while talking waves after waves.

The analysts have been watching the other infected areas of the world, and from what I have read, that people can be asymptomatic for up to 2 weeks before showing any signs, and they figure for EVERY confirmed case, there is 8 people asymptomatic running around, in which than each of those 8 would infect another 8 each, etc etc etc...

So for all of you that are bitching about places being closed, we are trying to stop it from spreading further, we will see the cases keep quadrupling even with these preventive measures, and oh yeah...

We are playing from 6-to-8 weeks from behind, and hospitals all around the country are already overwhelmed and they have realized if this is going to be 18 months, that they will be running out of supplies much sooner.

We are completely not ready for this, and if we all do get out of this, you better bet your ass things are going to change. The American people, especially the middle-class and under, will make sure in the future that we are well taken-care of, and we will set ourselves up to not be kicked around no more. We are going to take back this country...

That's if we get out of this pickle, but I try to stay optimistic.

This is a time for communities to pull together like this country has done so before, much in the way we did during World War II -- We need to be there for our neighbors, coworkers, friends & families.

This is not a time to make light of the situation, sure myself and many other people have passed around memes and jokes, but as a way to defuse the stress inside of ourselves. I guarantee you, I have not taken this situation lightly.

We have to pull together, and to do that we have to follow the rules in place, even if you don't completely understand the reasons, you need to cooperate. We will have one huge mountain after to climb, we have to keep moving forward as best as we can, and we have to climb out of the situation together.

Eventually the ones that think this is a joke, will be left behind. As we move forward, and the situation gets incredibly real & serious (Hopefully it doesn't get to that point), but People as a group will deal with those individuals, in very swift results, we can't have people endangering the entire process.

Everything effects everything at this point, we are all in a vulnerable position and we have to keep praying that it will get better in the end. We have to at least try.

Even our out-spoken President seems to have changed his tone a bit, realizing that this is going to be a long, tough, and ugly process and that eventually many lives will be lost. The economy is already showing signs that this will be worst than post 9/11 and that we will be hurting for the next decade and longer.

We have to hope that from here-on-out that our government hits this head on, and hope that it won't take horribly long for a vaccine.

Keep yourself informed, make sure that you have enough food (especially non-perishables, meat, etc -- that doesn't mean 200 rolls of toilet paper!). AA-Batteries, enough meds, plenty of tylenol and ibuprofen -- all that! We don't know how long we might have to hunker down for, so be safe, and not sorry.

Protect your loved ones, this is not a time to drop your guard, be more observant of your surroundings even in places you may feel that you are usually safe.... all bets are off.

Follow the news enough to know what's going on, don't watch it 24/7 though! -- Take a break from Facebook as well, negative energy feeds negative energy and we need to try to carry on our regular lives in what is now the new normal.

I need to work hard on this as well, see opening paragraph again ("flash cards"), that was harsh, but I am human, and you are human, and we are still going to have our moments of imperfection, and we will still show our ugly side from time-to-time, but I believe we will see people being more empathetic towards one another. I have to do better, we all have to do better.

This is the new normal, we must accept this, if we are going to rise above this and succeed. If we all work hard on this, we can get ourselves back to a better place, and even a better place than it ever was before.