Are you ready to step outside?

Scarcity in the Time of Coronavirus #5

Opening Up to More Risk

Our great leader, Donald Trump, says it is time to open up America to making money once again. Have all the calculations been done to determine how many people we can lose to Covid-19, and still make a buck? After all, it’s a war, isn’t it. Just tell us, are we all soldiers, or are we all collateral damage? Everyone should get veterans benefits when this is all over. And medical personnel and “essential” workers should get combat pay in addition.

For many of us, our role has been to hide out from the virus, so more thousands don’t die. Most of us are good at this, but some have gone over the hill. “We’ve got to get our kicks, even if it kills us (or someone else)”, they say.

But mainly we’ve grinned and beared it, until now. There seems to be a troublemaker among us who wants to destabilize our isolation, even our social distancing. Who come it be? Why it’s that scamp, Donald Trump, with his Twitter account. He says the word and the Sturmabteilung SA mobilizes. Yes, the Nazi street thugs are back, at least in Michigan and Minnesota, but watch them spread.

Lots of people laughed or sneered when Trump continued with Twitter after being elected. They shouldn’t have. This is how Trump reaches over the heads of the main stream media (MSM) to reach his supporters. In bygone days, Hitler and Mussolini used the radio, Roosevelt had his fireside chats, Kennedy communicated with frequent press conferences and speeches. Trump uses a 21st century variation. Can a confused and often befuddled Biden stand a chance against the coming blitzkrieg?

So open up the gates to a diseased-ridden world. No country will want to be left behind. If you are shocked by all the deaths so far, just wait until hoards of well-hidden humans come marching out to offer themselves up to the hidden and hungry host.

Even those who don’t fall for it will be in danger. The so-called vulnerable – the feeble and the ill – who have been protected by their stay-at-home families, will now share their home with infected children and grandchildren who have been working all day and encountering 40 or 50 of their coworkers. What are the odds? Can this really have a good ending?

Is your mask keeping you safe?

By now everyone has a mask and is getting used to wearing it in public. We all know that the hard-to-get N95 is the best available. But it isn’t available, unless you are a health-care worker. Even then, you may not have a supply of these daily-disposable masks. It’s call N95 because it blocks 95 percent of all particles, including water droplets that may contain the virus.

If you can’t find any N95s, you might get your hands on a medical mask. Alas, in spite of the high-sounding name, it blocks only about 40 percent of particles, etc. You’d be better off with a dental mask, again hard to find, which blocks about 60 percent.

Pobrecito, don’t tell me you made your own mask. Out of a dirty t-shirt? Ok then, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) ran a test, in 2010, for your pseudo-mask, too. Your t-shirt mask will block about 10 percent of particles. Try again with a sweatshirt. It will block between 20 to 40 percent (as good as a medical mask!). A scarf will block between 10 to 20 percent, and a towel can block about 40 percent.

None of these masks will block virus entering through your eyes. You need glasses, the larger, the better. Or go whole hog with a face shield that will cover all the openings on your face.

You probably know that scarcity rules here

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