What happens now?

by Jon Sullivan - 2020-03-18 - Opinion

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Now we just watch. And wait. Try not to panic more than we've already panicked.

I don't think we have a good idea what is going to happen as the virus plays out. We know eventually it will run out of people to infect, either through isolation or immunity. We know there will likely be a second wave. But people being sick and dying is only a small part of it. There's also the economic disaster. The emotional trauma. The fear. The disinformation and distrust.

I'm just going to take it all day by day. I can work from home, I have plenty of food. But millions of people are suddenly out of a job, and that's also going to escalate for a while. San Diego bars and restaurants have gone to carryout and delivery only. I have no idea what the real economic fallout from that will be. I doubt anyone does.

Any help from the government seems pretty random and late. The stock market crashes, toilet paper becomes more valuable than money, and President Trump tweets an image of himself playing a fiddle as Nero. He continues to shake everyone's hand, many of them infected, while the rest of us are worried about being within 6 feet of another human.

And we haven't even gotten to the really nasty part of the pandemic yet. How bad will the hospital crisis be? If incubation is two weeks, we may find out next week.

Speaking only for myself, I'm refusing to give in to the bottomless depression of it all. There are plenty of people who will be appropriately somber and depressed. There are many who will bravely work to help those in need. I choose to continue cracking jokes about death, making fun of the conspiracy theories, embracing the coming.... who knows what..... Zombie apocalypse? Sure. Biblical end times? Okay. Post-collapse wasteland? Vault dwellers? Subhuman raiders?

In other words, I'll be bunkering down with my large supply of toilet paper and playing Borderlands 3 for the foreseeable future.

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