Written by Katy DeCastro

The idea of “together” would imply some element of willingness to join or participate but the truth is that a majority of Americans have been forced by a government that they have no control over to give up and watch businesses and lives they have built for years fail.  The gun to their head in the form of executive orders from their tyrannical mayors and governors has made them turn away employees who are more like family than just workers.  Threatening to turn off a businesses’ utilities and condemn their buildings if they don’t comply?  That sounds totally normal.  Oh wait, it’s the “new normal” aka not normal!  As all of these ships go down in a blaze in the harbor of our small business world…we are certainly NOT in this together.  A growing number of people are not on board with the measures that our local, state, and federal governments have taken to fight this bug.

Fear is a powerful motivator and our news outlets have been perfecting the element of motivational fear for decades.  The irony about a population that is under the influence of propaganda is that they don’t know they are!  The North Koreans think their dictator is a swell guy—a god—because of propaganda.  That is what our “fake news” is, but make no mistake, the conservative news knows “If it bleeds, it leads” just the same and has taken advantage of this crisis just as much; even if there are one or two clear-headed thinkers on their side.  Perhaps the news outlets are just scared themselves.  I doubt it.  They know this is all just “Malarkey”.

The question is, why have we destroyed so many livelihoods and given up our freedoms?  Some argue it’s for the old, the weak, the sick, the immune compromised, but the numbers of dead are small.  Yes, I said it, small.  The truth is that every single person in this country either already had the Wuhan Flu (whether they knew it or not) or they are going to get it.  I’m so sorry to tell you, no gloves or masks or infernal hand sanitizer is going to change that.  The percentage of dead should be calculated as a number of how many have died out of the TOTAL population of the United States of America, not how many have died out of those who have “tested” positive, because we ALL have it, or will eventually.

Like a preschool class, we have all gotten it or will get it and we’ll have that snotty nose until we’re all over it, because…it’s a cold.  The common cold and the common flu are the beautiful viruses that everyone knows “Ya just can’t cure.”  Well, maybe chicken soup helps.  But why?  Why for all these many. many years have the cold and flu just not been able to be “cured”.  Why does the flu vaccine suck every year?  Because they are mutating viruses.  Yep!  They change…they run through a family, and then sometimes…they might seem to get the same dang thing again, or back to back, or another virus all together.  Just ask any mother with three or more kids.

Humans encounter “new” viruses all the time.  These colds and flus mutate.  Shockingly, most of our illnesses have always come from animals.  It wasn’t until we left our nomadic life as a species and started buddying up with animals, sometimes sleeping in the same space with them and living with them, that we started to get these viruses.  The black plague was caused by rats, fleas and a pretty gross living environment.  The Native Americans were so screwed by smallpox because they were still nomadic and the Europeans had been chumming up with their animals forever.  The Wuhan Flu is not the same to us as the smallpox was to the Native Americans because we have been germy vectors of mutating viruses for a long time now.  That is why it is not killing ALL of us.  The people who are dying are NOT dying of the virus itself.  They are dying of pneumonia and complications just like grandma dies from pneumonia because she broke her hip and has to lie in one position in a hospital for a long time.  It wasn’t the broken hip that killed her.

Our country was desperately sick with chronic illness long before the Wuhan Flu arrived.  Apparently, anyone who dies that has tested positive for the Wuhan Flu, “died” of the Wuhan Flu.  Dr. Birx mentioned the “liberal” way that they were record keeping regarding this virus and deaths.  I think this is incredibly misguided considering millions of people are now being affected by the fallout from the policies that are being made from these bunk numbers.

If you want all of us to be in this together, we need to rip off the band aid of fear and get back to normal life.  No amount of testing is going to help.  No masks or six feet apart.  This virus is everywhere and we have two choices.  1) Destroy America by trying to destroy a virus that will win every time. OR 2) Eat some chicken soup, get some tissues and go back to preschool.

Common sense states that if you FEEL sick, stay home because you feel like garbage and probably don’t want to do anything anyway.  That is the magic of the human body, it tells you what’s up.  If you are old or sick or immunocompromised, stay home.

Human beings were meant to be social creatures.  That is how we are built.  The impact of this forced isolation and forced destruction of livelihoods will be far reaching and will last for many years.  Every day that passes with our country in lockdown we stray further and further away from the America we love.  Screens can’t replace it, Netflix can’t replace it, 50 bazillion dollars can’t replace it.  We don’t need a “soft open” we just need to open.

Katy is just a regular mom living in Jacksonville, FL with her family.  She has written content for Mandarin Neighbors magazine and champions all things local and small business.  Her love of politics was formed at a young age as she grew up in the D.C. Metro area and was fortunately or unfortunately surrounded by it.

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