This came across my Facebook news stream this morning…

7 Family Members Test Positive For Coronavirus, 4 Dead

I’m thinking this is probably how my family in Pennsylvania felt way back when that killer flu was starting to make its way among their neighbors. But this is a different world, with a Much better understanding of virology, and how to treat people who become sick. And there is an expectation we have today, that they probably did not, of a vaccine, even if it’s many months away.

But still…right now we are in a very not good place with this…

I’m so very lucky. I’ll go into detail about that later…I really need to use this space to document how things are going during the struggle to contain and work ourselves through the COVID-19 outbreak. But that I have a job that allows me to work remotely and keep drawing a paycheck and paying my bills is a big part of that luck. So many others aren’t in the situation I am, particularly restaurant and service workers who live paycheck to paycheck. Government needs to help them, but given our current political reality here in this country I have no idea what is going to happen to them and it makes me angry.

In the meantime, a couple good links to beat back despair: Here’s a good, sober, reasoned and hopeful outlook from the man who helped defeat smallpox what to expect next…

The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What’s Coming

And this speech by German Chancellor Merkel is a stunning example of leadership in a democracy. It is humane, logical, reasoned, and speaks to the heart and soul of her people. But also, to all of us, really, who believe in civilization, science, and the human status. I can’t help watching this and grieving for all we have lost here in the United States, as a culture of believers in the American Dream, and bearers of the torch of democracy and progress, since Reagan sold us on the shining city on the hill, where all that matters is getting yours and to hell with your neighbor.

There are subtitles for those of us who don’t speak German…I only know a few phrases. Watch, and feel your belief in the human status renewed. We don’t have a central government now that can speak to the spirit of mutual fellowship and duty within us, but we can at least take heart from those in other nations that do, as they once did back when we still stood for something worth fighting for…