Perspective on Corona panic
By Robert T. Smith
web posted March 30, 2020
Nobody is saying the Wuhan flu should not be taken seriously, but some sense of perspective is needed.
For the 2017 / 2018 flu season, an estimated 80,000 Americans died of flu and its complications, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CNN, September 27, 2018). A bad recent flu season that was even mitigated to some extent by the flu vaccine.
All age groups across the entire country died, from infants to the aged. The daily body count was not breathlessly reported or graphically depicted on the media 24/7, nobody fought over toilet paper or the last package of ground beef in the local Walmart. Were these people’s lives not as significant as those who are now expiring due to the Wuhan flu, did their families not feel the same grief as they buried their child, sister, mother, or good old grampy?
Based on information from China, the death rate by age group for the Wuhan flu is:
- Less than 0.5% up to the age of 49,
- 1.3% for those in their 50s,
- 3.6% for those in their 60s,
- 8% for those in their 70s, and
- 14.8% for those 80 and up.
(Business Insider, February 27, 2020)
Clearly, the Wuhan flu is simply not statistically significant for those who are under 60. Regardless, if you are one of the under 59 crowd and die from the Wuhan flu these statistics are not comforting, but in this world where every day risks kill more people than this virus, the statistics should provide a sense of perspective.
What is a reasonable perspective on the media? As the propaganda arm of the Democrat party, their sincere hope is to kill the economy and hopefully kill the orange-man-bad so that November’s presidential election goes their way. The liberal media are more than willing to instill fear and hopelessness in the citizen-peasant class to achieve their goal….after all, as our betters they have determined it is for our own good.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) mission is in their name. Go to their website and it says “CDC 24/7: Saving Lives, Protecting People.” A reasonable perspective is the CDC blew their one job.
Unfortunately, the CDC has over many decades generally become a money-sucking hole of bureaucratic incompetence, bogged down with political appointees wasting billions of dollars on all sorts of social engineering, irrelevant to their alleged mission studies. As an organ of incompetent big government, it is impossible for the CDC to be responsive. Having blown this disease prevention, they cannot be so self-unaware as to not understand that we the people who have funded them for so long are quite disappointed in the outcome thus far. Dr. Fauci says it is nobody’s fault, but is it?
The political perspective is probably the worst. Torches and pitchforks for the Washington political crowd, too busy fighting over power and money, while using us citizen class as pawns in their sick games. Over 21 trillion in debt and now this…multigenerational forever debt at best.
The only group to despise more than the wasteful Republicans is the Democrat enemy domestic party, who seem willing to let people die, financial lives and standard of living to be destroyed, and retirements cancelled for millions of citizens. Lead by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the Democrats busied themselves blackmailing the citizens that they don’t care about anyway with this bailout and I am sure the spineless Republicans have been rolled again at our expense. A degraded America, with citizens dependent on handouts from their big government master is exactly what the enemy domestic party would like anyway, just ask the communist Bernie Sanders and his many supporters around the country.
While this worldwide Wuhan flu tragedy plays out, and all the parties involved show us exactly who they are, let’s not forget to keep it all in perspective as owners and operators of the greatest concept in the history of the world, Americanism. 
Robert T. Smith is an environmental scientist who spends his days enjoying life and the pursuit of happiness with his family. He confesses to cling to his liberty, guns and religion, with antipathy toward the arrogant ruling elites throughout the country.