Back To Work

Why am I not the least bit surprised at the latest shenanigans regarding a possible end to the National House Arrest? First howls of protest at the shutdowns at the presidents request but fairly enthusiastically pushed by the nations governors. All resulting deaths will be trumps fault. Next a hail of recriminations claiming that it should have been done sooner and the heightened death toll is Trumps fault. Now we are being told that it's time to get back to work.

But what's the best time to end the lockdown?  It's when the additional deaths resulting from people working in groups exactly balance out the decline resulting from staying locked up. Sort of a reverse flattening of the curve. A leveling, if you will. The absolute minimum death rate would come from a complete lockdown until such time as a good vaccine is available, tested, and approved by the FDA, and universally administered. This I expect will happen some time between never and the heat death of the universe.

Plan B is to pull out the old crystal balls and tell us when we may as well go back to work, taking as much precaution as is practicable, and think optimistically that the next victim at work will be the deadwood standing between you and that promotion you've been after. Plan A being impractical, Plan B it is and don't worry, president Trump will be blamed for the resultant deaths regardless of their numbers.

In case you want to know how the dates and all are calculated, go here, where Mr Weinersmith has summed it up nicely in a 503 panel comic.

All this brings me to something I've been contemplating for a while: Let's consider the Kung Flu as a weapon. In this case a weapon that escaped the lab. Normally (?) if a country were developing a sickness, like anthrax or whatever, they would make it easily spreadable, rapidly effective, highly lethal, and with a vaccine to protect your own people. In some cases, lethality is not a requirement. If you can shoot a few shells of bugs over to the other side, then 2 days later simply take a leisurely walk over to where your enemies are convulsed on the ground unable to do anything else, than you have a good weapon. If the stuff spreads too quickly, it can affect people you wouldn't normally be fighting which may induce them to take more extreme measures against you. The Kung Flu seems to be a pretty good weapon, being able to quickly dispose of a large part of any nations economy in fairly short order whether the populace gets it or not. In our case it has effectively sunk one of our big aircraft carriers, keeping it out of the Taiwan straits just in time for some PRC saber rattling.

No word on any other military units it may have affected, but I have a hard time believing that it hasn't. Here, the Chinese are waging war with the weapons they have the most of, which is to say, people. Just as Reagan brought down the Soviet Union using our best weapon: Money. Star Wars forced the Russkies to Keep Up With The Jonses, which cost more than they could afford and they went broke. If the virus might kill 20% of everyones population, who does that leave as the winner? China.

As of today, I'm hearing stories that China, Russia, and Iran are all much closer to regime change than most people think.