waitingman (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
waitingman) wrote2020-03-13 09:00 am
waitingman) wrote2020-03-13 09:00 am
Entry tags:
Local &/Or General
Dinner with that rarest of things, last night - a former flame that L-SP likes & encourages me to maintain contact with
The restaurant was pretty good, in a cool, inner-city kind of way - sort of contemporary Lebanese/Turkish & was nice enough... a little over-priced by our standards, but if you can't splurge every now & then... It was really nice to catch up with our globe-trotting, soon-to-be Mother to 3 cats - she says 2, we know it will be 3!! Her sardonic, slightly cynical, but ultimately humanitarian world view matches ours. Recently returned from Japan, it's a relief to know that she didn't need to self-isolate, or anything... having travelled by plane, not by cruise ship... so neither do we!
With all that in mind, L-SP & I were wondering, during the drive to work this morning, why it is that we aren't panicking, or even too worried, about Covid19's gradual, but inexorable spread. Why aren't we rioting in supermarket aisles over rolls of toilet paper, or hand sanitiser & throwing cans of soup at other shoppers?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but even if you get this virus, the chances of dying from it are nothing like what they are for the 'flu every year, or the national road death toll every year, deaths from domestic violence every year... or (even in Australia) shooting deaths every year... or fatal stabbings... Every year
The cynic in me wants to think that, just because the vast majority of virus fatalities have been "older" people, the baby-boomers in power are getting worried. They certainly don't get worked up like this about diseases that kill children... Nobody closes borders & cancels public gatherings during 'flu season. And certainly the US Administration hasn't done anything about all the children who have died in mass shootings this year... & it's only March...
The restaurant was pretty good, in a cool, inner-city kind of way - sort of contemporary Lebanese/Turkish & was nice enough... a little over-priced by our standards, but if you can't splurge every now & then... It was really nice to catch up with our globe-trotting, soon-to-be Mother to 3 cats - she says 2, we know it will be 3!! Her sardonic, slightly cynical, but ultimately humanitarian world view matches ours. Recently returned from Japan, it's a relief to know that she didn't need to self-isolate, or anything... having travelled by plane, not by cruise ship... so neither do we!
With all that in mind, L-SP & I were wondering, during the drive to work this morning, why it is that we aren't panicking, or even too worried, about Covid19's gradual, but inexorable spread. Why aren't we rioting in supermarket aisles over rolls of toilet paper, or hand sanitiser & throwing cans of soup at other shoppers?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but even if you get this virus, the chances of dying from it are nothing like what they are for the 'flu every year, or the national road death toll every year, deaths from domestic violence every year... or (even in Australia) shooting deaths every year... or fatal stabbings... Every year
The cynic in me wants to think that, just because the vast majority of virus fatalities have been "older" people, the baby-boomers in power are getting worried. They certainly don't get worked up like this about diseases that kill children... Nobody closes borders & cancels public gatherings during 'flu season. And certainly the US Administration hasn't done anything about all the children who have died in mass shootings this year... & it's only March...