Last night, while I was reading an article on the upcoming college football season and whether it will take place, I saw an ad from a Trump super-PAC, featuring the Donald superimposed on a Big Sky-ish valley scene with mountains on the right, with the caption "Opening Up America Again", if I recall correctly. VP Pence was plugging the “keep opening up America” meme in this CNBC article.
Minor problem. When you're opening up businesses, you're increasing the number of interactions with people and increasing the chances of our old friend COVID-19 being exchanged along with cash and credit cards. Given that we have a record number of daily cases nationwide, centered on some of our more free-market-friendly southern states, opening up has its downside.
The irony of the Opening Up America ad on the college football article is that it seems that the very opening up of the economy in the South and elsewhere is helping give COVID a second wind and imperiling the sports seasons folks in "them thar parts" especially like. I'm one of them: me loves me some football...or basketball...or baseball.. or about any sport right now.
It's a tough dilemma. Going into lock-down mode does a real number on the economy but cuts down on the disease spread. Coming out of lock-down, especially when folks feel that masks and social distancing are something that fearful wimps and liberals do, puts a Space-X rocket on the R0 figure. Michigan (as I predicted Monday) just closed its bars after opening them back up a couple of weeks ago, following Texas, Florida and California's lead. Finding that new-normal mix that lets us do more things while keeping COVID under control (and if R is 1.25, it ain't under control for long) is very tricky.
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