As
a person who has his own personal medical issues that are making him
rather nervous in his life right now, I am certain that you will
understand why I am writing a column such as this one.
Everything
seems to be going so much quicker now respecting what is going on
around the world. Obviously, just consider the number of people who
have been identified as picking up the horrific disease in so many
different places.
Take
a look at the interesting early paragraph of a story I just saw a
recently that caused me a lot of trouble:
“The
coronavirus crisis inevitably prompts comparisons with the last
epidemic that shook the world: the Spanish flu. Although the Great
War overshadowed it in the public consciousness, this outbreak killed
at least 30 million people worldwide – with some estimates even
putting the figure at 100 million from 1918 to 1919. But are the two
epidemics really comparable?” (Stéphanie Trouillard, France24.com, March 20, 2020)
If
that in itself does not make one quite upset, at least the last
paragraph of the article should make one feel a little bit better:
“We
learned a lot of lessons from each of these epidemics, with a much
more efficient monitoring system – and we’re even better prepared
today,” Rasmussen said. “Let’s not create more fear; the
current state of affairs already provokes enough anxiety. It’s a
different world now from the one that saw the Spanish flu. Things are
done on a different scale now, with much more research and a much
more efficient approach to dealing with diseases. There are great
reasons for hope.”
The
reason why I wanted to post the remarks above from my perspective is
to confirm what I believe that you have been dealing with as well.
There are so many stories coming out about different topics
respecting this disease these days. Some of the stories talk about
one side of a matter while the other stories deal with the other
side. Your position, like mine, is which article should I accept
when both of them seem to be so well researched and written.
Clearly,
there is a lot of research going on by scientists around the world to
come up with some kind of a medical treatment to provide assistance
for citizens everywhere. I thought that I saw recently that there
are two or three possible solutions that have been discovered but
unfortunately it may take quite a bit of time, at least a year, for
any one of them to be approved for usage anywhere.
Just
consider the stories that I have read recently and what was written
in them. What do I mean by recent… How about the last day or two:
--the
US and Canada are effectively closing down their border crossings
except for a limited group of those who require it to remain open for
business purposes
--we
are told to live now in “social isolation” to help provide us
with protection against illness
--effectively
universities in many countries are now educating their students in
the computer world since classes cannot take place in classrooms at
this time
--500,000
people this week in Canada sent in applications for unemployment
benefits
--job
losses in the US in April could go up to 5 million people
--many
business operations are closing down for at least two weeks because
of the medical situation here, with many of them at least providing
financial assistance to their employees during this timeframe
--grocery
stores are taking specific action to make sure they can remain open
in order to provide clients with the food that they require,
especially now when so many people go into the stores to get food for
fear of some catastrophe happening
--the
banks are changing how they do business and many of their employees
may be losing their positions one day soon if some of their
facilities are closed down
--the
stock markets worldwide have done extremely poorly in a very short
period of time going up and down like a yo-yo over the past week
--the
US may well provide over a trillion dollars to citizens and business
operations to help them concerning the disasters that are going on.
Canada is talking about $100 billion. So far.
I
could go on and outline more of the stories but I am certain that you
understand what I am talking about just by looking at the ones that I
have mentioned.