Here's the Thing (my take on Covid-19)

Here's the thing. Well, here're a couple of things.

1) "The media" did NOT blow this thing out of proportion. The media did what they do. They reported. They got facts and they informed. If it wasn't for them, we'd have no idea this virus was out there. The federal government wasn't going to do it. They did everything they could to downplay it and make it seem like it was nothing. But something that had 15-20 known cases in the US two weeks ago and over 1000 now, with minimal testing to tell us how many cases there actually are, isn't nothing. So, this is not an overreaction. The media was doing its job. Something we should be thankful for. If the media weren’t there to hold the president accountable, who would? We’ve seen that the Senate won’t.

2) If we don’t like something being reported, it doesn’t mean it’s not true. It means we don’t like it. Maybe it scares us, or maybe someone has told us we shouldn’t like it. But we all have a responsibility to research and check facts and not depend on personal biases when deciding what is and isn’t real. #factsnotfear

3) This all feels so weird because we’ve never experienced this sort of thing before. We didn’t live on the frontier where scary things like Yellow Fever came pushing through and took down families and communities. Could you imagine Ma and Pa blaming the reporters when a big outbreak came to the Prairie? No. They’d have rolled up their sleeves, kept tending their farms and put people in beds of ice and helped Doc Baker and done what they could for their community.

4) Honestly? If it means being holed up for a couple of weeks while this blows over in order to stem the spread of this virus and protect the more vulnerable among us, then yes. Isn't one of the things that makes us so great as Americans the ability for us to pull together in hard times to do the right thing? Even if it makes us uncomfortable? Is disruption to daily routine annoying and a pain? Sure. But wouldn’t losing loved ones because we didn’t do everything we could to slow this down be a lot worse?