A World Gone Mad
I live in Utah, but I also live in Utah county. It’s home to my town of Pleasant Grove, and Provo, home of BYU. There are many smaller towns as wel. Just north of Utah county is Salt Lake county. Not surprisingly, the largest city in Salt Lake County is Salt Lake City. It’s possible the early pioneers lacked a little imagination when they named some of our counties.
Utah and Salt Lake counties just announced they were banning all gatherings of 10 or more people. Not only did they ban it, they announcced it was a class B misdemeanor.
The world really has gone mad.
Fortunately, the governor overruled it when he heard about it. No, no crime for having too many people over for Sunday dinner. Apparently the health departments got a little bit out over their skis.
But, in New Jersey today a man was arrested for holding a “pop up” wedding with 50 guests. He really did go to jail for too many people getting together.
A world gone mad.
Italy is on lock down. They’ve had thousands of deaths. And the “social distancing” rules prevent them even from coming together to bury their dead.
Today the world is pulling together to battle an enemy unlike anything we’ve seen in 100 years. Everyone recognizes the importance of “social distancing” and “sheltering in place.” We’ve accepted that sports are cancelled. Schools are cancelled. Church services are cancelled. Nearly everything is cancelled.
But, what happens when we get tired of it? What happens next week, next month? How long can we live in a locked down society? How long can we keep our distance from one another? How long can we go without the bread and circuses? How long can we avoid funerals and how long are we willing to be arrested for holding weddings?
How long?
How long can we endure in a world gone mad?
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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We do what we always have – we endure.
It has been a long time since we have had quarantines in the US, but it was not unexpected – in health and science circles, anyway. That’s one of the frustrating things about it. Collectively we knew, our leaders knew, and they ignored it. But it’s here now. We need to move as rapidly as possible to mitigate, manage and minimize the destruction.
Right now the only tool we have is avoiding transmission, which means personal hygiene and avoiding others. Next step is making the protective gear needed by medical staff, something they have been asking for for months. Third is testing (something that is almost here in the Seattle area) and finally research on a vaccine. All can be worked on simultaneously but the importance of 1-3 was not appreciated sufficiently.
People would get tired of isolating except it’s hitting hard and fast. If we can slow it down we get time for steps 2-4 to have an impact, like China and Korea have. The second worst reaction to this is panic, the worst is ignoring it. I believe and hope that people will take it seriously.
This is our new generational crisis. Let’s hope the kids were paying attention