Most of us here are retired, obviously older and many of us have underlying conditions as well as simply age that makes us much more aware of all this. As retired folk, we do not have the pressures of working, raising a family etc.

Setting the virus aside for a moment, look at the economic side of this. Government stimulus is already beginning to run out. That's the only thing that has kept us out of a second Great Depression. They're not opening schools out of stupidity Graham, it's pure economics plus the actual quality of the education, the social development of children being able to interact with other kids plus all the teachers. That is extremely serious and very important. There are already plenty of articles now showing that remote learning at home is simply not working. We're risking a lifelong stunting of the kids social, economic and psychological growth.

That's just the kids, look at the parents who depend on schools as day care centers so they can go work. The schools don't open, what are they supposed to do? I'm asking for a serious answer to that question. I'm also asking for a serious answer to the question are we as individuals willing to risk a real, serious second Great Depression? A true depression is way worse than the various economic slowdowns from the dot com bubble crash, the real estate crash and other recessions.

You need to really think about these things and the ramifications of simply shutting things down for another six months or a year or however much longer it takes. The reality is this virus is going to be infecting and killing people for years and years so what is the path going forward? There is no immediate panacea coming.

Already about 30% of people are not going to line up to take a vaccine when one becomes available and I don't blame them. Ask yourself, do you want to be the first after it appears the trials may have been rushed? It normally takes over four years to develop and test a new vaccine and we're talking six months? We're looking at a another year at least before a vaccine begins to show a real result in controlling this and that's only "beginning to show" not some sudden "OK, we're all back to normal now". That's not happening so back to my earlier points. When should the schools reopen, when should everybody go back to work because there is not going to be any big change in the situation a year from now compared to what we have today.

These are very tough decisions with no easy answers or correct answers for that matter. It's the lessor of two evils. Keep everything shut down until we get the all clear signal which will take years. The world goes into the economic toilet, children get no education, they're set back years and may never catch up, our savings are gone our retirement plans get cut way back and we're all screwed. Or, everything goes back to normal but virus cases spike, deaths spike and we just have to eat it and like it.

Bob

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