We Were Wrong

Just for fun, go back and read the original post this meme
came from. Then tell me I was that far off from reality
with a virus merely a fraction as lethal as Ebola.

Last Friday, April 10, we made this meme for you in Shop Class:

Here is the dashboard view of things on the day when we posted it.

Here is today's view, only eight days later, not nine.

Those with lightning fingers on their 10-key machines will note that deaths have gone up by 20,393(!) in the last eight days.
Here is yesterday's view.

Yesterday, it had already gone up by 16,600 deaths since we posted the April 10 meme.
(Spot us the 86 deaths, will ya? Those only took another 40 minutes to rack up, BTW.)

So this didn't double in nine days, nor even eight. It took, in fact, a whisker more than seven days for the Kung Flu virus to kill as many people as it did in the previous almost two months. We therefore apologize, for getting that wrong, and not being pessimistic enough about both how virulent and exponentially this is spreading, and about how pig-headedly stupid people are who still can't grasp that absent an effective treatment for this, and minus large-scale ability to test people out of the future death zone, the only way to nip this is to maintain the quarantines and shutdowns currently in effect.

How stupid? This stupid. That will turn out well. Tell us again how Chinese New Year went in NYFC, and how Mardi Gras went in Nawlins in February; we've forgotten.

Noxious and troublesome as those lockdowns are, and continue to be, for those inclined to cheerfully toss large numbers of their fellow citizens under the bus to create a short-lived economic rebound, I remind them that there is a historical precedent for a leader who was willing to do exactly that.

{Common Core grads: here's a crib sheet . Hint: It doesn't turn out well. For anyone.}
If the jackboot fits, wear it. And nota bene it's now on the foot of those who would unilaterally lift the shutdown, and not upon those who would maintain it, at this point. My job isn't to decide what sort of a person you are, or want to be. That's up to you. I merely name the players accurately, and point out whose parade you're marching in.

But the trains ran on time.

If that shellfire lands inside your perimeter, don't be Those Guys. There's a right way to get out of this, and a wrong way. (You've got a better one? Let's hear about it.) Quit pushing for the shortcut to a final solution to this pandemic problem. And maybe stop living up to the other side's expectations...?

Just saying.

And when your response to the outbreak now sounds exactly like the response of the NYTimes and WaPo from way back in February, "check yourself before you wreck yourself".
What was retarded then is twice as retarded now.