I have a good friend, that I will call Charles here, because. Well, because I must uphold the time-honored tradition of protecting the reputation of the guilty. And oh, my but Charles is guilty. This is how our conversation went for the last three days. All by voice mail, mind you.
Charles: Hey, how ya doing. I was just thinking. Since you don’t seem to be planning to come to see me, I thought I might drive over and see you. What do you think? This weekend, maybe?
Me: Heck no, Charles. Do you not know what is going on out there in the real world? I mean I know you stay in most of the time, but goodness, dude. No, I don’t want you to come to see me. Your state is riddled with Covid-19 and more every day. Stay your ass at home, don’t be spreading that crap in my direction. We have had enough of it. And don’t try sneaking over either, cuz I will notify the authorities.
Charles: My feelings are hurt.
Me: Get over it!!!
Now, the disclaimer. This conversation was real but in jest. My friend of 20 plus years knows very well how I feel about people who take the chance of spreading this pandemic. We have talked about it. So, the conversation was his attempt to “get me riled” and he knew to expect exactly that reaction.
Let’s look at the evidence to back up my statements. trump, in his non-ending mission to put his own ego ahead of the health or life of his own followers, moved his portion of the RNC convention from Charlottesville to Jacksonville. We know why he did this. The governor of North Carolina, who apparently actually cares about the lives and health of his citizenry refused to approve the safety ignoring plan to not have any requirement for social distancing or apparently even masks.
Now, it is already obvious who is benefitting from this change and move. Florida is going to bite the bullet and probably end up with even more sick and dying than they would have. As can be seen by reading the article below from the Miami Herald, there has been a huge jump, already, in Florida and the misbegotten convention hasn’t even come to the state yet. For seven days in a row, the cases in Florida went up 2,000 infections per day. Then it jumped, just 24 hours ago, to a daily increase of 3822. That means over the last eight days, the illness count has increased for the state of Florida by 18,000.
Remember, that 18,000 increase is before trump’s legions of the careless and uncaring followers have even stepped one foot in the state. What might the results be when 50,000 of these irresponsible (and that is putting it as mildly as I can) start stomping all over, not only their own health and safety but that of every waiter or bartender that has to wait on them or any security that has to try to keep them safe from any discomfort….and ending up being exposed to Covid-19 as payment for their services. Oh, and let’s also not forget all the folks back home that they end up carrying the virus to when this little love fest is over.
It is obvious to me that the complicit and rather unintelligent, DeSantis, is going to be responsible right along with trump for another wave of illness and death. I hope there comes a time when they both can be found guilty of their crimes and carelessness. But scoundrels tend to get away with things, so these two likely will also….once again.
No, Charles knew how I feel about all this. We have talked about the fact that I now consider Florida a cesspool. And you know what? He agrees with me. He and I both think that DeSantis is one of the worst, most prone to kissing trump’s orange backside, of any in the nation.
Meanwhile, the governor of North Carolina is lucky, as are his people. By not agreeing to the carelessness that trump wanted to inflict on the state, he got trump to stomp his Bunker Boy feet and move on down the line. If Florida is willing to let trump re-infect them with Covid-19, that is their loss, and North Carolina is the better for it.
Especially since North Carolina is experiencing their own upturn in the exposure rate with 8000 total cases and 362 new ones in Mecklenburg County alone in the last 24 hours. Mecklenburg County, by the way, is where Charlotte is located, the city that the trump gang moved out of.
Yep, Mecklenburg County’s gain is Jacksonville’s loss. I would never, at this point go anywhere in Florida with the cases up. But Orlando and Miami and the area around it would be where I would head if I went to Florida. But with Covid-19 on the rise, certainly NOT this year.
Oh, and the comment I referred to within my stated conversation with my friend, Charles, did have some basis in fact. I sent this email to the mayor and Counsel of the city, New Orleans.
- ****Those of you reading this that happen to be from States that had huge infection rates but worked hard in your State to get the pandemic under control might want to let your officials know, as I have, that you have no interest in the sort of carelessness exhibited by trump and his followers to endanger lives all over again.
- ******
Mayor and Councilmembers:
I am emailing you as a resident of the West Bank, Algiers, to let you know that I am concerned about the new upsurge in the national trend on Covid-19. Florida, in particular, has discovered over 14,000 new cases in the last seven days. This is NOT a good trend, especially considering that they are fairly close to us, here in Louisiana.
There is also data suggesting that the upsurge is true for another 20 states as well. I haven’t done the research in the numbers myself to know for sure which ones they are. However, if what I have heard is correct, Texas is an even bigger threat to us here in Louisiana than Florida is.
We are just now opening up. I have gone out a few times, once getting fairly close physically to dear friends. I was hoping that we were now safe, but it is beginning to sound like we are not out of the woods yet. In fact, it might be headed in the wrong direction right now.
I know that we need to look, at some point, to re-opening the tourist industry, but I, personally am a bit concerned about all the tourists, likely many from states that are having an upspring, or never actually closed down sufficiently, to begin with.
Obviously, this should be a concern for those working with the health of our great State, in order not to end up with another, a perhaps worse issue that we just now managed to fight down to a better possible…to almost be safe.
I am begging you, as a Louisianan and resident of New Orleans, over the age of 66, and with diabetes and high pressure to my detriment, do not endanger our state’s residence too soon…or too carelessly, not after what we have already been through.
Sincerely,
And the response has been just about as good as I could ever expect. I have gotten two emails back from different offices saying that they agree. They are also determined to watch the trends and will not be moving carelessly. New Orleans knew immediately not to commit to trump’s “investigation” with anything but a “not interested at this time”. Too bad Jacksonville wasn’t that astute. But I am proud of my mayor and the city council that supports her and our citizenry.
