We need to get the country back to work.

We need to get the country back to work.  Every day we all consume food, fuel, clothing, shelter and any one of a zillion different necessities of life.  We are running out of stuff.  We have to get back to work and grow, manufacture, mine, frack, transport raw materials to factories, and transport finished goods to stores.  The whole country has been out of work for eight weeks now.  We are running out of stuff.  You can see it when you go grocery shopping.  Empty shelves, missing product, lack of toilet paper, paper towels, whole milk, beef, pork, and chicken at the butcher’s counter. 

   And most of us need our paychecks.  And business needs workers.  The governor allowed hair salons and barber shops to open this week in New Hampshire.  I made an appointment with Mane St Styles to get my hair cut.   The proprietor greeted me at the door, gave me a new mask to replace the daughter-in-law made one I was wearing, took my temperature with one of those high tech IR gadgets, and greeted me warmly.  All the staff were overjoyed to back to work.  And it did feel good to get my hair off my neck after two months.

   Naturally as soon as we do get back to work, people are going to catch COVID-19.  Staying at home we are fairly safe.  Getting out into the world exposes us to the virus and some of us will catch it.  Some of us will die from it.  And the medics and the media will cry that we are killing people.  Until we have a vaccine, and that is a year away according to the TV, there is some risk involved.  But that risk is the same tomorrow, next week, next month, until we have a vaccine.  Can we keep the country shut down for a year waiting on a vaccine?  I don’t think so.  I am in the high risk group.  But I will risk it just to eat at a restaurant.  I am tired of eating my own cooking.

   And, to get the country back to work we need to protect our businesses from COVID-19 lawsuits.  We cannot allow lawyers to sue every business in sight every time someone comes down with COVID-19.  People come down with COVID-19 because the Chinese released the virus into the world.  If we give the lawyers their head, they will sue all our small businesses clean out of business.  Small businesses don’t have lawyers on staff, they cannot afford lawyers, and just the threat of unending lawsuits will kill them all. 

   By all accounts if you are under 50 and in decent health, your odds are pretty good; say 0.1% chance of dying.  If you are over 70 (like me) and your health is not so good, your odds are a lot worse, say 10% chance of dying.  We should let people make their own choices; we should not force people in fear of their lives to go back to work.  Likewise we should not prevent people who want to get back to work from doing so.