Spreading like the virus itself, the president’s idiocy has infected his devoted troglodytes across the country, causing me great alarm.
Every place that has bucked scientific recommendations about when to ease restrictions has found their own case numbers spiking soon thereafter. There is documented precedent for what to do and what not to do from countries and states that are ahead of us in the infection timeline, but Trump’s interest in opening the economy (on the hopes that it will come roaring back and thus usher in his second term) has pushed him to encourage people to follow their instinct/gut, to get back to "business as usual" quickly, and to “open up the economy” ASAP, science be damned.
This notion has also infected the commissioners of Columbia County, who unfortunately voted today to unilaterally reject Governor Wolf’s ordered restrictions in Columbia County by moving us from “Red” to “Yellow” ahead of the state’s schedule for doing so. I attended the commissioner’s Zoom public meeting and, like virtually everyone else in that audience today, pleaded with them to follow the data, listen to science, and stop putting profits over people. I have a lot of thoughts on this, but am still too angry to really write about this. I am concerned that the political ideology of where I live has greatly increased my risk of infection.