Is Bill Maher Right? Is Our Reaction To COVID-19 Like "Putting Hot Sauce On A Jalapeno?"

Dear F and Jimbo,

From the beginning, the reaction to coronavirus has impressed me as tinged with hysteria.

I don't deny that COVID is a big deal, particularly in densely inhabited urban areas and nursing homes, although I will be surprised if widely-anticipated mortality in rural Trumplandia manifests. We will soon see...

In any event, I am drawn to Maher's comment that "there's no need to put hot sauce on a jalapeno."

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/bill-maher-lectures-the-media-to-calm-down-and-start-treating-us-like-adults-when-it-comes-to-covid-19/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4340  

We will never know how many people would have died without public health measures - and it is true that frightening rhetoric is probably necessary to motivate people who are, by nature and dumbfuck conditioning, hostile to Truth.

But it is increasingly likely that fewer Americans will die from coronavirus this year than often die in "a year's worth" of seasonal flu.

Furthermore, a (not overly effective) seasonal flu vaccine exists, yet, remarkably, a majority of American don't get it.

So, while I applaud and support America's public health effort, I must also "call 'em as I see 'em."

That said, I could be wrong.

Maybe we SHOULD  BE putting hot sauce on a jalapeno.

Love

A('bald)