April 5, 2020

Today is Sunday, Lord’s Day, and I hope my comrades said their prayers this morning, like my friend Lil’ Mikey here.

Anyhoo, I hope y’all are enjoying this sunshine and have an opportunity to get out of the house and do a socially distanced walk before the weather changes. Beautiful up here on the mountain today. The missus and I just got back from a 1.81 mile walk and it really helped to clear the cobwebs from the brain.

I just read an article by Bill Gates titled “What our leaders can do now”, which can be found on GatesNotes, his blog. Over the past couple of months the Gates Foundation has invested $105 million dollars in efforts to create therapeutics for the virus, expand access to testing, and limit the spread in the Seattle area. Yes, he is a very wealthy person, but he’s not buying prostitutes with his riches and I don’t believe he has claimed bankruptcy one single time. His message to our leaders to get us through this and back to some sort of normalcy makes a lot more sense than opening up the country for Easter weekend; stocking up on hydroxychloroquine; putting Jared in charge of anything; and, talking to sports commissioners to get the stadiums and arenas open. He says, first we need to have a consistent nationwide approach to shutting down. Nothing new here, Dr. Fauci and other health professionals have been saying this everyday. Second, the federal government needs to step up on testing. The demand for tests will probably exceed the supply for some time, but there needs to be a greater priority put on this. Finally, we need a data-based approach to developing treatments and a vaccine, and it needs to be done with clinical trials, not a gut hunch that aquarium cleaner will cure the coronavirus. There you have my Cliff Notes of GatesNotes.

With that, I am going to sign off. Remember — Stay Safe, Stay Healthy, and STAY HOME!! Ziggyman