awry

The USA hit the million-case mark – just shy of 60,000 recorded deaths. The comparative figure that springs to mind is that in 20 years of the Vietnam war, there were 47,424 American combat casualties. 

Meanwhile, nearly lost among Coronavirus counts and disastrous economic reports, there was a headline yesterday in the New York Times about UFOs. Seriously. Evidently, the Pentagon chose this moment in history to declassify a pair of tapes made back in 2004 and 2015 that had been circulating for years among alien hunters. Why the DOD chose to let the footage fly escapes me but, when even UFO headlines didn’t make much of an impact, that’s as much an indicator as anything that things have generally gone awry.

Like in Georgia, where the mayor of the state’s largest city is at odds with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp on the issue of opening back up. Under the state mandate, businesses including nail salons, tattoo parlors, barber shops and bowling alleys were allowed to open on Friday. By Monday this week it was movie theaters and dine-in service at restaurants – with some limitations including regularly sanitizing surfaces, staff wearing masks and gloves, and tables spaced six-feet apart.

But Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms isn’t enthusiastic that her home state is taking the lead on finding a balance between economics and public health. But the state’s order overrules the city’s and businesses that want to be open are open. Several prominent business owners have spoken out that they’ll stay closed because they, and their employees, don’t feel safe. And margins are tight for many companies. So, with customers still nervous, business is down enough that there is a chance that opening won’t make economic sense for some small operators anyway.

Figures released yesterday for the first quarter of the year showed a 4.8 per cent decline in the American G.D.P. But widespread business closures didn’t start until the end of March. Economists are projecting that figures from the current quarter will show a contraction of an annual rate of 30 percent or more. Some are predicting unemployment could reach 20 per cent or more. Those are depression era numbers.

On the race team I’ve worked with for a decade, there are no competitions for the team to attend and the shop is closed. Friends in the events and film businesses are on furlough, waiting for jobs and paychecks to start flowing again. At the company, which depends on the hospitality industry for a portion of its business, “permalancer” contractors are on hold and teams are working through yet another round of budget cuts.

So it’s a tough choice, but federal guidelines urge caution and a phased re-opening once case numbers have leveled off for a period of two weeks. According to Georgia’s own data, the daily new infection rate had been level or slightly declining for less than a week when the re-opening began on Friday. And while the current numbers look pretty good, the nation’s collective eyes are watching. With an estimated two-week incubation rate, plus a lag for testing results, it will be another 10 days to two weeks before any health effects show up in the numbers.

Today, among American states, Georgia sits at No. 16, with 2,443 cases per million population. Getting high rates of testing going before opening is another federal recommendation, but Georgia’s not doing a great job of keeping up with the Joneses as of today. They are way down at 33rd among American states at 13,617 tests per million people – this compared to  Rhode Island, which leads the way at 54,000+ tests per million population. The US average is around 18,000/million.

But UFO hunters are vindicated. The US Department of Defense has finally confirmed the three grainy black-and-white videos – one filmed over the Pacific and two on the east coast -- were collected by real navy pilots. The blurry dots on the screen were what they like to call “unidentified aerial phenomena.”

You can’t make this stuff up. You just can’t. Maybe the aliens can save us from ourselves…