Ghost Town

The Rolling Stones just released a song about the COVID-19 virus, "Ghost Town." By all accounts, it's breaking the internet.

Interesting that they used that title. Here's a description of a ghost town [my emphasis added] from Wikipedia:

A ghost town or alternatively deserted city or abandoned city is an abandoned village, town, or city, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it (usually industrial or agricultural) has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, prolonged droughts, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, pollution, or nuclear disasters. The term can sometimes refer to cities, towns, and neighbourhoods that are still populated, but significantly less so than in past years; for example, those affected by high levels of unemployment and dereliction.

In our case, our national "ghost town" was initially created by a combination of a "natural disaster" and by decisions made by our leaders, supported initially by both major political parties and many, but not all, "experts." Those decisions were driven by models that projected catastrophe, but have over the past 6 weeks been scientifically proven to be woefully inaccurate.



And now, many of those same leaders, the opposition political party (with their own destructive agenda), and the same experts who influenced the shut-down decisions, refuse to change course, even though recent scientific data, along with significant critique of the original model projections indicates that non-trivial adaptation is required. Real scientists are always ready to adapt, based on recent knowledge that demands a modification in theory. It's extremely troubling to see the current scientific influencers (of the administration and the Governors of many states) insist that their course is the ONLY one that can be taken.

If they persist, the metaphorical ghost town the Stones sing about will become very real, "economic activity" will take years to recover, and "unemployment and dereliction" will become a dangerous normal. The future will be bleak.

We must begin to re-open, now.