I thought I had held forth enough about the coronavirus, but people just aren’t listening to me. Perhaps I don’t have the readership and broad reception of Trump or doctors Oz and Drew, but I do have some common sense for anyone willing to take it.

As promised by many competent health experts, the virus has or will spread everywhere.  It’s highly unlikely that it will kill you.  We have a task in front of us—that’s you, me and everyone else.  It’s up to us to stop or slow the spread of the virus.  Talking doctor heads keep referring to “mitigation.”  That means reducing the severity of the virus.  They’re talking about you.  Not the six people around you, not just the older, younger other people.  They mean everybody.  Here’s your job:

1. Separate.  In as many ways as possible, stop doing the things that bring you into contact or close proximity with other people, particularly in contained areas where you’re all re-breathing the same air.  Try to get it into your head to keep distance from other warm bodies—stay six feet away if possible.  Cancel your plans for any large gatherings.  They’ve mostly been cancelled for you, and that’s a good thing.
2. Wash your hands. Scrub them, including fingertips.  Leave that soap on there and scrub them for at least 20 seconds.  Do it several times a day.
3. Avoid sick people.  I don’t think that needs explaining.
4. Stop raiding the stores.  You people are acting like the zombie apocalypse out there.  It’s ridiculous. Take the normal amount of toilet paper and leave the rest for us.  I thought some of you people enjoyed a little socialism in your life. Stop it right now. Go to your room.
5. Avoid television news except to hear any recent advice or instructions.  Then turn it off.  They (all of the networks) are trading on your fear and fanning its flames.  Quit listening.  We’re being asked to work together on this and to sacrifice temporarily.  If you think it’s unfair, it’s not.  If you think your rights are being violated, they’re not.  If you feel offended, get over it.  If you think you’re being asked to sacrifice too much, find a World War II veteran (if you can) and ask him to tell you about the war.  Or his wife or family who stayed home.  They can explain real sacrifice to you and it will be much better coming from them than me. 

This is all very very simple.  Think of the virus as a tiny animal.  Without a warm body to land on, it can’t survive but a few hours.  It will die.  If we all work as a team and deny it the warm bodies it needs, we’ll see those numbers drop as dramatically as they rose.  It really is that simple.  Stop complaining, quit worrying about it and just do it.

If you find yourself thinking that missing a concert or a night at a club is asking too much, then it’s important to know that we haven’t been asked to sacrifice—or work together—for decades.  There are many of us out here who have never truly sacrificed. 

Compared to what others have done in our history, this isn’t even close to sacrifice.  It’s a very minor annoyance and it won’t last.