If You Can Keep Your Head -- Idle Rambling -- Nothing About The Bakken -- May 18, 2020

There's a Bloomberg (?) story out there tonight reporting that China is about to put a 100-million-population province back under draconian lock down measures because .... 34 new cases -- no deaths (reported in the article) ... but 34 new cases in a province with a population of a 100 million. Wow.

I wrote this before. I think it was a personal e-mail --- not on the blog. Folks are absolutely terrified of this. It does not matter their educational level or background but folks are absolutely terrified of this virus.

My wife; our oldest granddaughter (age 16); my Harvard-educated son-in-law; my Indian IT neighbor; my brother-in-law and sister-in-law; everyone in my little world is terrified of this virus.

I'm in the minority and I'm conflicted. Not terrified. Just conflicted. I know I've either had it or will eventually have it.

But everyone in my little world is absolutely terrified of this. Wuhan flu. Fascinating.

Years ago, in medical training, I was taught that when working in the emergency room and a patient went into cardiac arrest, I was to take my own pulse first. The point being: stay calm, stay rational, press on.

But even better, Rudyard Kipling, link here, it begins.

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, ...

Turn Into, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
As I reflect on the above, trying to decide whether to post this or not, there is one group of folks that seem to be unbothered by Wuhan flu, not afraid of it, just frustrated that their lives have been interrupted.