I think you are right. A lot of what people are doing now is an over-reaction. Here in Tucson I have yet to actually see some get sick with C19. The death rate in Pima county is .0003 — about a hundred times less than the most stringent measure of social statistical significance. (I checked and did the math.)

But there is some nuance to this. The rate of death and complications is much higher than that of the regular flu, but even though the raw numbers are low it is far more than ERs and ICUs can handle. Most people — around 80% seems to be the most agreed on number — get through C19 with minor flu symptoms, or never even know they had it. Pretty much like the regular flu. But instead of .01% needing the ER or ICU, 1% do. That doesn’t sound like much, and it’s not in terms of raw numbers, but it’s ten times what the ERs and ICUs are prepared to handle.

The idea behind the lock down was to protect the ERs and ICUs from being completely overwhelmed. A good idea in concept, but I think it was taken way too far. New York City might benefit from a total lock down, but not Pima county. Common sense social distancing would do the trick, while keeping an eye on infection rates and hospital admissions. Everybody should be prepared to hunker down for a week, but a full blown statewide shutdown, outside of Phoenix, anyway, is and over-reaction.

But here’s a positive note: This crisis is going to get us to finally move into the 21th century. It’s just plain dumb to use expensive dangerous dirty cars to drive from your computer at home to your computer at work. Not everyone goes to a computer at work, but those people who do should be driving to get there.

Think of the savings in gas, outrageous hospital bills, car and insurance payments. Where’s the downside?

And since parents are home the kinds don’t need to go to that 19th century vintage school. Right now the public schools are falling on their faces trying to do what they’ve always done in a classroom via a computer. That’s because they are stuck in a 19th century bureaucratic mindset. New thoughts are not allowed. One of the properties of bureaucracy is maintaining the status quo — that is, resisting change. The people who inhabit those soul crushing organizations run from new ideas.

So…Close the schools, and put them to good use by tearing them down, grinding the wreckage into a powder and using it for fill dirt. Then turn the challenge of building an at home/online home schooling curriculum to people who have been doing it for years — the home schoolers.

Think of the savings! No more huge buildings to heat, cool and maintain, thousands of school district employees we don’t have to pay — or fund retirement plans — any more. No more school buses, drivers, mechanics.

Then we take all the money we saved and build an affordable nationwide high speed broadband wifi system so we can offer k-16 education to everyone for next to nothing. All those ex-school employees can learn to do something useful. Like figure out a way to get rid of all those ugly power lines that constantly ruin the view that cleaner air is now offering.

And that is just the beginning.