What is going on?

During a pandemic, such as was occurring on planet earth in 2020, understanding 'what's going on' is kinda important. Those adept at risk analysis, need certain bits of data to aid them in decision pertaining to movements and things they might want to engage in on any given day. For example, let one consider the tail of two cities; NYC versus Forsyth Missouri. One site has a population of over eight million while the other is under two thousand. As of October the 12th, NYC has had 34,342 cases of Covid with 3,183 deaths. Forsyth, on the other hand... well, no one knows. The Health Department in my County, while sort of keeping a tab on county cases, does not publish anything on a town by town basis. Why?

In NYC, citizens have about a 4% chance of catching the virus with a very small percentage actually dying from it. That information, updated daily, can be valuable for someone in determining the level of risk they want to endure when going out on any given day. If the number of those getting infected were to rise for whatever reason, that could be very useful to know. As it is currently, I'd certainly want to exercise social distancing , masks and washing of the hands on a daily basis. But, is that also the case in Forsyth Mo?

Taney County, Missouri, supports a population of about 56K. Forsyth, a town in Taney, has about 2600. Now while I've heard rumors of people getting sick and even dying, that's all they are - rumors! To date, Taney County has had a morality count of 38 with an infected count of about 1100 since January 1. This works out to an infected rate of 1.2% overall, with an equally small number of percentage deaths at .07% for the year. Yet, even with such tiny figures, local citizens are wearing masks like there was no tomorrow. Is that even very sane, I wondered?

Every day, each of us incurs some risk as we go about living our lives. That's just part of the game. We drive cars even as there is a definite risk in doing so. 'Considering deaths in the U.S. that year totaled slightly less than 2.6 million, the individual American driver's odds of dying as a result of an injury sustained in an automobile crash (which include pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists involved in car crashes) come out to about 1 in 77!' That's many degrees higher than getting Covid-19, and yet we do it anyway without a thought!' Each day one of us out of ever 77 could get hurt with some even dying! Think about that one common thing we do when compared to the one in 1 in 100,000 odds per day for the virus! Everyone needs to think very hard and then place the virus pretty far down the risk ladder, where it belongs!