3/19/2020

My dear Friend, DJT,

            It’s a beautiful day here in Davis. The sun is shining. The crab trees are blooming and dogs are frolicking on the green. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that all was well with the world.

            As a numbers person I am finding the news about CV fascinating. An article about FEMA and its ability to handle this emergency was full of quantities that could lead to some story problems. FEMA has a 14,000-person disaster workforce and yesterday, FEMA had nearly 5,300 disaster workers deployed at 42 disaster sites across the United States. How many FEMA workers were available to go to the new CV sites? What percentage of FEMA workers are deployed right now? If FEMA workers are equally distributed across disaster sites, how many workers are there at each site? Of course, these numbers give rise to others questions, too, including: Will we have enough workers on hand when we need them? What if rivers start flooding in the next few weeks? Do these workers know what they’re doing?

            I was troubled by some other numbers that I read this morning about younger people getting CV. WP reports that in the US, 38 percent of those sick enough to be hospitalized were younger than 55 and half of the 300 to 400 CV patients treated in intensive care units in Paris were younger than 65. I hope these numbers are making their way to Facebook so those folks on the beaches in FL will give one another a wide berth. Perhaps they will go back home now that Gov. Santis has closed the bars. I went to FL for spring break in 1979 and spent a day at Daytona Beach – not my thing.

            I hope you take a moment to revel in the beauty of the cherry blossoms and remember that life is good even when things get hard.

            HYITL,