Quiz #53. This Bud's for You
What a backyard garden has to teach us about Bill Gates and the coronavirus. Steve's Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz for May 15, 2020.
There’s always one.
Ahead of the others.
A lone red dot in a sea of green.
This May, our first flowering rose bud of the season to bloom is at the very bottom of our lush, leafy rose bushes.
A seemingly distant outsider.
A wandering adventurer.
A frontier flower.
I have always been fascinated by the first rose bud to wake up in our backyard flower bed.
Looking back at my social media feed from May 20, 2019, the first rose bud last year was in the middle of the pack. I joked, “Said the one rose to all his buds, ‘Someone’s gotta to be first.’”
My Instagram feed and the first rose bud to flower in 2019.
Is the first flowering rose bud the canary in the coal mine?
Blooming early.
Hopefully surviving.
Letting the others know it’s safe to come outside.
Is it the trendsetter?
Come on out.
The sun’s great.
You don’t know what you’re missing.
Does it get lonely?
Wilting before the other buds get it together and throw their floral party.
Is it more beautiful?
The lone promise--and reminder--of what’s ahead that might otherwise get lost if it waited to bloom with all the rest of its buddies. (I couldn’t resist the pun.)
Friday, May 15th, we’re two months past the time when the public first seemed to grasp the reality of this pandemic—and what it might mean for all of us. The first stay-at-home order from a major city came from San Francisco on March 16th--and even then, it seemed like a radical measure.
And yet, many public health officials and concerned citizens were sounding the alarm, days, weeks, months--even years--before.
Ohio’s Director of Health Amy Acton made national headlines on March 12th when she said she thought that 100,000 people in Ohio were infected with the coronavirus. The next day, she had to clarify that she was “guestimating,” based on the fact that the state had a population of a 11.7 million and based on community spread, there was an estimate that 1% of people were infected.
In Congressional testimony this week, Thursday May 14th, Dr. Rick Bright indicated that he tried to sound the alarm within his federal agency back in January and February, urging the government to lead the way with masks and social distancing.
I believe Americans need to be told the truth. We did not forewarn people. We did not train people. We did not educate them on social distancing and wearing a mask as we should have in January and February. All those forewarnings, all those educational opportunities, for the American public could have had an impact in further slowing this outbreak and saving more lives.
During the pandemic, I started reading the Understandably newsletter from Bill Murphy Jr. Back on April 7th, Murphy wrote, “Let’s Ask Bill Gates.” Murphy highlighted the fact that Gates did a media blitz on March 18, 2015--five years ago. While the world was grappling with the fear from the Ebola outbreak, Gates warned about the real dangers ahead from a viral pandemic. He did that with a TED talk, his own blog post, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine and an Op Ed in the New York Times.
Of all the things that could kill more than 10 million people around the world in the coming years, by far the most likely is an epidemic. But it almost certainly won’t be Ebola. As awful as it is, Ebola spreads only through physical contact, and by the time patients can infect other people, they are already showing symptoms of the disease, which makes them relatively easy to identify.
Other diseases — flu, for example — spread through the air, and people can be infectious before they feel sick, which means that one person can infect many strangers just by going to a public place. We’ve seen it happen before, with horrific results: In 1918, the Spanish flu killed more than 30 million people. Imagine what it could do in today’s highly mobile world.
How do these first buds feel now?
Bright is a whistleblower.
Acton’s come under fire for being too dire, for restrictions that go too far. And yet, according to Chris Gaitten in “Amy Acton: Ohio’s Coronavirus Superhero in a Lab Coat” for the Columbus Monthly, read what Acton also said on March 13th.
At the March 13 press conference, the day after she caused a stir by announcing her estimate that 100,000 Ohioans were already carrying the virus, she talked about the pitfalls of her work. “On the front end of a pandemic, you look a little bit like an alarmist. You look a little bit like a Chicken Little—the sky is falling. And on the back end of a pandemic, you didn’t do enough.”
As for Gates, this week, he openly worried that he had not done enough to warn people about the dangers of a pandemic in an interview with Betsy McKay, “Bill Gates Has Regrets” for the Wall Street Journal.
Looking back, Mr. Gates said, “I wish I had done more to call attention to the danger.” The Microsoft Corp. co-founder is now squaring off against the scenario he sought to forestall.
“I feel terrible,” he said in an interview. “The whole point of talking about it was that we could take action and minimize the damage.”
Think about that. Bill Gates has regrets--even though he predicted this 5 years ago, broadcasting his message for all to see and hear. We didn’t listen--and yet he has regrets.
Putting politics aside--no small task these days--let me say simply this.
I am sorry I didn’t listen.
The first rose bud of Spring always has a lot to tell us about what’s ahead.
What did NOT happen?
A. After reading the first draft of this quiz, Sara said that she is drawn to the last rose of the Fall. The one that shoots up in November from what looks like a sleeping bush. A promise. “We’ll be back;”
B. After reading this week’s Quiz #50. 63, my sister Susan gave that quiz 4-stars “because there were too many to read at once, made it hard to really absorb each one, for me;”
C. Susan also commented, “Second criticism: why didn’t you live by your own words in #11 when you wrote #48?” (Rules are made to be broken.):
D. After reading Quiz #50. 63, my sister Ginny commented, “Best one yet. Worth the wait;”
E. In Quiz #50. 63, I offered advice about what to say when your partner called you at work to complain about someone. In response, a coworker texted me, “OK Boomer.”
Want the answer?
Answer #53. This Bud’s for You.
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Want more?
Here’s the previous quiz in the series: Quiz #52. PTFO.
Here’s the first quiz in the series: Quiz #1. Stella and Social Distancing, March 13, 2020
Here is an archive of all the quizzes.
The quiz is explained here: Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz.
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