Join the Lemmings, Anyone?

 I’ve written several blogs now about how mystifying this whole COVID 19 shutdown is to me. While visiting my doctor recently I asked him how many COVID deaths he had seen among his patients. None. I asked how many patients in the whole practice of five doctors had succumbed to the deadly virus. None. Since there is approximately one doctor for every 1,500 Americans, I assumed there would be several if not dozens. None. I was shocked because we are led to believe people are dying right and left. This thing is dangerous.

Real numbers are hard to come by since some states don’t report at all while others are almost certainly over-reporting for various reasons. (See “The Emperor Has No Clothes” for more.) I decided to focus closer to home and see what the data in Michigan look like. There are still the same caveats about the truth in the statistics, but at least we are dealing with a more stable set, I hope. I also realize that some other states (California and New York for example) would have higher numbers. 

Checking several sources leads me to be confident that approximately 6,500 corona deaths have been reported in Michigan. I believe that number is likely inflated, but let's use it for this purpose. With an estimated population of 10 million, the deaths are 0.065% of the population. That means 65 of every 100,000 Michiganders are reported to have died from this deadly virus. Fewer than 1 in 1000 people have died from this deadly virus. Apparently fewer even than that at my doctor's office. Remember too that nearly 5,000 of those people were in nursing homes and would have died soon even without the virus.

At the same time, according M-Live, 14% of businesses owners interviewed in late April doubt they will ever reopen. The same article reported 28% of business owners are not sure they will survive. Here’s why that matters: according to a federal government report, 49.1% of Michiganders work for small businesses. Small businesses represent 99.6% of all businesses in Michigan. That means that 7 out 100 workers will be permanently out of work at their pre-COVID employers if they shutter them forever. Again, check the English teacher’s math, but that looks like for every 1 COVID death in Michigan, 100 workers will be out of a job.

With an estimated 1.9 million small business employees, these figures mean 266,000 will lose their jobs because 6,500 reportedly died from COVID 19. Twice that many are out of work now, but hopefully their employers can reopen – hopefully. We are told that closing down businesses, staying home, wearing masks, keeping six feet apart in public is all for the public good. The few “sacrifice” for the good of the many. But here it is reversed: the many (266,000) are sacrificing for the few (6,500 -- or really, 1,500 since the ones in nursing homes were not working).

There is a movement abroad here that is reshaping who we are and how we think. Homosexual activists did the same thing to us in the last few decades. (See “The Uncomfortable Subject”) The ready availability of birth control and abortion rocked our world from the 1970’s onward. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs changed our thinking (and behavior) dramatically in the middle of the last century. How so? Gay marriage is now acceptable; extra-marital sex and abortion have become commonplace. Living off a government hand-out has lost virtually all the stigma that used to be attached.

The changes taking place in society today are going on at such a rapid pace that it is breathtaking. In a few months, we have accepted that the government has the right to tell us when and where we can work, shop, eat, play and pray. California even went so far as to ban singing in church gatherings – the few that are allowed; I assume they wanted to curtail the massive exhalations of shed virus cells from exalting God with our voices. The best economy in decades has been devastated to the point that it may take years to recover.

I feel helpless. I’m not afraid. (Read “The Angel Says Unto You: Fear Not”) I do feel a little bit like the lemmings I mentioned in the “Emperor” post. As a sincere Christian, I am duty-bound to obey the powers that be. I’m that guy who stays pretty close to the speed limit, stops at stop signs, pays his taxes, and, yes, wears a mask, despite knowing how useless a mask is in preventing the spread of COVID 19.

I’m going to get truly scary now, so hold onto your chair. What if this is how the one-world government of the antichrist is going to be foisted off on us. You would have to know me to know how difficult that is for me to say. I don’t fully believe the premillennial/dispensational version of Revelation end times theology with its tribulation and all. If it is correct, though (I’m okay with “if”), I can see how the entire civilized world could jump on some guy’s bandwagon, drink the Kool-Aid, take the blue pill, hop to it and throw themselves over the cliffs like lemmings. We’ve already begun.