COVID Update August 28: Pandemic rules. There are none, but there should be.

1- Loss of life should be more uncomfortable than it is. Our president shouldn’t be able to hide from it. Cameras everywhere. We need to stop referring to people in jails & the border as anything less than Americans.

2- Scientists should be required to report all conversations with the White House where they are being asked to alter a scientific finding to the Inspector General.

3- If you’re in charge of White House social media, you have no business being involved in the actual pandemic response.

4- If after managing a pandemic, you’re scared of allowing people to vote, you probably fucked up the pandemic response.

5- Any drug the president promotes the benefit of, he takes on camera. Same with vaccines.

6- Isolation centers/fever tents = Trump hotels

7- Pandemics are managed in command centers, hospitals, clinics & nursing homes not the Rose Garden.

8- No one leaves the pandemic richer. Windfall profit tax on all pharma cos, insurance cos, major labs during a pandemic.

Money goes to testing for schools and health care in poor neighborhoods.

9- You’re not allowed to call someone a hero and then not give them complete protective gear and extra pay.

10- If Congress allows unemployment insurance to expire with 10% unemployment, donates all their PAC money to a food bank and rental assistance fund.

And they then aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits when they get their butt kicked in the next election.

11- The Defense Production Act should function like a Citizen’s Arrest (or like I thought it did when I was 7).

“I declare the Defense Production Act. Now make masks!”

Seriously, governors should be given that power to activate it if the president won’t exercise it.

12- The combination of not wearing a mask, hanging out in bars, whining about your kids not being able to go to school, using the phrase “herd immunity” should result in automatic forfeiture of your “WWJD” bracelet.

13- Use of the words “I’m not an epidemiologist but...” should cause automatic throat closure and require the use of a (generic) epi-pen.

I know this sounds harsh but it is for the good of many others.

14- If you’re a business and require “incentives” causing you to overcharge for masks and tests and vaccines, you must repeat kindergarten. And eat pasta.

15- If you are yelling about teachers who are worried about their health, tomorrow invite 25 kids over to play in your apartment for the day.

16- If you don’t appreciate the existence of elastic wastes, you and I are having very different pandemics. Don’t hate on elastic.

17- Don’t vape. Obviously not a good idea.

18- OK. Seriously. Just don’t breathe on people or near people for a while. That’s simple.

19- When this thing is over, we need to change some shit. The climate stuff for one. And we need to have a serious talk about what liberty means and what it doesn’t. And stop racism. And the electoral college.

People are looking at our country like “Had to happen.”

20- Be nice. But let’s fix this. We can’t afford to be right without being decent any longer.