b'the population of the Coastal Bend is not 600,000, their baseline for all their pre-dictive estimates, but that it is closer to 500,000. Never heard back on that one, either. Dr. Bird explained that this weeks models looked much better; it was good news that far fewer Covid-19 cases have actuallybeenreportedherebutthat wasdefinitelynotwhyhispredictions this week will be lower, having stopped him short of claiming that social distanc-ing is working better than first thought, as his model took that into consideration. In another news interview, he claimed that the number of new cases last week (about 20) was lower than his prediction (of at least 3,000) because social distanc-ing is working better than first thought.Dr. Bird is an excellent and accom-plishedmarinebiologyresearcher.He is not a human epidemiologist, and who cares? It makes no difference. His and Dr. Tissots predictions were wildly overes-timated, as were all of them. We might as well have just prayed in unison like Mayor McComb suggested, or listened to Trump, as they both pretty much turned out to be right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, so they say. The Start of a SolutionDrug cartels The truth about our Covid-19 Pan- have paralysed Mexican society, demic of Insanity is: (1) China releasedand immigrants fleeing violence and the virus, lied about it with the help ofpoverty have created an annual crisis the WHO, covered it up and are still cov- at the U.S. border.ering it up; (2) For our own greed, one could say, we have outsourced produc- southofhere.IfAmericancompanies tion of everything we need in such a cri- need cheap labor that damned bad, lets sis to our geopolitical enemy, who gavetake it to Mexico, starting with anything us the virus; (3) We have not invested inand everything medical. All of it. Now.viral epidemiology in any effective way,Factory workers in Mexico make 1/4 as evidenced by inept predictive modelsthat of those in China, and shipping costs andslowproductionoftestsandvac- are 25% less. Why are we doing this? In cines, and above all; (4) Covid-19 is nothe same way that the USSR was defeated more deadly to healthy people than theby the U.S. outspending them on defense, seasonal flu, and we just undid a decadeChinas dangerous influence in the world of economic growth, ruining the lives ofwill come to a screeching halt if half of millions,becauseourelectedofficialstheir manufacturing exports, about $2.5 panicked and had no idea what to do. trillionperyear,originatedelsewhere. For those who know this editorialMexicos entire GDP is $1.2 trillion. If that staffwell,laughwhileallofuscry doubled, the drug cartels would go away, Trump was right on this, and yes, it hurtstheillegalimmigrationwouldgoaway, like hell to say it. It hurts even more toand a nice side effect might be deadly vi-see our country and our community suf- ralinfectionsthatcatapultourcountry fering for no good reason. into poverty and despair, might go away.ThiswasallcompletelyvoluntaryAmericanshavealonghistoryof and even if we dont lose 675,000 Ameri- great comebacks, and our recovery from canslikeintheSpanishFlucanwethe Covid-19 crisis must be among our please learn something this time and dogreatest. What doesnt kill us must make something about it? us strongerwe owe it to ourselves, our Lets start by saying Zijin to Chi- kids and our country to grow stronger na, and Hola to our real friends 150 milesand much, much smarter. The EditorTheCoastalBend.com THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINEQ2.2020 39'