DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- I am fearful we Americans are woefully and psychologically unprepared for a wave of increasing numbers of the sicxk and dying among us in such unprecedented numbers since the latter few years of World War II when the US was engaged in two major military theaters.
There was the European Theater with the in 1944 Allied landing at Normandy and the march across France and Belgium to the NAZI German border, some three years after America's military forces were locked in on the Japanese in the Pacific Theater after Japan's aerial sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that led to gruesome fights in remote islands like Iwo Jima en route to the use of two atomic bombs on Japanese cities and Japan's unconditional surrender in early September 1945, some four months after the Soviets got to Berlin before the Allied forces in the toppling of NAZI Germany with the Red Army's flag (hammer and sicle emblem atop the German Reichstag.
American loss of life approached 418,000 at WW II's conclusion in 1945, in a mere four years. The death toll for the Soviet Union was a staggering 24 million civilian and military deaths.
I am fearful that in the here and now, Americans will become "shell-shocked" by greater numbers of coronavirus infected and death toll figures perhaps approaching 6 figures in the next six weeks before the grim statistics begin to fall.
The Trump Administration and politicians at the state levels surely are mindfdul of catastrophic loss of life, which is why we have witnessed California's statewide lockdown in the last 36 hours, followed by New York and likely Illinois in the coming hours.
My hunch is when four to six weeks have passed, we Americans will begin to to feel the PTSD of upwards of 100,000 dead. Yes, an insane number and reckless, perhaps on my part, in stoking fears.
But what if it tuns out that I was in the ballpark, with say 50,000 to 65,000 lives lost?
I am in self-quarantine and will be for at least the next 2-4 weeks minimum (in 1BR apartment with my wife, our yorkie and mini macaw, even as she tries to hold onto three of the five work days she now has left with the recognition she could see her job gone altogether as soon as the next week...
Perhaps if the realization of catastrophic loss of life here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave surpassing the death toll in Italy and China, that locally here in East Central Florida, this insistence by county elders to keep the beaches open will seem trivial in what appears to be en extension of partisan politics when Democratic-controlled South Florida leaders shut down South Beach and other Spring Break destinations. This leading to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' lline drawn in the sand earlier this week at keeping the beaches open here in Daytona and on the other side in Tampa-St. Pete-Clearwater where GOP local leaders call the shots.
Just three days ago, Deb Denys, the Dis 3 county councilewoman who is running for county chair in the 2020 elections with with current Chair Ed Kelley opting not to seek a second four-year term, proclaimed ...
And it was the Democrat, Northey of Deltona three years removed from her council years, reacting in social media with ... And Derrick Henry, the Daytona mayor seeking a third term in the 2020 elections, also turning to socialmedia with...
And who among Democratic stalwarts have the loudest voices here from Daytona to Deltona? Daytona Beach Mayor Derrick Henry and former Volusia County Councilwoman Patricia Northey of Deltona.
The partisan divide in Washington between the GOP of Donald Trump-Mitch McConnell and the Democrat leadership of Nancy Pelosi-ChuckSchumer is akin to the psartisan divide here in Volusia County under the mask of non-partisan elected office -- with the line drawn in the sand of GOP-majority-led County Council's Ed Kelley-Deb Denys and the Democratic minority with Derrick Henry (and back-up from Northey on the sidelines.
The bottom-line for those ast the top of the partisan divide in EWasjhinton and here in Greater Daytona Beach will be trying to stave off economic collapse against the backdrop of the Grim Reaper's collective.