Day 13 in Lodi California
Dear Reader
Hello my friends, my name is Elmer Green. I’m 42 years old and live with my wife of 11 years and our little dog, Chuck. Please sit back and you’ll hear a tale. I’ll likely lose my job over this or perhaps even worse, who knows? But I could not keep quiet any longer, now that the plan has gone too far. This may seem incredulous, but trust me, it is very real.
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The mayor of Calais in France was furious. It had been years already and the migrant camps just kept getting bigger. This also saw an increase in the rise of crime as well as a downturn in the number of people visiting the city. It was generally agreed that a 40% drop in arrivals, representing millions of Euros, had occurred since the onset of the crisis in 2016. She picked up the phone to call the President once again. Not only was the city crumbling because of a migrant crisis, but now a virus was threatening the entire population. Paris could not help.
The mayor of Barcelona was similarly annoyed. Since the end of 2016, far too many migrants had arrived in the city looking for a better life. She could not blame them, as it was a wonderful place to live. As the first woman to ever hold the position, she was more sympathetic than others may have been. But things were getting out of control. Where you could once walk by the beach or in the park, now there was someone selling trinkets. Not a single Euro in tax was collected. Pickpocketing, street crime and petty theft had increased by 200%. Madrid was not helping at all, as they too were struggling with many of the same problems.
In New York, The homeless problem had gotten nearly impossible to deal with. There was simply no place to house everyone and the cost of maintaining shelters had become untenable. Even with help from the private sector, money was draining from the budget like a Subarachnoid hemorrhage. Everywhere in America it was the same: Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago or Miami; it didn’t matter where, the story was the same. People flocked to New Orleans for its relaxed and freewheeling lifestyle, only to get caught up in the crushing grind of poverty.
And hardship was squeezing the developing world also. Poverty on this scale had not been seen in all of human history. Nations like India and the Philippines were doing everything they could to try and ease the situation. But nothing worked. And everywhere that there was an increase in poverty, there was a rise in crime. People were demanding solutions.
And then the virus hit.
Managers at various health units began to freak out over the spread of a contagion for which there was no jab. Predictions based on a modeling plan that was not completely supplied with all the facts began to spell out a scenario where millions upon millions would perish. These were of course later scaled back, but not until after the plan had been put in to action.
What was the plan? I hear you ask. We’ll get to that in a moment, but first some facts:
Taking China and Iran out of the equation, as no one believes anything that they say, Johns Hopkins University of Medicine’s Virus Resource Center, as of April 13 reported 557,590 confirmed cases of the new virus in the United States and 22,109 deaths due to the disease caused by the virus.
The current population of the United States is just over 330 million. Do the math. That means 0.17 percent of America’s population has been infected by the virus. That means 0.007 percent of America’s population has died from the virus — Maybe, no one really knows.
Ok, so 39 million Americans were sickened by the flu in the last few months; that’s nearly 12 percent of the population. If 18 million had to visit the doctor for the flu, that’s roughly 5.5 percent of the population. If 410,000 had to be hospitalized, that’s 0.12 percent. If 24,000 died from the flu during this time span, that’s 0.007 percent of all of America.
And that’s with a shot to prevent the flu. Now there’s a really blaring story to report, in real, frightening death-count time, if ever there was one.
The numbers on this particular virus are ridiculously low compared to many far more infectious diseases. The justification for mandating social distancing, shutting businesses, closing schools, shuttering churches and congregations —indeed arresting pastors and park-goers and people who stand too close to others — the justification for all is to keep the virus numbers low, to keep Americans safe and healthy and free of sickness and death. Specifically, 0.17 and 0.007 percentages of the population low. And that is just America. But we’ll get to the justification in a moment.
Sure, it is higher per capita in Spain and Italy but mortality tends to be higher in older populations. And guess what else tends to be higher in older populations too: death in general. Death due a variety of diseases, ailments, medical complications, health issues and ultimately, stoppages of hearts. Older people die. That’s what they do.
But I digress. You, the reader, are more interested in ‘the plan’. Especially because it involves the very people who are entrusted with protecting us. It started with the best of intentions, as many government decisions do, but things have gotten way out of hand.
I am a master statistician from one of the top insurance companies (I can’t say which, just one of the top 5). I was called upon to calculate a series of numbers that could decide the fate of many people. It was pretty simple.
Just say the cost of bringing the economy to a screeching halt and locking down an entire population, thus throwing drug dealers, users, illegals selling trinkets/working cash in hand or the disenfranchised under the bus, was in the billions, then a certain factor could be reached.
Now say the cost of policing a population in regards to petty crime, added to the cost of illegal immigrants not contributing and using healthcare plus the cost of maintaining an elderly population was also in the billions. The cost of annual social security alone in America is over 950 billion.(Here you can choose Euros, Dollars, Rupees… you the reader can decide).
So afterwards, I simply took those numbers and did a very simple calculation. If the cost of (A) was less than the cost of (B), then the way forward (C) was actually rather straightforward.
A flurry of phone calls between world leaders encouraging each one to use the flow chart were made within days of the big agencies announcing a pandemic (and after I had prepared the data). Each nation was implored upon to add their own information, such as policing slums or a having a free health care system. Almost all came to the same conclusion:
That the cost of B was much higher than A.
Except for Sweden. Why? Good question, dear reader. According to the Swedish government, there are no illegals, there are no homeless and everyone contributes. Sure, getting rid of some of the elderly would lower pressure on the budget strings, but like every other nation they figured that’s fine and perhaps faster was better.
Next, an army of sockpuppets were registered in a small town in Macedonia called Veles. They spread panic and fear, which was the perfect precursor to government control. Very few people checked the sources, and simply believed what they read. Those that questioned it were labeled conspiracy theorists or tin foil hat wearers.
And so it ripped through the population, mostly decimating older populations while taking a few others along its path. The economy was in tatters, but federal governments the world over had run the numbers hundreds of times. A-B=C. Petty criminals and illegal migrants either got sick and died or went home. No one would complain that the streets were safer and cleaner.
Sure, many many people were upset that they had lost a parent or their grandma, but the governments were feeling relief at the lower monthly payout that would come as a result. Besides, they figured, old people die at some point anyway, everyone expects it.
But of course — that old chestnut — you don’t know what you don’t know. reared its ugly head. Once folks were locked away at home, people who had never even used an online banking app started to do so. The systems weren’t built for it, and many crashed. Food supply chains were disrupted and not one single online supplier could keep up with the demands of a public who were now terrified to leave the house. Entire groups of the population that had not been considered were suddenly tossed to the wolves. Suicides and domestic violence skyrocket in times similar to these unprecedented circumstances.
Someone probably could have seen it coming, but no one was presented with the complete data set.
Governments that were borderline authoritarian began to crack down on their citizens, passing bizarre laws and consolidating power. It was a massive headache for free countries to sit back and watch, but they were too mired in the drama of trying to extricate themselves from the mess they’d created. Much like many of the wars that America had entered in the last 70 years, no one had considered an exit strategy.
When the riots started, I was glad that I was living in rural California. I have more than enough food for a month and at the moment no job to do except from from at home (unless they fire me). Social distancing is easy as my nearest neighbor is half a mile away. No one has contacted me regarding how to fix this, which is good because I have no idea. All I did was the calculations.
A #wallcrazyfiction story written in isolation.
Stay tuned. https://medium.com/wall-crazy-fiction
