CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN: LIFT THE LOCKDOWN, REOPEN AMERICA NOW.

ICHEOKU says it is easy to say stay the course with the continued lockdown of the country when you are privileged to work from home. If you are a talking head on television pontificating the imperativeness of remain sheltered because of your guaranteed income, it is also easy. If you are part of the Hollywood crowd whose bank accounts are busting to the seams and you have no difficulty meeting your monthly obligations on bill payments, it is also easy. Other rich fellows equally can stay sheltered until thy kingdom of vaccine comes as they can afford to do so. But when your ability to feed your family and also meet other monthly bills obligations, including rents, electricity, insurances is greatly encumbered by the shelter in place and you cannot do your job from home and needs to get out, move around for work in order to earn your living, then the country should have been reopened since many moons ago. 

People need to earn money to sustain their livelihood and it is increasingly becoming very difficult to do this remaining quarantined. The $1200 stimulus check was spent upfront before they even arrived as people borrowed on it. It was not even enough for one month's rent for those who had it intact when it arrived, talkless of now three months arrears of rents, feeding and other incidental expenses majority of Americans are faced with from month to month. As the president appositely said, the cure should not be far worse than the disease, but it is somewhat proving itself to be true as many people are now wondering if there was any merit in even shutting down the country in the first place. Thousands of people died regardless and it is possible that around the same number of people would have died anyway had the country stayed open. ICHEOKU says it is very doubtful if those making the rule even understand what majority of American people are going through, otherwise nobody would have contemplated any extended lockdown. 

The primary reason for the initial lockdown of the country was to ensure that hospitals are not overwhelmed but not that the coronavirus disease goes away or that people are no longer infected or die anymore. They had insisted that the curve must first flatten before the shutdown can be lifted; but now that the pandemonium created has been controlled with flattened curve and the hospitals were not overwhelmed, they have shifted the narrative to first finding a cure and/or vaccine before reopening the country. ICHEOKU is emphatic that at the rate this people are going to shift the goalpost that even if a vaccine or cure was found today, they will insist that all the 360 million Americans first get vaccinated before the country reopens. Now, the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that there might never be a vaccine for the coronavirus and the retort is, does that mean that the countries of the world, including America will never be reopened ever again. 

Being alive is a risk unto itself and there are other things which kill people including cancer, accidents, drug overdoses, suicides and homicides. All every sane person prays for is the ability to cope with living amidst some tolerable risks that could be reasonably managed, not a risk-free life. The coronavirus has done its worse as medical science and health practitioners now have a better understanding on handling it. This now makes it a tolerable risk which everyone can and should be prepared to adjust to and live with. Therefore the country should be reopened as the contract with Americans for which Americans yielded to the shutdown instruction, was that the country will come back to business once the coronavirus pandemic submits to a reasonable management. Contracts are entered with the expectation that parties thereto will honor their part of the bargain by keeping to its letters. American people have performed their part and now is for the authorities to also do their part by completely lifting the lockdown. 

The pain and suffering is getting unbearably too much and anyone still advocating for a continued lockdown is heartless and merciless. People are dying; children are starving; bills are piling up and domestic violence is rising as frustrated parents can no longer stand each other's inability to put food on the table. A matter made worse because there is no time definite when the lockdown will be completely lifted, making planing extremely difficult. The bad news is that many of those insisting on extended lockdown cannot survive for one week on the monthly wage being earned by the working poor of America. They do not understand what the dire situation is really like, with no food in the stomach; the reason they sound so oafish with their statements. None of them have helped pay for the rent, food and/or other bills for those under the water of the continued lockdown. They are not in their shoes and have no idea what the suffering in the country really feels like. 

Anyway, suffice it to say that the initial purpose of the shelter in place have been achieved, hospitals were not overwhelmed and the nation now have a better understanding of how to reasonably manage the coronavirus. Personal hygiene, masks and social distancing where possible are ways to keep the coronavirus at bay. Also, we now know that the elderly and the very sick are more susceptible to the disease and measures can be put in place to safeguard them. So, the nation can get back to its daily business now in order to save whatever remains of the economy and prevent it from going a complete belly up. Let the vulnerable be protected, let the infected be hospitalized and treated; and let those who are healthy and able return to their jobs immediately. Enough of the damage being inflicted on America, its society, psychology and economy, end the lockdown now. #ReopenAmericaNow!