OK, BOOMER: DIE!

Folks are getting antsy to get back to work, and the president is sympathetic, tweeting out support for "liberating" a number of states.

One of the facts underscored by the coronavirus is how many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck with virtually no economic cushion to soften unexpected hits. Like buying basic food ...when you feel brave enough to slip into Walmart and rub elbows with whatever threat to your life you might find there.

Unemployment insurance has been enhanced, but good luck getting signed up. And then good luck sweating out when any of the money will land in your grubby hands.

As for the "covid relief" payment, that's probably only going to happen once, if you manage to get it at all.

So desperate people take to the streets, fueled by compulsion and emboldened by the nonsense being broadcast into their fragile brains.

(Don't think the Russian disinformation crew is taking a holiday.)

More than forty thousand dead in this country so far, which represents a very bad year of "seasonal flu." And it's not remotely over yet.

If New York, our hardest-hit state, has reached its peak, that only means the death toll will likely double before falling off completely. Assuming there is such a thing as "falling off completely."

Other states are probably weeks from hitting their peaks. And the virus is just starting up in rural America.

Social distancing is flattening the curve. But the idea there is that we spread out the demand on our hospital system, to avoid turning folks away to die at home. A flat curve could easily have just as many fatalities tucked under its squished-out form.

Nevertheless, many folks (though not nearly a majority) are willing to take the risk of infection to get back to work. And it's true, getting the disease might have very little impact on them.

Judging from news coverage, these guys also don't mind putting each other at risk to make their views heard. And they're apparently willing to drag their children to the protests too, maybe because they've been told youngsters can't get covid. (Kids get colds every few months, right? It means nothing.)

On the other hand, some folks have a very hard time with the disease, up to and including death. Don't forget, you can spread the virus without even knowing you're sick. And what if you actually are sick? Who hasn't gone to work sick? There's stuff to do and if you're not going to do it, you can bet they'll find somebody else to take that paycheck.

No doubt about it, going back to work will cost lives. As the governor of Washington put it, you "might be killing your granddad" if you don't take covid seriously.

And it's true: Nursing home deaths are ramping up everywhere.

But I get it. A lot of those guys are already half dead. And life is for the living, right? Granddad's had a pretty good run. And he's going to a better place, far as you know. (Nobody can prove there's no heaven.)

Maybe it's time to email the old goat and cut him loose.

No question, Donald Trump wants this whole mess to go away. For the purposes of getting re-elected, he really needs the economy to bounce back in a big, big way ...and soon.

Figuring out when to end restrictions was supposed to be the hardest decision of his life. But then he made that decision, and it was easy! Make the governors decide for him! Got his ass off the hook completely!

Genius, right?

But now he's effing it up, big time.

Everybody says testing is the key to reopening, but Trump is putting all that in the laps of the governors. That's a huge mistake. He needs to sound all empathetic and so forth (or at least pretend) and offer to supply millions of test, all the tests the states could ever want.

For free and quickly ramped up!

He needs to make sure everybody can see he is removing all impediments to reopening the country, so the governors can have no excuses.

But if he digs in his heels and refuses to help, and tweets support for "liberating" states from the sideline, he's setting up the states to reopen too early.

Cases will blossom, deaths with skyrocket, and states will turn turtle, yanking their heads back in.

Not only will Trump catch at least some of the blame for that (and maybe most of the blame), the whole thing will drag on for many more months, ruining any chance for a miraculous recovery of the economy in time for November 3rd.

Reap what you sow, right? How can it be otherwise?