<strong>By David Taub</strong>

Unless you have been living in a cave, you know all about COVID-19, a highly infectious and mortally dangerous coronavirus ravaging our republic.

But, there is another highly infectious virus rushing through our country at present. It is the highly contagious virus of stupidity, aka DUMB-20.

It is easy to identify those who have become infected. We see them on TV parading together in front of state capitols, hospitals, and our front-line heroes of care-givers.

Easily identifiable symptom of the insidious DUMB-20 virus is that it encourages those who are infected to generously share their infection with others.

Another indication is that it causes the infected person to ignore and violate the federal government’s own recommendations for avoiding COVID-19.

DUMB-20 causes the infected person to burst out in a screaming revolutionary rage demanding the incarceration of America’s most respected health experts.

The other epidemiologic dynamic of DUMB-20 is that it is a slow developing infection, with mild clinical symptoms, until after a few weeks, bang, they go down hard.

Since we have no known clinical tests for identifying those infected with DUMB-20, it will sadly be a long time before we can ascertain DUMB-20’s mortality rate.

DUMB-20 has recently mutated, and some who appear to be infected with the newer strain (DUMB-20a) are suggesting outrageously wrong remedies for combating COVID-19, such as drinking poison.

I have been studying DUMB-20, but I missed this “a” mutation until just recently. Kill me now, or kill me later?

It is not a happy time for us, with more than 62,000 deaths after only three months, adding 2,000 or so more losses every day.

We all seek the return of “normality” as quickly as it is safe to do so, absent an effective vaccine. Physical distance and isolation have clearly reduced the spread of COVID-19, saving uncounted lives and serious illness.

In contradistinction, these life-saving government guidelines also appear to promulgate the rapid spread of DUMB-20. It seems to be a zero-sum infectious agent: the more folks avoid COVID-19 by staying out of the public domain, the more folks become infected with DUMB-20 as they flood the public domain.

To what end? “Give us Liberty or Give us Death,” they scream. I’d be damned careful of what you wish for!

There is no magic elixir to make COVID-19 disappear; this will occur only when effective vaccines are developed and provided to all the denizens of spaceship Earth.

In the meantime, what is the best method for mitigating all the misery, illness and death, and our economic maladies characterized by the highest unemployment since the Great Depression? The answer to that is a complicated puzzle, even for the greatest minds of our time.

I have previously written about “leadership,” and how we require it today more than ever, most certainly at the highest levels of government and with insight and empathy most poignant.

Sadly, this commodity seems to be in short supply, much as we are in short supply of nasal swabs.

I also have written about why “unity” is a key element in combating the ravages of COVID-19. Regrettably, this too is in short supply.

Where are all those damned factories that are supposed to be making these desperately needed commodities?

At the highest level of our Federal government, hands are washed frequently, but not to disinfect but to abdicate responsibility and leadership.

Fortunately, this needed but rare supply of leadership seems to be in ample supply in most of our courageous state Governors. Governors who mandate that “wrestling” or tattoo parlors are an essential business are NOT on that list.

Imagine what we could accomplish if there was plenty of the rarest commodity, united leadership, at ALL levels of government.

Our cherished Constitution protects and guarantees the rights of fools to behave foolishly. But, it doesn’t protect them from being infected with DUMB-20.

Until all the powers that be are singing from the same song sheet, both viruses, COVID-19 and DUMB-20 will continue their rapacious invasions of our republic with all its attendant destruction.

I think that the vicious DUMB-20 virus and its “a” variant, may actually have already invaded the sacred realm of Washington, D.C. Some of the most obvious symptoms seem to be present there already.

Let us pray this is not so. But if it IS true, pray it suffers a quick and ignominious demise.

<i>
David M. Taub was Mayor of Beaufort from 1990 through 1999, and served as a Beaufort County Magistrate Judge from 2010 to 2015.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp; </span>He may be contacted at david.m.taub42@gmail.com.</i>