Trending up...

Our weather's warming again.  It's kind of early, but not by a lot, and I don't mind that much.  Last year was...really late. 

One thing it's not is dry.  Not even trending dry.  Maybe a little dryer than last year, but that's because it's not been raining absolute buckets every time it rains. 

(Local farmers might want to look into planting rice in low-lying river bottom fields...they're wet enough for it!)

This bodes ill for the Corona virus mess.  Typically, Americans get sick in the wintertime.  We're crammed together indoors, getting less sun (i.e. vitamin D--the immune system booster), and many are further compromised by other illnesses (colds) or depression.* 

That said, spring is on the way; amounts of sunshine are climbing, and people are starting to come outside and clean up their yards from winter dropping dead branches all over the place while it was too cold to go pick them all up.  And people are spending less time going out and shoe-horning into stores or movie theaters because they're bored, and it's too cold to go out and do what they'd rather be doing (whatever that is, from sports, to just sitting out in the sun with a good book). 

To be honest, I wasn't that concerned about it to start with, for several reasons.  Yeah, a few thousand people in China have died from it...out of more than a billion people total (I think China's estimated population is 1.7 billion). 

And it's...China.  Their sanitation is...lacking.  And they don't bother washing their hands (not sure if they're provided soap and paper towels in public restrooms, even.  Or toilet paper.).  And they don't give a rat's ass about air quality.  And the majority of them smoke like chimneys.  And they cram themselves together like cattle, even when they're not in public transit.** 

Americans are...different.  We're germ-phobes to the point that the rest of the world mocks us.  We don't like being around people with body odor, because we assume (rightly or wrongly) that they're dirty, and further assume that that could affect our own health.  We don't like being crammed in tight with people, don't like others breathing on us.  We have the largest personal space bubble in the world...and this virus is spread through coughing on each other, sneezing on each other, and wiping germ-y hands on each other.  Which we just...don't do, once we're out of Kindergarten. 

But, as the weather trends warmer, days lengthen, and flu season ends, I think the risks of the current panic du jour will mitigate, fade, and eventually disappear, just like bird flu, swine flu, ebola fears, zika, and all the other virus panics did.  

*Depression--whether seasonal affective or chronic--buggers your immune system all to hell, at about the same level it's doing your emotional state and brain chemistry.  

**The Chinese do not share America's preference for a large personal space bubble.  I don't think there's another country in the world that has as large of a demanded social buffer between individuals.