Day 4: 2020 Pandemic. A Sense of Disbelief. Symptoms. Testing so far by state and percent positive.

We “know” SARS-CoV-2 is well beyond containment. Schools are being closed, athletic events canceled, etc. In larger cities, more and more activities are being shuttered. There’s a ripple effect across the country. Here in Knoxville, I’m not getting much of a sense of panic. A low level of anxiety, perhaps. But life seems to be going on as usual.

I say “we know” but actually we don’t. I’m getting emails from people telling me not to spread panic and also to stop talking about the president or saying he’s lying.

Perhaps we’ve all seen too many movies and watched too many TV shows to grasp the full measure of the reality. We believe that the hero will swoop in with a cure at the last minute. All will be good. I write fiction and in my pandemic novel (every thriller writer ends up doing one), I have a form of that “happy” ending: Z-Final Countdown. Unfortunately, reality will be grimmer. Strangely, I used to not understand the importance of “happy endings”. My first published novel Eyes of the Hammer came out roughly the same time as Tom Clancy’s Clear and Present Danger (much better title) with roughly the same plot: special operations interdicting drug trafficking in Colombia. At the end of his book we “win” in the war on drugs. At the end of my book, my hero sees a drug deal going down in the Bronx. That gives you an idea where I come from. You’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you. And this thing is out…