Living in this hot zone call Jacksonville, Florida, I have been preoccupied with the pandemic. Who isn’t? I am uncomfortable tiptoeing into writing things that people will see as political but are really just common sense. How did we get to a point where common sense became political kryptonite?  

Who am I? As a sci-fi writer, I’m just a guy who looks at what is happening now and projects that into the future to imagine what will happen next. I guess that makes me a futurist? I am worried for everyone when I see where we are heading, thanks to anger and desperation replacing common sense.

Here in Florida, far too many people are doing nothing except partying as the infection rate grows. It is like screaming into the face of a tiger that is not going to eat you, because you are young and less vulnerable, but will eat your older or more vulnerable neighbor. How did we become so callow and selfish? We were not this way a short time ago.

When I wrote Immortality, I was publicly attacked for no logical reason other than some groups needed a target, a boogeyman, and I was it. Being attacked was not fun, though, it did greatly help book sales, but I’d gladly have given up all the sales for less attack.

I am concerned that I will be attacked for writing as a futurist about where I see us heading in this pandemic as we continue to put the economy over life. We failed by doing this once already and turned our country into the worst COVID outbreak in the world.

Here in Florida, too many people do not seem to get it. Tourism, the engine that drives Florida’s economy is gone until the virus is gone. Who would want to vacation in a hot zone? In the end, we all want health, happiness, and prosperity. To this end, we should be doing everything in our power to eradicate this virus. Instead, we are futilely self-destructively partying without masks, while trying to reopen and restart an economy that is in a medically induced coma until it, and tourists can safely breathe virus-free Florida air again.