If anyone would have told this Newsdog a month ago that the United States would be living through what we will be living through in the upcoming weeks and months, this Dog would have bit you and scolded you harshly.
One look at the paper goods aisle in your local grocery store will quickly tell you that the sanity ship sailed a long time ago on this most recent virus to end all viruses.  

The virus traces back to a vendor in a “wet market” in Wuhan, China, sometime in November or December of 2019. Other sources indicate the virus may have been harboring inside a bat in China. 

We’re not going to debate the region of origin but honestly, some of the “tin-foil hat” conspiracy theories floating around out there probably ring a little closer to the truth than what we’re being spoon-fed by the mainstream media.

This critically-thinking Newsdog wonders when this stopped being about a virus and started being about fanning the panic flames.

During every single previous strain of virus that was supposed to kill us: Bird Flu, Swine Flu, H1N1, SARS, MERS, you get the gist, this Dog doesn’t ever, and I mean ever, recall any such runs on paper goods and hand sanitizer. 

We’ve all been privy to the pictures of barren store shelves that look more like something out of the USSR than the Wal-Mart in Liberty. 

These pictures make this pooch shake our head in amazed and shocked wonderment at the level of hysteria and panic that seems to have gripped the American public.

Once again, given the main-stream media’s narrative, this Dog poses the hypothetical question: How does a minor virus outbreak in a communist country escalate to such an international crisis? More importantly, why is the mainstream media feeding the flames of panic and hysteria?

One interesting class of businesses we haven’t heard from to date is the banks. With the all-powerful, all-knowing government advising service-based businesses to close their doors and practice “social distancing,” what happens to all those mortgages, car loans, and small business loans the banks and financial institutions are sitting on? Given our dealings with a local commerce institution and their extreme and aggressive unwillingness to work with our small business during a tight spot, we’re guessin’ this won’t end well for anyone who is unable to make their loan payments, small business or otherwise, due to what amounts to a virus-induced, government-sanctioned shut down.

Here’s the bottom line: The Dog isn’t a big fan of what amounts to a 24-hour news media behemoth that fans the flames of panic. 

To calm that hysteria, we’d like to point you to an expertly written article by our own Managing Editor Elizabeth Orosco that lays everything out in a calm, cool, and factual manner. 

Here’s the money line from that article, as quoted by Dr. Darrin D’Agostino, executive dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine and vice president for Health Affairs at Kansas City University, right here in Historic Northeast,  “Just because it’s a pandemic doesn’t mean it’s the worse virus that’s ever existed.”

To be sure, this paw-washing News Pooch is going to keep on keepin’ on as long as we can in this crazy new normal and we’d suggest our readers do the same. Wash your hands, don’t cough or sneeze on people (common courtesy in this Dog’s world), and get out and do your thing.

More importantly, support your locally-owned businesses, like this one. They deserve and need your financial support, especially now.