So, let me get this straight. My friend just shut down her spin studio; restaurants nationwide are closing; the tourism industry is all but frozen for the foreseeable future; gyms are shutting their doors (all doing the socially responsible thing). We’ve all heard it. Every knowledgeable health expert and doctor speaks to the importance of ‘flattening the curve’ and their recommendation is rather straightforward: social distancing. Article after article and report after report stress that staying home can flatten the pandemic curve, saving lives (please don’t be cavalier about this people). But we are still allowing domestic air travel? My wife and her co-workers are still going to the airport each day, interacting with large numbers of people, cleaning planes, booking and rebooking customers (exposing themselves to this virus so Bozeman people can go on their Hawaiian vacation, I’m sure the Polynesians are really thrilled about that—dirty blankets anyone?). The NA coronavirus hotspot/epicenter of Seattle continues to send FIVE flights a day to Bozeman (along with flights to Great Falls, Billings, Missoula, Kalispell). The airlines should be the first to shut down. How do you transmit a virus on a global scale in the matter of weeks? Is it restaurants, gyms, spin studios, wildlife tours, hair salons, bars? No, of course not, it’s the AIRLINES. We’re about to give the airlines a 50-billion-dollar bailout (that’s what they just requested), all the while, they continue to operate, business as normal.

Kids who depend upon school meal programs (and school in general) are seeing the doors to their refuge closed. People are raiding grocery stores like it’s the end of the world—leaving people with compromised immune systems unable to find lifesaving sanitizers that they depend upon year-round. What about the families that can’t afford to stock up on groceries? What about the families that are living paycheck to paycheck, hardly getting by month to month before this crisis? Where’s the leadership? I’m not saying we shouldn’t bailout the airlines (certainly not before we help small businesses and the American people), but it’s beyond time to shut them down. And don’t feel sorry for the airlines. Feel sorry for their employees.

Get cozy friends. Embrace the home gym workouts and family time. Turn the focus and bust out the gratitude journal, but please, if it’s not essential, don’t fly. Not now.

We’re in this together. Take it seriously.

A good friend recently said, “We will rise.” Let’s do just that!

Stay healthy and be well my friends!

With nothin’ but love, mwl