Do They Have Eyes But Fail To See, Ears But Fail To Hear?

           '"I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
         “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
        “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’        
         “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’” - Luke 16: 27-31


       And while the future's there for anyone to change still you know it seems
            It would be easier sometimes to change the past - Jackson Browne

     Unbelievable.
     Our country is in the early stage of a deadly pandemic. Early stage, so say national health experts across the U.S. As of yesterday in the United States there were 1.2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 - which, it is believed, is probably a fraction of the unconfirmed cases - and 74,000 deaths, also probably a fraction of the actual coronavirus deaths. And the numbers are still on the rise.
       The pandemic has been going on for less than two months - not two years, or five, or ten, or the numbers of years societies have been known to endure and survive hardships - and it's too early to lift stay at home orders. It's too early to re-open the country for business as usual. Or even for business not as usual.
       The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention project that if states begin re-opening now then by June 1, three weeks from now, there will be 3,000 deaths a day in the United States. The White House predicts that if states re-open now - as Donald Trump encourages them to do - its original projected COVID-19 death toll in the United states will double by August. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predicts that that number will more than double. And these projections are only for the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A second, much worse wave of sickness and death is projected for the fall and winter if states re-open now.
     States are re-opening anyway.
     Every pandemic model, every scientist, every health agency from the CDC to local public health agencies are warning that this end of sheltering in place means that we are headed into a terrible spike in coronavirus deaths.  And yet states are lifting stay at home orders anyway and are re-opening for business to varying degrees, but re-opening all the same. Offices, stores, restaurants, movie theaters, hair salons, beaches, factories, warehouses, all the places in which this insidious virus will thrive and spread.
      Here's what's so unbelievable: Our leaders know that re-opening the country now will cause coronavirus deaths to spike. And they're allowing the country to re-open anyway. Businesses owners from corporate to small know that re-opening will cause the virus to spread. People know that being out in public places puts their lives at risk. But businesses are re-opening anyway. And people are going out anyway, some going flagrantly into crowded, blatantly unsafe places.
      And in August when 2 million people are sick with the coronavirus and 200,000 Americans have died from it and continue to die we won't be able to ask how this tragedy happened, and mourn if only we'd known.
       Because we do know. We know, but too many Americans don't believe. They believe that the hundreds of thousands who die will be others, not them. Never them.
     No matter what the prophets tell them.

         They wouldn't be convinced even if someone came back from the dead.

References:
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/live-blog/2020-05-07-coronavirus-news-n1201801

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/us/coronavirus-live-updates.html

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/495679-coronavirus-cases-deaths-are-spiking-in-some-of

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/health/cdc-coronavirus-truths-trnd/index.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/covid-19-models-early-lockdown-lifts-deaths-georgia-2020-4

The Gospel of Mark Chapter 8, Verse 18