Although Donald Trump has named himself a wartime president, I think covid is not the same as something like World War II. My mother was born in Germany in 1940. She didn't miss having a father - no one had them. An entire generation of men was wiped out. There was large-scale loss of life, not only from battles but from the Holocaust, which killed 90+% of Jews in many villages along with many in other targeted populations.

Covid has a mortality rate of around 1%. To me there is no comparison, yet we have now run up a larger deficit responding to it than any time since World War II. The US was in World War II four years, but in Covid five months now. I am very fearful for the future of the next generation - saddled with huge deficits, giant student loans, a growing number of elderly people to support per worker, and facing a disproportionate share of the covid layoffs, all to protect mainly people who are retired and could stay home if they wanted to, there being many volunteers willing to bring them supplies for the duration.

Covid losers are definitely the young. Our country is now a gerontocracy.