I can be pretty sanguine about this plague. I don’t need to get to work. My little Social Security check hits the bank on the same day every month. No one depends on me for anything. It’s easy for me to do my assignment and just stay home.

And then something hits home.

See this map? See that big red patch way out in West Texas? That’s the Permian Basin, our country’s biggest oil-production patch. It’s mostly “staffed” by itinerant field workers who live in “man camps” during their work week and travel home to their families on their days off. 

Last time I flew from Denver to MAF, everyone on the plane but me was an oilfield worker getting back to work. Looks like they’re still doing that. This is how that killer is spreading. This is how it got to my isolated little home town where my mother lives all alone in a nursing home because visitors are forbidden now and where my retired sister delivers bag lunches to school children whose school is shut down.