The doorbell rings.

You look out and lo and behold, it’s “America’s favorite doctor” Tony Fauci with an assistant holding a clipboard.

Of course, you open the door and let him in.

“Hello Dr. Fauci. What can I do for you?” you ask.

“As you know there is a deadly pandemic sweeping the world,” he starts in his calm, rational, well modulated tones.

“Yes, I know. People with immunosuppressive diseases, advanced diabetes, morbid obesity and other medical disorders are at risk – just as they are of every disease including the common cold.”

For a split second, he frowns, but regains his composure quickly.

“Based on genetic testing, we’ve determined that even though you’re pretty healthy, you’ve got a rare genetic predisposition that makes you as vulnerable as a nursing home patient in a wheelchair with dementia and advanced stage four cancer.”

Understandably, the news hits you hard and you feel your knees start to buckle. You take hold of the wall to brace yourself. Then you take a deep breath, clear your mind, and ask a logical question.

“Is there anything I can do to protect myself?”

“I’m glad you asked. Yes. To reduce the odds that your life might be shortened, we recommend the following: shut down at least 50% of the world economy and have everyone shelter in place until we know we’re all safe.”

You, of course, want to live, but you want to make sure you heard what Dr. Fauci said correctly.

“Won’t that plunge a billion or more people into poverty worldwide? Won’t that financially destroy hundreds of thousands of small business owners and their families in America alone? Won’t that put a $50 trillion hole in the world economy?”

(You know a little about poverty, having been on the “meal-every-other-day” plan for several months when one of your businesses failed when you were a young man.

You’ve also traveled the world, gone way off the beaten track and seen first hand that the real poverty millions live in is more horrifying than anything that ever makes it to the TV set.)

“You can’t put a value on a single human life,” Dr. Fauci says, so confident, so sure, so calm, so reasonable.

“And what about that ‘indefinite’ part? When does this thing you’re proposing end?” you ask.

“When everyone is 100% completely safe, we’ll let you know. It could be weeks, it could be months, it could be years. We don’t know right now.”

Now, the person with a clipboard has a question for you.

“We can only go ahead with your approval. Please sign here where it’s marked ‘x’ and date it and we’ll start the shutdown right away.”

The ball’s in your court now.

In order to prevent something that may or may not happen to you and squeeze out a few more years, maybe even a few more decades, all you have to do is agree to rain incalculable misery down on hundreds of millions of people for an indefinite period of time…

What do you do?