Come to Thanos: How I learned to stop worrying and love the coronavirus.

As perennial nincompoop and walking case study for the Dunning- Kruger Effect Donald Trump is just now discovering — that ‘rona is nothing to fuck with.

As of this writing, the global case count (that we even know about) is just north of 304,000, with 14,573 deaths. The absolute ineptitude of the Trump administration to deploy any sort of comprehensive testing probably means at least the first number is significantly, if not exponentially higher.

As the life on earth comes to a screeching halt in response to this global pandemic — a whole host of unintended positive consequences has arisen as well. Call it the Thanos Effect, after the brutalist environmentalism of the Marvel comics supervillain of the same name. Ironically enough — this deadly disease has presented jarring solutions to some of society’s most irretractable problems.

For starters — the mitigation on air pollution is literally visible from space. Satellite photos over the hardest hit areas of China and Italy have shown that nitrogen dioxide emissions have been cut nearly IN HALF over a mere 4 months as a result of the shuttering of factories and sudden absence of cars on the road. The waters in the Venice canals have run clear for the first time in 60 years and marine life is returning to places it hasn’t…