Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I were walking this morning when we ran into a neighbor, so we stood and chatted.  Her dog died soon after ours, but she has recently acquired a new dog, a six year old with a lively pettigree, who can jump really high, though he's only twenty pounds.  She then mentioned the Coronavirus, and said she didn't know what to think.  We answered that we didn't either.  It could become terrible, it was confusing, because some patients seemed to have no known contact, and now the first person here has died.  Trump dismissed the death as that of a very old person (actually in his fifties),   Trump is over two decades older.  Since the three of us are very old people, unlike Trump, we feel vulnerable.  Having information so sloppy, ill informed, and coming out of the mouths of people with no expertise is anxiety producing.  This country could use a dose of right speech, cautious speech, and only out of the mouths of trusted persons, but everything these days is upside down, and ignorant, angry and sometimes hateful speech is freely expressed.  We recoil from all information, out of mistrust.  This is a tragedy.