Finding a Mysterious Package

While the U.S. appears to be recovering from the destruction of Covid-19, the threat to its economic recovery remains real. After cycling through a healthy dose of stimulus payments, data from the University of Chicago, and the University of Notre Dame, estimated the U.S. poverty rate jumped rose to 11.7% in March 2021 from a reading of 9.1% in May 2020.

Not surprisingly, a recent announcement in social media outlets generated lots of publicity after it became known that brown paper packages, distributed across the U.S., offered an opportunity to win a thousand dollars. The authors of this terrible plot revealed that one of every 10-packages included a thousand dollars, and 1 out of every 20 packages had a carefully wrapped amount of Covid-19 Delta viral load that posed a health risk to the person opening the package as well as to anyone nearby.

With the risk of the rapidly spreading Covid-19 variant posing a real threat, law authorities tried to discourage anyone from opening any of these packages. Unfortunately, since many of these packages were frequently in high poverty rate areas --- the challenges were insurmountable. The thought of getting lucky and winning $1,000 tax-free proved to be alluring for many.

The Incredible Power of the Press and Social Media

During the first couple of weeks of this criminal saga, many individuals that won the $1,000.00 granted interviews to the press and shared their good fortune that sadly provided free publicity for this despicable scheme. As a result, law enforcement immediately discouraged the media from publicizing these successful events in the hope of reducing the odds of a bad outcome.

For a time, the press cooperated, but the number of virus cases continued to rise, causing serious concern among law enforcement officials. Authorities remained at a crossroads because many individuals continued to post on social media positive outcomes when they successfully found a package with a thousand dollars! They understood that while controlling the media was easy, managing postings on social media would be more difficult.

As a result, law authorities went into full-court press mode to find ways to discourage individuals from opening these brown paper boxes during a period where the Covid-19 Delta-variant now accounted for most new cases being reported each week across all 50 U.S. States. Law authorities proceeded to seek suggestions and cooperation in combatting this terrible criminal plot. They received thousands of ideas. The ideas ranged from making it illegal to open these packages to contacting the police whenever they spotted one! None of these ideas gained traction since the chance of winning a $1,000.00 tax-free remained an allure for individuals struggling economically.

Great Ideas Come in All Sizes

Thankfully, a 10-year-old girl named Gigi H wrote a letter to her local Police Station suggesting that law authorities should change their strategy and allow individuals to call law enforcement authorities whenever they spotted one of these thousand packages. Police could dispatch an infectious team to the location. And if that package happened to be one of the lucky ones with $1,000, the person alerting law authorities would be allowed to keep the cash.

This idea was vetted across the entire U.S. and led Federal Government authorities to support this innovative strategy. After two weeks, the number of reports of people getting sick after opening any of these packages dropped to zero. It proves that one should never underestimate the ability of a young mind to think outside the box and generate a viable solution.

With a larger sample of these packages to work with, law enforcement authorities were also able to successfully trace this plot back to a disgruntled person that wanted to cause harm after losing a loved one to this terrible pandemic. Although it is not always easy to deal with someone with malice in their heart, the resolution of this ignominious plot revealed that with enough boldness and creativity, “Good can Always Overcome Evil!”