As America descends into idiocracy, plunging far below any level of scientific and mathematical competence required to realistically deal with this coronavirus outbreak, a stunning example of sheer stupidity emerged today via HHS where CNBC.com ran this headline:

US currently has 10% of face masks needed for a ‘full-blown’ coronavirus pandemic, HHS official says

According to the CNBC story, “Health and Human Services official Dr. Robert Kadlec estimates the country would need roughly 3.5 billion of medical-grade N95 masks.”

The U.S. currently has just 35 million masks, he explains.

So yes, HHS official Dr. Robert Kadlec thinks 35 million is 10% of 3.5 billion.

So if he orders the manufacturing of what, in his mind, must be “the other 90%,” then he will order just 315 million more masks instead of the 3.465 billion that are actually needed (yeah, we can do actual math here).

Is it any wonder we are short on supplies across U.S. hospitals? The people ordering the supplies can’t do basic math.

CNBC author Berkeley Lovelace Jr. (@berkeleyjr) correctly points out: “If the U.S. only has 35 million masks and needs 3.5 billion, the math shows the U.S. actually has just 1% of the needed supplies.”

Kudos to Lovelace for correctly pointing this out, because we now apparently live in a nation where HHS officials think 35 million is 10% of 3.5 billion.

Perhaps those HHS officials were educated under common core school programs where it’s more important to feel good about the process rather than get the right answer.

Rush Limbaugh can’t do math either, which is why he recently accidentally explained to his audience why the coronavirus could kill 3.3 million people, then went on to say “it’s just the flu” and there’s nothing to worry about.

The officials in charge can’t do math and don’t understand infectious disease… what could possibly go wrong?

Since we are facing an exponential explosion of a viral pandemic, the ability to do math is of course essential to understanding where this is going (and how to stop it).

It is at least somewhat comforting to know that CNBC.com writers can do the math, even if HHS can’t. Most journalists working this story right now don’t understand exponential phenomena, by the way, which is why they don’t yet understand there will be 100,000+ infections in America as I’ve explained in this predictions analysis article.

But what’s even more alarming in all this is the fact that as the U.S. government is stockpiling a massive mount of pandemic supplies — food, masks, PPE, sanitizing chemicals and even night vision devices — many government officials are directly urging American to avoid preparing, claiming nobody really needs any masks or food at all.

So we have a government that’s rapidly stockpiling the very same supplies they’re telling the public to avoid acquiring.

And we have bureaucrats at every level of the CDC, HHS and State Dept. who have no understanding of infectious disease, which is why they keep “accidentally” releasing infected people into the public, or placing infected people on the same airplanes as non-infected people, separated only by a plastic sheet affixed with duct tape.

Idiocracy has truly arrived.

That’s why you need to watch this hospital scene from Idiocracy, because this is coming to a government-run FEMA quarantine death camp near you:

“Don’t worry, scro, now they’re plenty of ‘tards out there leading kick-ass lives. My first wife was ‘tarded. She’s a pilot now.”

Stay informed. Read Pandemic.news.