A large group of supporters gathered Monday outside of the Orange County headquarters of the Coronavirus as the deadly disease surged to become the leading alternative to Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders, who currently polls at 34% in the California Democratic primary.



“I had originally planned to vote for Pete Buttigieg,” a 35-year-old Bel Air man tried to explain before being carted off to an emergency room.



The sirens underscored the urgency some of these young-ish white folks felt in trying to stop Senator Sanders, the Democratic frontrunner. The somewhat psychotic influx of support for the Coronavirus has put the respiratory disease, which kills around 2% of its supporters, into second place in the latest Super Tuesday poll at 24%, just ahead of Warren (17%) and former Vice President Joe Biden (12%).



Some 24% of respondents in the Earthlink-AOL poll show Coronavirus is preferable to any of the other Democratic candidates in a dwindling field.



“I wanted Amy Klobuchar,” a midwestern transplant said between muffled coughs through her homemade paper face mask cobbled together from a six-foot long CVS receipt. “Now that she’s out, I’m going to my local polling place to see if I can change my vote to Corona,” she added. “Someone has to stop Bernie.”



The rally comes on the heels of Klobuchar and Buttigieg both endorsing Biden. “They’re not thinking clearly,” said one transplant from Chicago. “Biden and Obama deported a lot of people. Coronavirus is the only candidate who has reached across all borders.”



In an email, Senator Sanders responded to the Coronavirus by urging all Americans to “make sure you wash your hands and don’t touch your face.”



Biden responded by asking, “What about chewing on my wife’s fingers?”



In a written statement, a spokesperson for Coronavirus said, “Coronavirus is a serious public health threat. Fourteen cases have been diagnosed in the United States, in addition to 39 cases among repatriated persons from high-risk settings, for a current total of 53 cases within the United States. The U.S. government and public health partners are implementing aggressive measures to slow and contain transmission of COVID-19 in the United States…Implementation of basic precautions of infection control and prevention, including staying home when ill and practicing respiratory and hand hygiene, will become increasingly important. Also, you should just wash your fucking hands even when there’s not a pandemic at your doorstep, you uncouth neanderthals.”

By Jerry Garcia