I hope for the best for you and yours, Asturcot. Have fiends in the same boat. So far, my large family has been fortunate. I don’t expect it to last.
Interesting article. Alcindor claims it’s why Trump is in such a bad mood. This article points out everything he did wrong…about the virus at least.
Best to you and your family.
You and I are in significant disagreement here. I believe the vast majority of these deaths are due to Trump’s many actions destroying our public health infrastructure. After taking the office of the President, Trump removed many public health experts from the NSC, DHS and HHS. These were the same people that directed the response in past potential pandemics. Before Trump we had 47 or 48 out-of-country forward bases employing public health first responders. These are the people that quashed Ebola overseas. We now have only 10 of these forward bases, so Trump not only gutted the brain trust that directed the world-wide pandemic response, he demolished 80% of our out-of-country first-responders. This was our front-line defense against pandemics. These are the same people who identified around 160 possible novel viruses over the past 10 years, and they watched them closely to halt propagation.
While he was President, Barack Obama developed funding for the design of a machine that the US could use for producing N95 masks at an enormous rate in the event of a pandemic. That design was delivered from the design firm to the Trump administration in 2018. The Trump administration did nothing with those plans and the machinery was never built, so our stockpile of N95 masks at the start of this year was around 35 million masks. The US has 18 million health care workers, so that is less than two days worth of masks, at best.
Trump received intelligence from the DoD last November warning of a potential pandemic. I have it on extremely good authority (which I shall not divulge) that he was also told in December. He was definitely informed by the intelligence community in early January. He did nothing but play golf and hold campaign rallies for nearly three months, while lying to the American people in multiple ways that everything was under control.
As far as I’m concerned, this pandemic could have been crushed in the early stages, and as far as I’m concerned, the vast majority of these deaths are attributable to Trump’s profound ignorance and depraved indifference. In my mind, Trump is as responsible for these deaths as a negligent car owner with defective brakes who drives downhill towards a crowd and fails to stop and mows down the crowd because he didn’t perform maintenance.
So, no, this is NOT a “small fraction”. Not anywhere near that. It’s BIGLY YUGE.
I also have a relative who is dealing with this disease. I’ve heard that they’re doing fairly well so far.
Best wishes to your relative.
No argument from me about Trump’s culpability. Fwiw, I didn’t say a “small” fraction. Whatever the fraction is, it’s enough, I agree, for him to be guilty of homicidal negligence.
Sorry. When I read “fraction”, I assume “small” is implied. My bad.
The WHO whopper Jabba told today is planet nine scale. He seems to have a psychological condition in which anything he imagines to be real - IS real, in his own mind. That is WOW dangerous.
I was thinking more of the really red states, the ones that have smaller big cities that aren’t that liberal, and a bunch of medium or small sized towns. SD is a prime example. But, nothing I said is really wrong when looking at the red states with blue metro centers like TX…when they open up the cities will fight to keep distancing and sheltering, while the conservatives in the big cities and smaller towns will blithely wander around infecting each other. In all of these states, we’ll see infections coming from the people who listen to Trump and quit taking the situation seriously…they are the people I see now on Facebook talking about herd immunity and the whole thing being a hoax due to the lower than expected death rates.
It’s red America that is going to see the second wave, because red America thinks this is all nonsense blown up by the media to hurt Trump.
Died from “halting of the economy” is not really a thing.
Darwin at work,
And I was agreeing with your premise-- nearly all of it.
Perhaps just an edit to the descriptive ‘red America’? To a more granular ‘conservative America’.
With no irony or bombast I’ll add:
It kills me to consider the collateral damage that awaits.
That even in the heart of a great, mostly liberal city? Personally, being at-risk in multiple categories, I’m having to consider staying in self-quarantine until a vaccine is released to the public. Perhaps for the better part of a year.
Appreciate the exchange.
The key question (to me) is How many people are surprised that the counts of both people with the disease, and those who have succumbed to it are low? We got the hint from tRump a long time ago… he wants to keep the numbers low.
Florida’s numbers are suspiciously low. It will require a detailed analysis done at a later date to get an idea of the number of deaths caused by COVID-19 and that will be rejected by the Repukes as an attempt to make Trump look bad.
Not trying to pick nits, but adding to your point. Chump ‘imagining’ it is real is bad enough. But I think there is no doubt he KNOWS what is real and imaginary. His whole schtick his whole life was to blow a fantasy at people and keep blowing and waving his hands and demanding you accept it…until people nodded and went along. Just lie lie lie and challenge people to call him on it. He used the media and lawsuits as a megaphone and enforcer. A predator who saw early on he could make his way PURELY as a liar. No other skills necessary. In Business and in Society, there was only so much tolerance for calling someone a liar and spending time and money to prove the lies and punish the teller. He was sufficiently armored and shameless about the lying, found his way to profit from it, and got PAST the pain point that the rest of us would never even approach. He is not unique in being dependent on lying. But many of his other disorders combined to create a unique monster…and of course the idiots of our country banded together to give him unlimited powers.
I live in the DFW area and thanks to our local mayor/council/commissioners and the large urban leaders, we are taking this seriously. Now, you go to some stores and in the streets, some folks don’t take it seriously on an individual level. Thats infuriating: they are losing their jobs and are suffering but wont social distance or wear masks?
Let’s hope the good progress continues.
Some people refuse to recognize a threat unless they can see it. Consider it a Darwinian contributor. Unfortunately, such people also endanger the rest of us, so we must keep our distance from the ignoramuses. Sorry to put it in such blunt terms, but the brilliant have provided society with methods and technologies that enhance the survivability and longevity of all, and there are those who are less brilliant who do not adapt quickly to events that increase the likelihood of near-term mortality. The meek might have a small probability of inheriting the earth, but the stupid have none.
No prob.