Who is right and who is wrong? North, South, East, or West… who knows best, if at all?
Does one have what the others need, and so need to come together to fulfill that need… and to do so, meaning to collaborate on a grand scale…
80,037 covid-19 deaths in America.
To put that in perspective, Mr. Trump, about 190 nations around the globe have less total cases than America has deaths.
Was 310, now 4,070
GRIM PROJECTIONSAs states reopen, an internal Trump administration model predicts about 200,000 new coronavirus cases each day by the end of May.
On the other hand, what if these numbers are meant to create a situation whereby if, by the end of May, we are nowhere near 200,000 new cases and 3,000 deaths a day, the Trump fanatics can declare victory?
That’s what happens when the pandemic itself becomes weaponized as a political football – “a topic or issue that is seized on by opposing political parties or factions and made a more political issue than it might initially seem to be” – and used to score “partisan” victories.
Then: Who knows what to believe?
Apparently, the covid-19 pandemic will end one of two ways:
nytimes.com/2020/05/10/heal … e=Homepage
[b]'How will Covid-19 end?
One possibility, historians say, is that the coronavirus pandemic could end socially before it ends medically. People may grow so tired of the restrictions that they declare the pandemic over, even as the virus continues to smolder in the population and before a vaccine or effective treatment is found.
'“I think there is this sort of social psychological issue of exhaustion and frustration,” the Yale historian Naomi Rogers said. “We may be in a moment when people are just saying: ‘That’s enough. I deserve to be able to return to my regular life.’”
'It is happening already; in some states, governors have lifted restrictions, allowing hair salons, nail salons and gyms to reopen, in defiance of warnings by public health officials that such steps are premature. As the economic catastrophe wreaked by the lockdowns grows, more and more people may be ready to say “enough.”
'“There is this sort of conflict now,” Dr. Rogers said. Public health officials have a medical end in sight, but some members of the public see a social end.
'“Who gets to claim the end?” Dr. Rogers said. “If you push back against the notion of its ending, what are you pushing back against? What are you claiming when you say, ‘No, it is not ending.’”
‘The challenge, Dr. Brandt said, is that there will be no sudden victory. Trying to define the end of the epidemic “will be a long and difficult process.”’[/b]
In other words, both sides get to claim victory when it finally does end.
Well, this wave anyway.
You want bleak?
Read this if you dare: washingtonpost.com/outlook/ … rc404=true
‘At every turn, the scale of the disaster is almost unfathomable. Forget the Great Recession or the Crash of ’87. It’s easy to imagine a scenario in which, if we escape a crisis “only” on the scale of the Great Depression, we might be lucky.’
Joker could have written it…
And yet, vaccine development may frustrate Covid 19 much more rapidly then supposed.
A lot has been learned since the 1980’s when the mutations seemed to trump any quick development.
This virus does not mutate as skillfully, but if it does, the idea of different versions of viral attack can combine to form a united frontal attack. Eventually the cocktail method may be likewise adapted , far faster then pre supposed. At any rate, the biochemical venue is not to be downplayed between the social-political and the social psychologically new frontiers which are being exposed as primary defensive measures.
As I noted above:
Another rendition of that here: nytimes.com/2020/05/10/opin … e=Homepage
‘I fear that when [Trump’s] shortcomings become apparent, it could trigger a low-grade civil war between those who will ask their neighbors: “Who gave you the right to ignore the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and heedlessly go to a bar, work or restaurant and then spread coronavirus to someone’s grandparents or your own?” And those who will ask their neighbors: “Who gave you the right to keep the economy closed in a pandemic and trigger mass unemployment, which could cost many more lives than are saved, especially when alternative strategies, like Sweden’s, might work?”’
And…
[b]'China has chosen the pathway of locking down and then opening its economy, but with strict social distancing, masks everywhere and highly intrusive testing, tracking, tracing and quarantining anyone with coronavirus to prevent further spread — while it waits for a vaccine to create herd immunity.
Sweden has chosen moderate social distancing, keeping a lot of its economy open, while trying to protect the most vulnerable and letting those least vulnerable — those most likely to experience coronavirus either asymptomatically or as a mild or tough flu — continue to work, get the virus and develop immunity to it. Then, when enough of them are immune, they can sound the all-clear for the vulnerable. That’s Sweden’s strategy, but it is too early to say it’s the right answer.'[/b]
And then the bumbling path that Trump has put us on here.
The main distinction I make [as always] is between those who recognize just how complex this tug of war is when it doesn’t unfold “in your head” but out in the countless contextual reflections of the real world, and those who don’t.
That and the utter incompetence of the Trump adminstration in making it all so much, much worse than had to be.
Unlike with the “climate change” political conflict, which could take decades to resolve, liberals and conservatives may only have to wait 6 months before we have a more definitive assessment of the covid-19 battle:
[b]'Headline: 2020 will be the ‘darkest winter in modern history’ if changes aren’t made, a whistle blower plans to testify.
'Dr. Rick Bright, a whistle blower who said he was removed from his job running a federal research agency after objecting to the widespread use of malaria drugs promoted by President Trump, intends to warn a House subcommittee on Thursday that “2020 will be the darkest winter in modern history” if the United States does not quickly ramp up its coronavirus response.
'“Our window of opportunity is closing,” Dr. Bright wrote. “If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities.”[/b] NYT
Objectivists, stake your positions!
Something hopeful in vaccine development at the National Institute of Health and at Oxford:
“progress has been made: Scientists at the University of Oxford posted the results of a small study conducted in rhesus macaques monkeys to the preprint server bioRxiv. The study found that the experimental vaccine successfully blocked the coronavirus in the monkeys, which are considered to be good proxies for how drugs could work in people because the monkeys share a majority of their genes with humans. Clinical trials with the Oxford vaccine are ongoing in humans”
The United Kingdom will have first access to Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine if it’s successful, a U.K. government official said Sunday.
Oxford has signed a global licensing agreement with U.K.-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to deliver 100 million doses of Oxford’s potential vaccine; the company will work to make up to 30 million of those doses available for the U.K. by September as part of the deal, according to Business Secretary Alok Sharma.
“This deal with AstraZeneca means that if the Oxford University vaccine works, people in the U.K. will get the first access to it, helping to protect thousands of lives,” Sharma said in a statement.
Researchers at Oxford and Imperial College of London will also receive 84 million pounds (about $101 million) in government funding toward developing a vaccine, Sharma announced.
Human clinical trials for Oxford’s coronavirus vaccine began last month. Imperial’s vaccine trial is set to begin in June.
The U.K. has the third-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and the second-highest number of deaths in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University, with more than 244,000 cases and 34,716 fatalities.
US vaccine news:
“drugmaker Moderna Inc. said the first human study of its experimental coronavirus vaccine induced immune responses in some of the healthy volunteers who were vaccinated.”
The date of development, followed by testing in stages-2 nd tier and 3rd tier will be completed by this fall, and the vaccine will be ready to market starting early next year, with government certification quickly affording production on an accelerated schedule.
Hoping on hope for this encouraging development!
The more things change…
nytimes.com/2020/05/23/opin … e=Homepage
[b]'While President Trump and his allies in Congress seek to tighten access to food stamps, they are showing compassion for one group: zillionaires. Their economic rescue package quietly allocated $135 billion — yes, that’s “billion” with a “b” — for the likes of wealthy real estate developers.
'About 82 percent of the Zillionaire Giveaway goes to those earning more than $1 million a year, according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. Of those beneficiaries earning more than $1 million annually, the average benefit is $1.6 million.
'In other words, a single mom juggling two jobs gets a maximum $1,200 stimulus check — and then pays taxes so that a real estate mogul can receive $1.6 million. This is dog-eat-dog capitalism for struggling workers, and socialism for the rich.
'At the same time, it has become increasingly clear that money intended to rescue small businesses has often gone not to those with the greatest need but rather to those with the most shameless lawyers. They are part of our national equation: Power creates money creates more power creates more money.
'One provision in the rescue package provides a tax break that benefits only companies with more than $25 million in gross receipts. AutoNation, a Fortune 500 company, received $77 million in small business funds, although it returned the sum after The Washington Post reported its haul. For-profit colleges, which are better known for exploiting students than educating them, have raked in $1.1 billion.
'A Brookings Institution study found that young children in one in six American households are not getting enough to eat because of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and we’re rushing to help … tycoons!
‘Of course, America does remain a land of opportunity, if you have the wealth. A new study determined that in the two months since March 18, roughly the start of the economic crisis, America’s billionaires saw their wealth collectively grow by 15 percent. And another 16 Americans became billionaires in that period. It’s great to see people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps!’[/b]
Fortunately, once Joe Biden occupies the Oval Office and the Democrats control the Congress, all of that will change.
Right?
Now, if only I could rethink myself into believing that this is not just one more set of political prejudices, but the actual objective truth.
Still, facts are facts, whatever political spin is put on them.
Coronapolitik :
The emphasis on the ever approaching elections are inversely effecting politics and economics and human welfare :
"Vice President Mike Pence argued in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that concern over a “second wave” of the coronavirus was “overblown” and that “we are winning the fight against the invisible enemy.” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top epidemiologist, also said that the country was not in a “second wave,” but for a very different reason: he warned that the nation was still in the first wave.
“People keep talking about a second wave,” Mr. Fauci said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. That is not accurate, he said, because “we’re still in a first wave.”
Mr. Pence’s argument appears to have oversimplified a complicated picture, emphasizing regions where the pandemic is waning while explaining away surging infection rates in other states. His rosy picture conformed with President Trump’s desire to reopen the economy and get Americans back to work, but it ignored bad news, especially in the Sun Belt.
In at least 20 states, new cases are increasing, some at alarming rates. Some states, including Texas, South Carolina and Arizona, are seeing their largest surges yet, according to data compiled by The New York Times."
{At first, the obvious appears, that a self serving procedure of resisting large scale Capital distribution is at hand. But here is the tricky part: an extended depression of the economy may worsen not only the variable rate of viral transmission, but plunge the economy onto a historical repetition of the Great Depression.
Where does truth lie?
In capitalism, disease = profit.
The more meds the people need, the more they can get screwed with pricing.
on the other hand, if disease reduces profit,
drug companies and med companies fizzle away into nothing.
This is a reaction to opportunity.
It’s like a kind of opportunism.
If people needed nothing, the entire economy would fizzle away into nothing.
A robust capitalistic economy has very needy citizens.
Capitalism is a reaction to need and necessity.
Everything vital and rare becomes a commodity.
Commodities are faught over.
Eventually someone corners the market and makes big money.
If we had world peace, the weapons dealers and contractors
would fizzle away into nothing. World peace is impossible in capitalism.
Its the same old deal, if disease did not exist, it would need be invented.
Why?
So that there could be an antidote to democracy.
Faucci says don’t worry about the second covid wave this fall, because it is here, right now.
The statement was made in response to Trump downplaying the increasing rate of infections, in fact at recent appearances, praising the economic recovery, but keeping mum about Covid19.
"A CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data found the U.S. 7-day average of coronavirus cases surged more than 30% from a week ago after the total number of cases grew by more than 31,000 on Monday. California is one of the states that has seen a dramatic spike in cases, adding more than 6,000 on Monday alone. In Texas, the Covid-19 hospitalization rate has hit a record for 12 straight days. "
Data released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that the actual figures in many regions are probably 10 times as high as reported.
Reported infections world wide:10 million
Reported deaths world wide approaching 1/2 million
Then X10, you draw the actual numbers
Compare that number with those that of the Spanish flue of 1918:
“At its worse, the Spanish flu infected 500 million people worldwide, which at the time was about a third of the Earth’s population. More than 50 million people died of the disease, with 675,000 in the U.S.”
{Apparently, as a start, 6 months into the pandemic, the stakes are admittedly very high.}
This post did not age well.