COVID has been spreading w/ exponential
growth in US for some time, and we're just beginning to get an understanding of
how extensively. There are nearly 40,000 cases recognized in the US as of
today, w/ ~100 deaths today. A few weeks ago, we had recognized 70 cases total.
Anyone advising the end of social distancing
now, needs to fully understand what the country will look like if we do that.
COVID would spread widely, rapidly, terribly, could kill potentially millions
in the yr ahead with huge social and economic impact across the country.
March 23rd
Tweets from Tom
Inglesby, the director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health
"New York is the canary in the coal
mine. New York is going first. What happens to New York is going
to wind up happening to California and Washington state and Illinois.
It's just a matter of time," NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo says.
‘You don’t make the
timeline. The virus makes the timeline.’
Dr. Anthony Fauci
“Your money or your life,” goes the
old joke as the armed robber holds a gun to his victim’s head. “Shoot me!” goes
the moronic response, “I need my money for my old age.” And so it is with the
current outbreak of COVID-19. It hurts everywhere. In the gut and in the
wallet. Big corporations facing massive losses seek liquidity in the capital
markets or from major lenders and big bailouts from the government. And if you
make under between $75-$100,000, there might be some modest federal payments
coming your way… maybe… and some delays in tax filing deadlines. How do they
measure that income level, by the way? What you made last year? See the
problem?
As this juncture, there is no doubt
that Republicans see the massive economic harm to the nation as perhaps worse
than losing a few hundred thousand people to the virus (they believe). If the
death toll rises to the a few million, it is generally assumed that the highest
fatality rates will be in big, crowded liberal cities. That having any
hot spots in the nation risks a second wave outbreak escapes their
understanding. That New York has half the confirmed cases/deaths of CV-19 may
bring joy to some ultra-conservatives, but it only makes that financially
critical city a virtual CV-19 storage depot for the rest of the country. Ready
to share later!
Business-priority Republicans see
that a decimated economy could take years to restore. But socialism for
big corporations, a seeming oxymoron, is becoming an American tradition, a
response to catastrophe that veers so completely away from what his worked
before. The GOP likes tax and interest rate cuts layered on top of big industry
bailout funding, even as tax cut incentive policies over the past half century
have failed consistently to accomplish their stated goals: to trickle down good
jobs and money from those who pay big tax bills to most everybody else. It just
never works that way. Dems prefer a more direct approach, reminiscent of the
post-Depression New Deal. See my March 21st
Tax Cuts, Guns and COVID-19 blog for more details on how it could work. The GOP and
Democratic approaches to the stimulus plan show how two sides had very
different approaches, but it was signed into law – in a White House ceremony,
of course – on March 27th. Trump is everywhere; his face, his voice,
his polices. Dems, even Presidential candidates, not so much.
For those in the Democratic camp,
watching a delaying, inconsistent and waffling president, changing policies day
to day, they must be stunned that the President’s approval ratings, according
to poll-summary sites, remain in the 40%+ range, with GOP Senators outscoring
their Democrat peers as well. Biden and Trump are much closer than most Dems
believe. And since politicians are raised on the mantra of “It’s the economy
stupid,” it is equally clear that Republicans fear massive losses in November
if they prioritize health over money. After all, the worst outbreaks of CV-19
are in liberal cities in population-heavy blue states. So, the talk is about
how quickly the CDC guidelines can be lifted (shelter in place, safe
distancing, etc.) and how quickly Americans can just go back to work.
Sanity, from medical professionals,
says otherwise, starting with “I’m beginning to piss off the President” Dr.
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases since 1984, who “has grown bolder in correcting the president’s
falsehoods and overly rosy statements about the spread of the coronavirus in the past two weeks — and he has become a hero to the
president’s critics because of it. And now, Mr. Trump’s patience has started to
wear thin.
“So has the patience of some White
House advisers, who see Dr. Fauci as taking shots at the president in some of
his interviews with print reporters while offering extensive praise for Mr.
Trump in television interviews with conservative hosts.” New York Times, March
23rd. “Dr. Anthony Fauci,
one of the nation’s touchstones for scientific wisdom amid the spread of COVID-19, was absent from
the White House’s daily briefing for the second day in a row on Monday [3/23],
prompting many to wonder where the top infectious disease expert was as the country
reels from the rising pandemic.” Huffington Post, March 24th. Under
social pressure, Trump was forced to bring him back.
Fauci’s admonitions are echoed among the
nation’s healthcare specialists. Like Tom Inglesby, whose Tweets above responded sternly to the President’s
suggestion that restrictions just might be lifted in a couple of weeks, even
after the Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, with Trump standing by his side,
noted two days earlier that he does not expect containment for ten to twelve
weeks. A day later, Trump said, “We’re not going to let the cure be worse than
the problem,” noting how badly virus-induced measures have impacted businesses
and workers.
Yet even Trump’s senior military advisors see
the CV-19 containment process in a more distant timeline. When asked how long
the Pentagon thinks that containment is expected to take, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper (in a virtual town hall) said, "I
think we need to plan for this to be a few months long at least and we're taking
all precautionary measures to do that…I am fully confident that at the end of
the day, in a period of months, we will get through this.” But Fox News’ Sean
Hannity and Laura Ingraham are pushing the President in a different direction.
And he is listening. After all, medical doctors are part of that educated elite
they love to excoriate. Money talks, healthcare walks. You will note that the
stimulus package that just passed gave each party 100% of what it wanted… but
the side that went to business… well, it was horribly ill-conceived as I will
discuss in a later blog.
The money vs health dichotomy is
profoundly illustrated by the difference in how the two biggest blue states,
California (population of 39.5 million) and New York (20 million), are dealing
with the outbreak as compared to the two biggest red states, Texas (29 million)
and Florida (21 million). And while most of the mega-cities in both red states
are blue, the governor and the legislature in both are quite GOP. And just remember, mayors do not remotely have
the power to declare emergencies that governors do.
“Gavin Newsom was the first governor
to order his citizens to stay at home, shutting down California’s economy, the
world’s eighth-largest, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The next day…
Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, followed suit… But not so in Texas and
Florida, the nation’s second and third most populous states, where a
small-government philosophy — less taxes, fewer regulations and a weaker safety
net — has long held sway.
“About one-fifth of Texas’ 29 million
people lacks health insurance, and nearly one-quarter of Florida’s 21 million
residents are elderly. But the governors of those states have resisted stay-
at-home orders, despite mounting criticism.
“Democratic mayors in both states
have canceled events like Miami’s Ultra electronic music festival and Austin’s
South by Southwest and have opened a handful of testing sites. They complain
the patchwork of policies has made it nearly impossible to limit the disease’s
spread.
“But the governors, who are
Republican, fear overreacting… ‘The vast, vast majority of people are testing
negative for this,’ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a Sunday [3/22] briefing
at one of the state’s three coronavirus test sites.
“Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has pointed
to the state’s vast rural stretches in arguing against ordering residents to
stay home… ‘What may be right for places like the larger urban areas may not be
right for the more than 200 counties that still have zero cases of COVID-19,’
Abbott said.
“Officials in Houston, San Antonio
and Dallas, the state’s largest cities, disagree. On Monday [3/23], San Antonio
issued a stay-at-home order and Austin was expected to follow suit on Tuesday
[3/24] … ‘I’m hopeful the governor will reconsider,’ Clay Jenkins, the Dallas
County judge, or chief executive, said at a Sunday [3/22] briefing.
“There, Jenkins displayed a chart
showing the projected spread of the coronavirus far exceeded Texas’ available
hospital beds. According to the projection, a statewide stay-at-home order
could decrease coronavirus deaths from 430,000 to 5,000… He noted that Dallas
has 250,000 uninsured residents, the most of any U.S. city… ‘Those folks aren’t
going to the doctor. If we don’t do something it’s going to be very, very bad
here,’ he said… Will Texas or Florida be ‘the next Italy’?” Los Angeles Times,
March 24th. There are few restrictions on crowds, businesses and
gatherings.
What’s it really like when the virus outbreak
escalates? Here’s report from the trenches in New York City on March 26th,
and they’re just getting started: “Overfilled waiting rooms packed with people who are contagious. Patients
waiting six hours to be seen. Others on stretchers waiting 50 to 60 hours for a
bed. Doctors desperately trying to get more ventilators. That is what it’s like
to be on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic at a public hospital in New York
City, Dr. Rikki Lane, an emergency room doctor at the Elmhurst Hospital Center
in Queens, said… ‘Our hospital has never, ever, ever seen anything like this,’
said Lane, who has worked for more than 20 years at Elmhurst, a public hospital
with 545 beds.” NBCNews.com, March 26th. You ready for this Florida
and Texas?
The
President, anxious to restore the pre-election economy even if a few more must
die, is about to announce a plan, based on a county-by-county federal risk
analysis, to allow businesses in “low risk” counties to reopen. April 12th
– Easter – is his target date. I wonder if we can call the resulting outbreaks
the “Trump Virus”? Hey, Donald, think that would work? Here’s a hint from China
after the major impact of the virus passed. Cinemas and restaurants
reopened. Almost no one went! Who is trusting enough to try? Oh, did I forget
to mention: China ordered them closed again on March 28th. But as
much as there are good caring folk out there, there are equally selfish
individuals undoing those good works.
Older folks, if Texas has its way, you needn’t even bother
to try to get a hospital bed. Nothing brings home the GOP underlying priority of
money over health than this: “As the coronavirus continues to spread in the United
States, forcing people to stay in their homes and causing an economic downturn,
Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, joined [Fox News] Tucker Carlson Tonight where he made headlines by suggesting
we get back to our normal lives to save the economy even at great
risk to the country’s senior citizens. Patrick, who turns 70 next week,
believes it’s up to older Americans to take that risk.” Yahoo Entertainment
News, March 24th. Nobody mentioned that high-ranking Texas official
Patrick has special access to prioritized medical care, no matter what. To
date, seniors have accounted for 80% of CV-19 deaths (65% in the US) and 45% of
all CV-19 hospitalizations.
I’m
Peter Dekom, and if you want some pictures of self-destruction, if you can
travel, bring your camera to Florida, Texas… and of course, Washington, D.C.,
but wear a mask and use surgical gloves!
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