Doug's Darkworld

I went to my local Dollar General store today, and was saddened but not surprised that people were buying cartloads of staples, and store shelves were already empty. And I live in rural Iowa, so I can only assume it’s happening elsewhere. Not too surprising, the World Health Organization today declared that Covid-19 is officially a pandemic. Cases outside China increased thirteen fold in the past two weeks, and it has spread to at least 114 countries. Here in the USA, apparently the Trump administration is taking the situation so seriously that they are sticking to their proposal to slash funds for the CDC and the Infectious Diseases Rapid Response Reserve Fund. He honestly seems more concerned with salvaging the stock market. He’s also ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified, which is hampering their ability to do their jobs. Controlling the narrative and protecting his image is more important than protecting Americans apparently. You can’t make this shit up, the mind, already boggled, careers uncontrollably.

So, ok, here’s a link about why it is so important to slow down Covid-19’s spread by social distancing and other measures. Basically, the slower it spreads, the less stress on the health care system. And the less stress on the health care system, the more people will be treated and survived. If it spreads rapidly, the system gets overwhelmed, and patients die in the hallways. Read it here: Curve mitigation. Hoping Trump’s upcoming address focuses on this.

And here’s a good article about why it is so important for infected people to isolate themselves. Too much has been made about “It’s no big deal, most people will have mild symptoms.” Yes, yes they will. But if they don’t isolate themselves, they will give Covid-19 to people who will die. Anyone with Covid-19 is a Typhoid Mary, this cannot be emphasized too much, and they need to self isolate. Read it here: Stop killing people. And here’s another article about why it’s so important to take drastic steps now.

In other words, this is a global emergency, and immediate and decisive action should be taken by Trump to limit Covid-19’s spread. We can’t prevent it, but we can minimize the harm. Sadly a line of logic that Trump in his back and white thinking seems incapable of. We’ll see, I’m going to listen to his Covid-19 message in 45 minutes, and I can only hope he snaps out of his shit. I expect mealy mouthed crap downplaying the crisis, bragging about how well he is handling it, and partisan attacks thrown in for good measure. It will be all about Trump, not protecting America. I hope I’m wrong.

<Trump’s Covid-19 address>

Oh boy, that was … interesting. Here was my tweet after watching Trump’s first public statement from the Oval Office:

First impression of Trump’s Coronavirus statement: 80% lies, bragging, or irrelevant. 20% on point. Could of been worse.

Yeah, I was not terribly impressed, though not as horrified as I could have been. Watch/read Trump’s message here. I took notes.

A lot of bragging about how great our response has been and how the US is the best prepared nation in the world for facing this pandemic. Pure unadulterated BS. We are terribly unprepared for all sorts of reasons, likely the least prepared developed country. He announced closing flights from Europe; um, dude, Covid-19 is already here. That’s called closing the barn door after the cows are gone. There was also kind of a xenophobic tone to his characterizations of this “foreign” virus, but whatevs. That’s Trump for you.

He announced measures to limit the economic hit to small businesses and workers. Etc. All good I guess, but being the cynical SOB I am, one has to wonder where the money for this will come from. Somehow I doubt the Pentagon or fossil fuel subsidies will take a hit. There was also his schtick about how the economy is the best it’s ever been, which is always scary. No, it’s not, so he either really believes that, or is lying. Neither is reassuring. This was all kind of the irrelevant part, since for most of us, “Is granny going to survive this?” is the more pressing concern.

And Trump did stress the importance of hand washing and social distancing. He’s right there, can’t argue that. I don’t think it went far enough though, he didn’t cancel any rallies or take other measures to limit Covid-19’s spread inside the US. Basically his whole speech could be summed up as: “We got this, just wash your hands.” I think the country needs to take drastic steps to stop the spread of Covid-19, that’s the only thing that will minimize the death toll.

Trump didn’t look good either, though at least his message was blessedly brief. Being president is a stressful job at the best of times, and this is the worst of times. 1918 all over again. Some of the people I know are likely to die before this is over. My own chances aren’t the greatest. We need to learn from history, and sadly history teaches us that people are in denial until too late. A topic for a blog post itself.

Stay safe everyone, protect your elders.

Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.

(Image:  Empty store shelves. Credit: Public domain image obtained from Snappygoat.)