Tag Archives: coronavirus

Election Postmortem

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Here are my thoughts on the shitshow that was the 2020 Presidential election

Polls missed it again!
Pollsters in 2016 predicted Hillary Clinton would win but didn’t recognize how many people despised her. Instead third-party voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, whose vote totals were many times his margins over Hillary, handed the election to Trump. This time Biden won those three states.

Biden was supposed to win in a landslide and a Blue Wave was going to usher in a Democratic Congress to magically transform everything. So what happened?

Polls suffer from selection bias; they are only as good as the people who choose to answer them. I don’t answer any phone calls I don’t recognize and I’d rather slit my throat than talk to a pollster. But there’s a subset of the population – those on the far ends of the political spectrum – that will gladly tell anyone how they feel about the issues. The people in the middle, both Liberal and Conservative leaning, either doesn’t want to be bothered or don’t want to tip their hands.

I’m not sure polls have any practical use besides inducing false hope to some, despair to others, or a reason for the media to turn the election into a day at the greyhound track with Bugs Bunny.

The “Blue Wave” was a ripple.
Democrats overestimated their chances of defeating Republican incumbents. Anyone hoping for a major Democratic takeover of Congress ignored political reality. Every voter can choose ONE Congressional rep, TWO Senators and ONE President.. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham were re-elected, despite being hated by millions. You can’t vote out another state’s candidates.

Progressives pinning all their hopes on Bernie or any other “progressive” candidates are delusional. You can elect Jesus Christ Himself to the Presidency, but as long as Moscow Mitch controls the Senate, you won’t get any closer to universal healthcare or free college.

Biden won without groveling to progressives.
I didn’t see or hear as much “the candidate needs to earn my vote!” bullshit that dominated the 2016 race. Maybe third-party voters realized the past four years of Trump were far worse than a Hillary Clinton presidency. I’m sure there are some who “held my nose” and reluctantly voted for Biden, but I don’t expect them to openly admit it.

But the progressive agenda may have cost Democrats House seats.
More than 72 million people voted for Trump, and they equate “progressivism” with socialism/communism. I can only guess as to their reasoning, but I think it’s a combination of viewing government as the enemy and not wanting “those people” getting something for nothing. Hispanics in Florida, especially Cuban-Americans, are and the Florida Democratic Party apparently did little to persuade them otherwise.

Conor Lamb, a 36-year-old moderate Democrat from Pennsylvania’s 17th district who won re-election in a Republican area, said:

“I’m giving you an honest account of what I’m hearing from my own constituents, which is that they are extremely frustrated by the message of defunding the police and banning fracking. And I, as a Democrat, am just as frustrated. Because those things aren’t just unpopular, they’re completely unrealistic, and they aren’t going to happen. And they amount to false promises by the people that call for them.”

We’re not likely to get universal health care or Medicare for All in my lifetime. It will require almost unanimous Congressional approval, a President willing to sign the legislation, and a Supreme Court willing to uphold it against the inevitable legal challenges. It will also need a comprehensive plan on how to transition a $4 trillion industry to a single payor as well as adequate funding in perpetuity.

I don’t see it happening until millennials, especially women, make up a sizeable proportion of Congress and we have a female president. We are headed in the right direction but change will be incremental, not radical. To paraphrase Paddy Bauler, Chicago 43rd ward alderman and barkeep, “The country ain’t ready for reform!”

Democrats need to win statehouses.
Republicans control more than half of the state legislative bodies in the US and that is where voting laws and redistricting happens. The Democrats failed to make any gains in 2020. Texas isn’t going to turn blue anytime soon. Georgia is probably more purple than blue. And there are a lot of crazy people in Michigan, where Republicans have been actively undermining Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s efforts to combat coronavirus.

All politics are local.
 A lot gets decided at the state and local level. Arizona, Barry Goldwater’s home state and long a bastion of conservatism, legalized recreational marijuana and raised taxes on incomes over $250,000. Mississippi legalized medical marijuana and replaced the Stars and Bars on its state flag with the state flower.  South Dakota legalized recreational and medical marijuana. Florida – Florida! – voted to increase the minimum wage to $15/hour over the next six years. So there is a glimmer of hope.

Don’t expect a honeymoon.
As of this writing, Trump has refused to concede. A lot of Trump supporters think the election was fraudulent and Biden will be an “illegitimate president.” Republicans, as with Obama, have no interest in reconciliation or cooperation.

Many of us on the other side aren’t willing to forgive or forget four years of animosity, ridicule and lies. Trump and his supporters vilified immmigrants, Muslims, people of color, Black Lives Matter, anti-fascists, liberals, intelligence and education. They cheered when a 17-year-old kid from Illinois killed two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin with an assault rifle, and then started a Go Fund Me page for his legal expenses. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Leonard Pitts, Jr. put it this way:

“…Trump and his supporters broke this country, and it will take years to repair, if we ever do. They didn’t care then, and as far as I can tell, they don’t care now. So as an African-American student of history — and frankly, just as an American who loves the ideal of America, the truths held self-evident and more perfect union of America — I ask you not to ask me what I will do to reconcile with those people. Here’s a better question:

What will they do to reconcile with me?…”

Democrats need to stop preaching to the choir.
Biden and company need to figure out what conservative voters want and/or need and if it’s even possible. These are the people who thought that Trump contracting coronavirus showed courage rather than stupidity. They embrace authoritanianism; they want a dictatorship as long as it doesn’t affect them. In 2019, a woman in Florida, bemoaning the poor federal response to Hurricane Michael, said Trump was “not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.” Yes, some of your fellow Americans are that vindictive.

Trump won in 2016 by appealing to their sense of being neglected by both parties but did little or nothing for them. Coal jobs didn’t come back. His trade war with China crippled soybean farmers.  Middle-aged white men, especially in the Mountain West, are dying by suicide at twice the national rate. Many of those people voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. The Democrats can win them back but not with progressive demands to defund the police, enact a Green New Deal and promising Medicare For All.

Otherwise, we risk Trump 2.0 in 2024, and that could truly be the end of the United States.

© Can Stock Photo / tintin75

Bread and Circuses

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I went to Costco today. They had the normal entrance blocked off and routed people through the cart entrance. (T-W-Th 8-9am are old people hours). They had the walk along the side of the building partitioned with pallets and carts. We had to walk down the sidewalk, around the end and back to the entrance. We got our carts but had to wait in line because they were limiting how many people could be in the store. They had TVs playing a PSA loop featuring Drs. Fauci and Birx, and Dr. Jerome Adams, the US Surgeon General, explaining why we have to keep six feet (or one alligator) distance between us.

We got to go in when some number of people exited. The meat counter was pretty much empty. No ground beef, save for a few packages of “organic” stuff: 4lbs  that was going for about $21. Two packages of stew beef. High end beef going for $30/lb. Five six-packs of boneless chicken breasts. No thighs, no whole chickens. There was plenty of salmon and tilapia as fish doesn’t have the same processing plant issues (and likely because it’s too healthy for some people).

They had plenty of fresh Italian sausage in the pork section. I suspect they ground up what little pork they had left to stretch it out. I also saw a lot of the Kirkland bratwurst (which I think is better and bigger than Johnsonville’s brats). The freezer section had a lot of prepackaged stuff like beer battered cod, pulled pork, sirloin burgers and half a pound of blackened mahi-mahi for $20. Ouch.

Most people kept their distance, pausing at aisle intersections like 4-way stops, but some wandered aimlessly, oblivious to their surroundings and crowding the rest of us. One poor older woman was asking if Costco was handing out masks; the staffer said, “It’s OK for now; you don’t have to wear a mask until May 1.”

One Costco staffer directed people to the checkouts as they became available. The cashiers were behind 2×6 ft acrylic barriers and everything seemed to go smoothly. But everyone looked grim. As Walter would say, “Get your shit and get out!”

We are fortunate there are only two of us. We aren’t waiting for an unemployment check that won’t come anytime soon because the unemployment website is overwhelmed, and no one can apply (or was deliberately sabotaged by a cruel governor). We don’t have a houseful of kids that we have to home school while also working at home and THEN have to worry about feeding after a long day. We’re not in unimaginably long lines at food banks.

We’re the richest country in the world and our government is wasting $8,000 and 1,200 gallons of fuel per hour per jet flying twelve F-16s over cities filled with people who can’t go out of their apartments. If they do, they’re ignoring social distancing, so why bother mandating something people can conveniently ignore? It’s more of a tribute to a feckless leader than to the people risking – or taking – their lives. Bread and circuses.

Soon, we may have no bread, only circuses.

© Can Stock Photo / kvkirillov

(ALMOST) EVERYTHING YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT COVID-19

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There is a lot of misinformation and bad advice circulating regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ve tried to provide pertinent and useful information in this blog post. But before I begin, I want you to do two things:

DON’T PANIC
DON’T BE STUPID

Panicking in a crisis does no one any earthly good and often makes things worse. This is not the zombie apocalypse, Outbreak, The Stand, Contagion or The Walking Dead. It’s not even The Hot Zone, a book and miniseries based on the discovery of an non-human primate Ebola virus in Reston, VA in 1989.

We can get through this by helping each other, not by being a selfish asshole hoarding toilet paper, or going out to restaurants because Devin Nunes told you to. Follow current recommendations and guidelines to minimize the risk of getting it or giving it to someone who is at greater risk of dying.

Now, back to our previously scheduled PSA

What is Coronavirus?
Coronavirus is a family of RNA viruses – chunks of genetic material in a protein capsule – that infect human respiratory tracts. Coronavirus, like the more well-known rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and parainfluenza, often cause nothing more than a common cold.  It is so named because there are spikes on the surface that make it look like a solar corona. Click here to see an electron micrograph.

Where did it come from?
Coronaviruses are “zoonotic” – transferred from animals to humans. Bats provide a reservoir for coronaviruses and spread them to other animals. SARS was thought to come from civet cats in Guangdong, China, while MERS was transmitted by dromedary camels in the Arabian peninsula before spreading to other countries. (MERS resurfaced in Saudi Arabia in October 2019.) SARS-CoV-2 might have originated from an outdoor wet market in Wuhan, China. Neither the Chinese nor the United States developed it as a bioweapon.

How is it spread?
Coronavirus, like other respiratory viruses, spreads among people through droplets from coughing or sneezing which are then inhaled. It can also spread when hands contaminated with virus touch eyes or nose, or someone else’s hands.

The incubation period (time from contact to developing symptoms) is 5-7 days but can be as long as 14 days, the rationale for a 2-week quarantine. People who carry the virus can spread it even though they feel fine. Health officials estimated a lawyer with COVID-19 in New Rochelle, NY, had contact with 50 people before becoming ill.

No one is sure how long the virus survives on surfaces like countertops, handrails and boxes, although study results published in the New England Journal of Medicine on March 17, 2020 found coronavirus lasts longer on plastic and stainless steel than on copper and cardboard. When in doubt, wear gloves and wipe it off!

VIDEO: Amanpour & Co. Infectious Disease Expert Dr. W. Ian Lipkin Discusses How Coronavirus Spreads

If coronavirus is common, why should I worry?
Viruses, like bacteria, can mutate into more deadly forms. The virus causing the current disease, COVID-19, is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Yes SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome 2003) and MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (2012) were both “novel human coronaviruses,” meaning they hadn’t been seen in humans.  The difference between coronavirus causing a cold and SARS-CoV-2 is like the difference between the E. coli in your intestine and E. coli O157:H7. The former keeps your digestive tract healthy while the latter caused severe illnesses and deaths in people eating contaminated hamburger (1993), “organic” spinach (2006) and Romaine lettuce (2019).

Isn’t it just like getting influenza?
There have been an estimated 34 million influenza infections in the United States over the six-month 2019-2020 season with 375,000 hospitalizations and 22,000 deaths. But we have a vaccine and herd immunity for influenza, so the death rate is about 0.06%. There is no vaccine for COVID-19 and there won’t be one for 18 months or more. COVID-19 is more likely to kill people over 60, those with chronic illnesses (diabetes, asthma/COPD, heart or chronic kidney disease), and anyone with compromised immune systems (cancer, HIV, genetic disorders), regardless of age. The youngest death was a 21-year-old Spanish soccer player with undiagnosed leukemia and coronavirus.

As of March 17, 2020, there have been 197,320 cases of coronavirus and 7,950 deaths around the world. (Source: Worldometer Live Update-Coronavirus) That doesn’t sound like much until you do the math, which gives you a death rate of 4%. The New York Times reported C.D.C.’s worst case scenario:

“…Between 160 million and 214 million people in the United States could be infected over the course of the epidemic, according to a projection that encompasses the range of the four scenarios. That could last months or even over a year, with infections concentrated in shorter periods, staggered across time in different communities, experts said. As many as 200,000 to 1.7 million people could die….”

Take a deep breath and don’t panic. England got through WWII with “Keep Calm and Carry On,” not, “OMG, it’s the apocalypse and I’m going to run out of toilet paper!”

Related: USA Today What does the coronavirus do to your body?

How do I keep from getting COVID-19?

  1. Wash your hands, often! Wash them for 20 seconds, the time it takes to sing “Happy Birthday” twice or recite the Star Trek intro. Hot water isn’t more effective than cold or warm water, so don’t scald yourself.
  2. Use hand sanitizer if you’re out and don’t have soap. Antibacterial wipes are good for public surfaces (shopping carts, handrails).
  3. Don’t touch your face. That is going to be really hard for most people. Cajun hand sanitizer will make you remember not to touch your face!
  4. Although it’s better than using your hand, I don’t think coughing or sneezing into your elbow is a great idea. Get a small pack of tissues or stuff some in a zip-lock bag and keep them handy when out. Use them and toss them in the trash. And use hand sanitizer afterwards.
  5. Stay away from crowded places like subways, commuter trains and airplanes unless absolutely necessary. Many businesses are making their employees work from home.

If you need catchy music to grab your attention, then watch this Vietnamese PSA.

Should I wear a mask?
In general, no. Regular surgical masks stop droplets, which is helpful but won’t filter out viruses. If you are healthy and out in public, you don’t need one. N 95 respirators, masks that can block 95% of particles down to 0.3 microns, are used by people exposed to dust and other small particles. Health care N-95 respirators are a subset, specifically for health care workers. They need to be fitted to be effective and are a bitch to breathe through.

You should wear a mask if:

  • You are a health care worker.
  • You are coughing or sneezing.
  • You are sick and need to leave the house
  • You are sick and can’t isolate yourself from healthy housemates

Why should we practice “social distancing?”
Because health officials want to avoid an exponential increase in coronavirus cases by “flattening the curve.”  (If you don’t understand exponents, you weren’t paying attention in algebra class and I don’t have time to explain them! Just think “increasing really fast.”) We don’t want a lot of people getting sick in a short period of time and overwhelming the health care system. It is better to spread out those illnesses over many weeks or months.

Protecting the vulnerable – those who are elderly or have compromised immune systems – is the single best reason for keeping your distance from other people.

How is COVID-19 treated?
Like any other viral illness there is NO cure. One treats the symptoms whether cough, fever or full-blown respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation. Influenza is often treated with oseltamivir, which shortens recovery by 1 to 2 days. Remdesivir, created from a molecule developed ten years ago, may be the best drug to treat COVID-19, but it’s only in the testing stage and it isn’t a cure.

Eating garlic, drinking bleach or colloidal silver, breathing hot air from your hair dryer, taking Vitamin C or zinc, snorting cocaine or masturbating will not protect you from COVID-19.

Related: Buzzfeed News list of coronavirus hoaxes

What should I do if I feel sick?
If you just feel crappy with mild to moderate viral symptoms – cough, fever, aching – call your healthcare provider. DO NOT go to the Emergency Room without being told to!  They don’t want to see your sorry ass for something that is not life-threatening and will just have to run its course.

However, if you are having chest pain or enough difficulty breathing that your lips are turning blue, or you feel as if you are drowning, GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM IMMEDIATELY!

Should I be tested?
Not unless a qualified healthcare worker thinks you need to be tested. There aren’t enough tests right now.

Where should I go for information?

  1. The Centers for Disease Control
  2. Your state’s Departments of Public Health
  3. Harvard Medical School’s Coronavirus Resource Center

DON’T PANIC. DON’T BE STUPID. BE CAREFUL.

Coronavirus illustration © Can Stock Photo / feelartphoto