COCID-19 Coronavirus Considerations
4/12/2020 by Jonathan A. Weiss Esq.
I am over 80 years old.
I live in NY, in the middle of the epicenter with alarming numbers of viruses identified and deaths increasingly daily. I am therefore considered among the most individually threatened in this world wide crisis. Fortunately I live in the United States where we do not live with animals who appear to carry and transmit such diseases, eat animals with that have the disease, participate in any groups that gather near icons or have a vast number living in poverty or overcrowding surrounding me.
I have read over 200 articles (some in four other languages) some in scientific journals, and spent as much time following discussions about the plague on TV. I do wear gloves, masks, use physical distancing, shop near by, and cook or eat at home, following common cautionary advice. I write about the United States with foreign references only for expository effect, analogies, and important principles displayed.
Mysteries abound.
Public ignorance is wide spread with many of the public misinformed. I therefore thought I would offer a few tentative comments about commentaries, state of knowledge, remedies, dangers, and possibilities for an uncertain future.
Known and Unknown
Almost all major medical writing in this area acknowledges the great amount that is not known. Vanity Fair. April 7, quotes several medical experts in the field, including from Columbia and Yale discussing the extensive lack of knowledge about this virus. There is not expert agreement on many crucial details, including about the complete nature, means, and human conditions for transmission or individual prediction of course of disease with optimum treatment. Definitive tests for crucial variables are not available. Mathematical models,with use and creation differing as employed even when the best incorporate mutations, do not describe the phenomenon although may present powerful indicators of growth once past a certain rate of contagion.
WHAT ELSE
There are no data about people in the age groups above 65 getting sick, hospitalized, dying when they do not have dangerous underlying conditions like diabetes, lungs, and heart disease, etc. but all individuals in this group are considered together as equally vulnerable.
Data is inadequate gathered and presented differently in different affected areas; little laboratory relevant results obtained. At the end of this horror, we should have some good comparisons (including connections with responses) indicating , possible remedies for limiting the spread from different States and Countries, even without identifying, perhaps. all crucial variables. We hope for a vaccine.
4/7/2020 Bill Gates-backed coronavirus vaccine enters human trial phase
The mass media does continually induce fear by listing the number of cases and deaths together thereby leading to a possible conflation. The rates of death for infected people have been estimated with enormous differences <some, like me, think understated>.
Different locales keep statistics differently for what is sickness while often many are tested for CVID 19 only after hospitalization. The CDC, even currently decimated, is the best good source for degrees of sickness, hospitalization, and inference to possible recoveries but rarely referenced. States here and Other Countries too – offer further statistics with different systems. Much was not reported widely that should have been – e.g. the Cleveland Clinic started preparing for the great need for future hospitalization in January based on what was being reported from China and known by many concerned.
The mass media reporting is superficial, even contradictory and repetitive.
“Experts” opine without reference to data, studies, laboratory tests, history and constantly misuse the word “science” to describe preferred responses proffered and associated generalizations. Many refer to “facts”which range from assertions, to possible projections, to inconclusive inferences. Making tracking, prevention, and treatment more difficult is the apparent mutation of the virus twice a month – and even the possibility of two strands. Could various mutations be less lethal explaining why there are clusters and the range of reactions?
A noted, scientist currently describes in their own work how little is really known about almost all vital considerations so that if attended to carefully during interviews they can be clearly understood as indicating the extent of their ignorance, even while practically all repeat the same mantras and behavioral exhortations – reinforcing the great anxiety the massive coverage creates.
> Beijing tightens grip over coronavirus research amid US-China row on virus origin
Constant Rampanting Up:
They never miss a great opportunity to increase ratings with ramping up your anxiety, withyour ears – more drumming please, eyeballs – Alerts that get never ending ratings attention with so called Breaking News graphics and the vever ending “RAMPING UP: Language.
Some are treated in interviews as if they biological experts which they are not.
Bill Gates gave a “TED” talk in March of 2015, reportedly associated with a Harvard Medical Journal article, warning about the dangers of a pandemic to come. President George W. Bush gave the same warning in 2005. His interviews, therefore, have featured him as an expert. The appropriate questions should have been, given his admirable commitment to malaria extinction, why he continued in the path of other large foundations by limited funding many for different organizations.
Bill Gates and his coronavirus conflicts of interest
The Washington Times recently chastised Gates for the many grants to for profit companies. instead of at least an equal expenditure to that for Malaria (or Polio) for developing responses to the present increasing disastrous lack in medical equipment, facilities, and accurate tests – and research. He just gave a grant to a small pharmaceutical company in Pennsylvania to enter the competition to produce an effective vaccine. Inovio Pharmaceuticals of Pennsylvania received $9 million from the Gates-backed CEPI, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, to develop a vaccine, INO-4800, which is about to test on humans in April.
How tight China’s grip is on the global medicine supply chain
What do we know with persuasive probability?
Conronavirus 19 belongs to the group of viruses that include the common cold (not cured, it is explained, because of its frequent mutations), flu, H1N1, Ebola, and MERS – now the newest member (“novel”), sharing in many of the symptoms with colds and flu (particularly dry cough, sneezing, fever, and digestive upsets) seems highly contagious and manifests as virulent in many people. For numerical comparison, the CDC reported 56,000 deaths from flu in 1919 (while this year is considered worse), easily to be exceeded. The number of these viruses and how dangerous and deadly has increased greatly in this century with H1N1, Ebola, and MERS.
Covid-19 is Different from the other viruses
It shows up in clusters in the lungs rather than spreading in continuous areas when viewed in CAT scams. It also arrives in the population not evenly spread, but in clusters some “hot spots”, particularly family clusters.
Counties in Colorado, Utah, and Idaho that rely on tourism are experiencing some of the highest rate of COVID-19 cases per capita in the nation.
This virus is comprised of a swarm of infinitesimal bits of RNA, a strand whose two intertwined strands can make up the “double helix” of DNA serving various specific functions. This messenger RNA has sugar spikes which can penetrate the cells of the upper respiratory system. This process starts in the throat (and probably the back of the nose) and descends into the chest. The worse case is when it descends from the upper half of the lungs to the lower half, often creating bilateral pneumonia.
The outer covering of the RNA is easily destroyed by hot water and soap hence the great and undeniable importance of hand washing thoroughly including thumb and fingernails.
Brief contact may communicate the virus to others.
People crowded together, for some time, clearly do so, if there is some one infected in that group. The resulting spread in prisons and the concentration camps for those seeking asylum at the boarder (or caged there for other reasons) will soon exceed the current catastrophe in those places already extensively documented, in detail, to be barbaric and incompatible with a civilized society, a proper system of justice functioning with societal responses for crimes, and a human and sane immigration policy. Since people work in these exhibitions of brutality so that they are potential transmitters of the disease to their communities and families for further clusters.
On the other hand, the plague has not yet really reached rural areas in the U.S.
The general conditions there, when not polluted, fracked, poisoned, etc. may be less vulnerable and isolation and protection easier – obviously not in impoverished communities where there must be intermingling in the misery. A major issue will arise because of the failure of the health systems in these areas, especially the lack of health centers, professionals and hospitals (if properly equipped), nowhere near prepared for an onslaught of the seriously suffering from this pandemic.
Making tracking, prevention, and treatment more difficult is the apparent mutation of the virus twice a month – and even the possibility of two strands.
Could various mutations be less lethal explaining why there are clusters and the range of reactions?
The expectation is that immunity will be acquired by those who have had the virus in their system but that is not yet definitively established nor obviously for how long and by which groups, e.g. those now under 19.
The expectation is that those recovered are no longer contagious. Unfortunately many individuals, while trying to create antibodies and fight the invasion, overreact with the fever (“cytokinic storm”) response leading to worse conditions and even morbidity.
People can get the coronavirus more than once, experts warn — recovering does not necessarily make you immune
There are specific anomalies.
Those individuals below 19 appear not to produce symptoms (with a few rare exceptions) although they may carry the virus and : “shed” it to others. Depending probably on the interacting factors of individual immune systems, the amount (and virulence?) of the viral load that the victim receives, and debilitating conditions, including but not limited to diabetes, weakened immune systems, compromised lungs, obesity, asthma, (Senator Kamala Harris suggested sickle cell anemia), an individual can experience the broad range of no symptoms (or possibly have the virus latent for a while), mild symptoms, terrible experiences, and death. The duration varies associated with the seriousness.
The normal course is for the first day of the infection (with increased danger of transmission probably) without any noticeable bodily change then four days of symptoms which are like the flu or cold. If it continues and worsens, an individual can suffer the disease very badly for about a month or more, including extreme fatigue, delusional sleep, and labored breathing, etc. made worse by other respiratory and digestive disruptions.
The New York Times Magazine published a long harrowing description of a friend’s suffering at home for weeks – for which his wife ministered, then to tell about it in that article. The symptoms may wax and wane over time, with some dying suddenly after they appeared better (as just happened with a close friend with a compromised immune system).
As yet, we, at least the public, do not have definitive figures for how many people have had the virus, how many die at home, how many are hospitalized, for how long in minimum and maximum length, average, and median percentage, what percentage are intensive care patients, and how many of those are on assisted breathing for how long) or any standard to compare locales nationally (or internationally).
The incidence of death for people with noticeable melanin is much higher so far than for pale people, which probably correlates with discrimination and poverty. Men have a higher death rate, in general, sometimes strikingly, than women (without a solid scientific explanation – vague references to different immune systems). A tiger in the Bronx Zoo has, with obviously little human contact, tested positive for the virus while displaying symptoms. (One does not want to consider the consequences if domestic cats can catch and carry…)
Failure in Response
It now appears that his virus could have been contained or exterminated if China had immediately and completely cordoned off the Hubei province where it started, air lifting in all necessary supplies and universal, or perhaps, personal quarantines.
Universal testing and resulting quarantine of the effected should have been made the high priority as soon as China had failed to contain the disease, with official statements not to be trusted.
THE U.S.A – This country, had notice of the impending disaster in December of 2019.
Although it is true that, at that time, the Trump administration had eliminated the Obama established government organisation designed to anticipate and then function with other governmental agencies to diminish or prevent any pandemic and pursuant to a “trade war” withdrawn the one American scientist working with the Chinese doctors and biologists in this field
AND that due to drastic cuts and new leadership, the CDC exhibited chaotic confusion.
Taiwan, predicted by John Hopkins, a specialized center frequently cited, to become the country with the worse outbreak, started in late December testing all passengers from mainland China and quarantining those who tested positive, and following the rest, to limit the virus’s spread to a small level. It worked! This success was very persuasive. if the United States had started universal accurate testing and then quarantining anyone positive, as just stated – with commensurate procedures for foreign visitors immediately, we too could have contained or perhaps even prevented the epidemic. There was awareness at this time in the United States.
The Cleveland Clinic, as noted, although it appears not to have spread the news, started preparing for an onslaught of infected patients in January.
If the Federal and State governments, recognizing how little hospital and medical capacity there was due to bad public policy, had started supplying the medical profession with needed facilities including intensive care unit beds, protective equipment, breathing apparatus, medicines, etc. in January this current crisis would have been substantially ameliorated. It seems clear that the whoever started testing the quickest with universal tests as soon as they heard about the threat , and then took the appropriate and quickest action, was the most successful preventing the unstoppable spread of contagion.
The United States President, the leader of the Federal government failed leaving States, and Cities to scramble – trying to catch up with every device or means suggested, then, if and when obtained, employed in a patchwork, with medical resources inadequate, and little testing, data, and reporting. All the while putting every single first responder in harms way.
A student blogger in the United States started announcing the news of the diseases spread in China and beyond in December 2019 but received few followers and apparently no media attention. It does seem as if Ohio, where the Cleveland Clinic, is located began to implement preventive and ameliorative measures which have had an effect even during the period of cross country travel. A number of other countries have been mainly successful because of swift appropriate action, including New Zealand, Iceland, Denmark, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan as mentioned, and South Korea. Hong Kong had a recent upsurge for which many ascribe a too rapid relaxation of restrictions.
Two memos by Peter Navarro, National Advisor on Trade, were the earliest warnings sent in January around the Trump administration warning about the catastrophic epidemic which would arrive but were completely ignored. It appears that both military and civilian agencies had intelligence on this extraordinary threat propagated widely which the Administration ignored and did not reach the mass media, if it did any public information disseminators. Possibly giving the Grifters and the Boodle boys time to set up their shell accounts to run their money through before everyone would know.
Books, with extensive documentation, will undoubtedly be written about the Trump administration response to this crisis including, but not limited to requiring national Federal action (and use of accumulated supplies) but a local and State challenge, downplaying how catastrophic the situation was. The lack of testing represents a stark failure. The use of tests required to be sent to the disorganized CDC with a turn around of ten days rendered them worthless, while other countries were getting test results in 15 minutes expansively. The Trump administration, with less than one percent of the country tested, implemented a 15 minute test for White House visitors on April 8th 2020.
His actions and statements will be best comprehended as those of malignantly narcisstic, pathological liar, impulsively reactive, insecure bully, and ignorant (uninterested in learning or knowledge) idiot. Not only will the failure of the Federal government to act nationally, starting in early January. be featured, but also Trump and his lackeys, will be seen as vindictive, revengeful (for votes and comments), and continuing devastatingly chaotically, continually inadequate support to locales begging for any assistance and coordination.
10 times Trump and his administration were warned about coronavirus
In January and February of 2020 Trump had sent essential equipment, ventilators included to China. Further, he imposed roadblocks on the States acquiring their own in the beginning while not releasing those he had stockpiled immediately especially to “hot spots” or threatened areas.
He has described himself as a “cheer leader” for making efforts about “something no one could have seen coming”, denied he was “responsible”, released small amounts of crucial material from a federal stockpile, much less than he had promised, causing States to bid against each other for the equipment, and did not use the Defense Act to mandate the manufacturing of medical necessities urgently in great quantities.
“Never let a serious crisis go to waste”
Beyond these disgraces, many actions he took used the virus as an excuse and cover, curtailing civil liberties, rescinding environmental protections, extensively sabotaging, limiting, and eliminating payments to the suffering (e.g. homeless, institutionalized, those in impoverished, usually crowded neighborhoods – see Bronx and Queens – with spectacular effects on Blacks and Latinos – Asian – who are under tested without data properly publicized) will stand out is bold relief.
I also anticipate the good research will discover extensive corruption with many in and connected to this Administration making obscene profits. Trump’s ownership of shares in a French pharmaceutical company who makes a drug he is pushing (with bad side effects with the misuse creating a shortage for those how need it) presents the tip of the iceberg. Sections for the books.
There will not be adequate (let alone the desirable universal testing) even with the currently imperfect equipment. (The Federal Decision to have all tests sent to the CDC so results were delayed for ten days is another scandal in itself.) There is some hope that more quick tests, used elsewhere such as South Korea, will be more widely disseminated but, at this moment, we must face the fact that less than 2% at best of the population has been tested (with some claim 30% error rate, with false negatives in this CDC system). Note, because of this failure, people with serious flu or flu like systems, must be admitted when in distress with the relevant symptoms to be treated as if they had the virus, so that crucial treatment has been misallocated. Even now, the manufacture of many testing devices with 15 minute turnaround (with drive ins as employed elsewhere) as rapidly as possible and distributed as widely as possible will help as the clusters move West.
Some, badly afflicted, will need, hospitalization, intensive care, and help breathing. The amount of ventilators is projected as (vastly) insufficient. They are intrusive and even damaging to those who have swelling in the lungs. The current survival rate after being placed on the ventilator appears discouraging, placed when there is no other choice to further the patient’s life. The development and use of other breathing equipment is essential e.g. modified mechanisms to combat sleep apnea, has badly lagged. Desperate Governors and Mayors can not attend to this need – this Administration does not care.
Tragic choices.
Because of the extent of the epidemic and lack of resources in hospital, Doctors may have to choose between patients for ventilators and other equipment. This is called triage.
Given extensive age discrimination with belief that the elderly are weaker in self protection, the choice may often be to let the elderly die.
I fear, in spite of the low statistical probability, that I could be one of those chosen to disappear . . . .
so this essay is especially valuable to you dear reader ….
who knows how many more of these you’re going to read from me. . .
Societal Principles and Governmental Rules
Suffering from both the extensive and continuing national failure coupled with misallocation of resources, what can be done?
The current nostrums require careful and even skeptical investigation. Such an investigation must take place with the backdrop that the number in this country of those sick with the virus and those dying from it are most likely to be significantly understated because of lack of testing and general procedures. City Council members in New York claim that ten times the number of people dying at home than normal is occurring, as I write, but none are tested to see if the Conronavirus 19 was present in their bodies. Such shocking facts, which probably will be better documented in the future, suggest that an excess of caution is required in this area where so much is unknown. In the present, with so much to be learned and substantiated, many excellent people, medical, and biological minds have offered public and behavioral guidelines without extensive studies or laboratory tests. The comparative successes and failures < in different countries and States> after this calamity ends may offer helpful knowledge particularly now that so many highly trained professionals are facing the challenge. New York City has begun announcing percentages of treatment, in intensive care and with ventilators for those hospitalized.
Gloves are not being as highly touted as they were in initial recommendations.
The question is whether they are necessary if there is adequate hand washing. They also seem redundant with “social distancing” discussed below for protection from other individuals. They are difficult to put on, require washing themselves, and tear so that the hand washing must also be employed. A factor is the time outside of one’s home. An apparent scientific mystery (applicable also to packaging) is whether the virus can be transmitted from materials to humans or materials to other materials then to humans. Varying estimates range in how long the virus survives of particular surfaces. Given, we do not yet know enough about the mechanism of transmission, however, an excess of caution would suggest their wearing outside one’s home.
Masks have been a subject of controversy.
The virus can go into your eyes, nose, and mouth.
It is not clear that masks provided or improvised have a sufficiently fine mesh to prevent the tiny bits of RNA from entering. Air also enters (and some leaves) without the tightest fit, The current theory is that they may not protect the wearer, but protects others by limiting transmission. The CVD, apparently recognizing the great number of people who may be non-symptomatic but contagious, now advocates their use. Again an excess of caution suggests compliance. The mask will help keep you from touching your mouth, and nose by your dirty hands.
Closing schools.
A strong argument exists against this practice. The group below 19 is almost uniformly safe from the virus for reasons yet unknown. It is believed many harbor the virus and may shed it to others. It would seem that by the time the schools were closed they would have already shed at home. The argument that teachers are then at risk has to be taken seriously which would argue that they receive the same protective equipment as do Doctors and Nurses in the hospitals and be considered equal heros. They could also practice some physical distance (with my query below about its effectiveness) in most grades (and arguably, although I would oppose) tv presence in advanced classes. Their use of public transportation could be controlled or subject to the same social distancing. [Remote Learning ]
Very real dangers exist for students who can not go to school.
The most obvious are those who are homeless. The need for food is very acute (with local attempts to remedy it) with the loss of school luncheons and supplemental nutrition. Home environments are often bad places for study. Poor people (particularly with some who may have to work with delivery etc. with resulting risks for disease) are usually crowded together.
Digital Divide: Many do not have computers for remote learning. But, even if they did, the increased use of computers by growing humans is more and more obviously harmful. Some behavioral neurologists worry that dependence on emojis, etc. will have bad effects on the brain’s prefrontal cortext – even epigenetically morphological – affecting language skills. Schools are important for socialization while learning is enhanced by live conversations between students. Most educators agree that young people spend too much time with electronic devices so that remote schooling just adds to this problem. Most families, particularly if parents are home (some not by choice) will undergo considerable mental stress. On balance, this practice seems an error.
THINK #STEAM PROJECTS
Social distancing seems predicated upon the theory that sneezes coughs, perhaps heavy breathing and laugher, send the virus in droplets about six feet. Yet since we are so rarely in such a situation, then this basis is inadequate for 6 feet distancing – a theory of effective distance needs grounding in data or laboratories than just one phenomenon in focus. If it is true that masks work, then the rationale for social distancing, better called “physical distancing” for protecting others seems again redundant, or visa versa. Let us affirm that the high rate of contagion can not be explained by this exhalation means of transmission alone, and probably not often. The argument is more from mystery – all the means of transmission not being known indicates that this separation may help. Dogs can trace scents left well behind. Movements through all types of materials requires real tests and study. We may, unfortunately, anticipate adverse effects on socialization. Standing and waiting in public areas for longer times because of spacing and individuals allowed in places to buy necessities may be counterproductive if the virus depends not on infected breath at a distance (not clearly established in extent) but by other means operating in proximity. It is not yet clear whether the dangerous viral load is caused by one continuous contact for 15 minutes and/or more or multiple contacts, with the amount relevant to suffering severity, while the best evidence clearly indicates crowds do pose a significant danger with idiosyncratic variations depending on immune systems. With an unclear balance, however, an excess of caution would lead to following this touted public policy of public distancing while waiting and keeping stores from being crowded – even if not completely empirically based. It also serves courtesy and consideration by avoiding creating others’ apprehension — perhaps the sight of gloves, masks, and a hygienic appearance too.
“Stay in place” – only going out for necessities is a problematic policy. Most poor people live in unhygienic and often unhealthy homes often in crowded buildings and neighborhoods. Confinement with others has many problems. People grow lonely, anxious, suffer from “cabin fever” etc. Domestic abuse may increase, perhaps greatly – although to their credit, organizations designed to help protect victims are doing their best. But, some are confined to such small places they may not be able to call. It is reported that the number of divorces, after the quarantine was lifted in China went way up. On the one hand, the duration of danger is not clear. China reports no new deaths (but there are reports that the CCP is not telling the truth about this) and South Korea has had movie theaters open and are reopening schools.
On the other, how this contagion spreads (it is considered not an airborne disease) has not been satisfactorily explained. It appears in clusters, with the particular origin in an infected individual usually located, but then expands rapidly at some point if all infected or potentially infected are not quarantined. Early action seems successful but after it has start to spread it seems that later action may not have any real effect.
The projections for increases and limited mathematical models seem to create similar charts of infections and deaths when no effective early action has taken place no matter whether physical distancing and staying in home has later been implemented. This policy needs critical examination rather than simple acceptance of the claims that it will “flatten the curve” and save lives.
We do not yet have definitive statistics concerning the prevalence among the poor delivery people, who also lived in confined often unhygienic places, the public workers, fire force, police officers, trash collectors, transit personnel, pet shop employees, and others on the front line.
It is not even clear that now staying in large luxury protects those well off. Or their doormen. The barn door may have been shut too late in a miasmic mysterious world.
Crowds of people (particularly staying together for a prolonged period) are clearly dangerous. “Stay in place” prevents (or severely limits) such activity but is subject to doubt (particularly when the pandemic is well established) as the optimally efficient effective method for stopping crowds, particularly in its scope, perhaps causing damage by being extreme. Many medical experts believe fresh air is good for you (which offers one reason why open windows during confinement also creating drafts to disperse any virus present is desirable) in particular advocating walking in addition to other exercises. It is important to keep the lungs working – deep breathing with connected movement may be an important therapeutic tool for those badly stricken – not yet proven or widely accepted – while Vitamin D that comes from the sun’s rays is anti-viral. Walking not only furnishes excellent exercise (recommend universally for the elderly when possible) but has pyschological benefits, somewhat offsetting the adverse effects of confinement. Exercising the lungs may be prophylactic. With proper protections and physical distancing followed, activity probably not be subject to “stay in place”, most obviously when the threat is imminent or minimum – implying crowd limitations instead of preventing regular walking in fresh air.
Look-down is the extreme version of “stay in place”.
The evidence does not support its effectiveness once the virus is sufficiently widespread no matter how many claims are made that it will diminish or slow down the spread. In the Spanish flu epidemic (so named because the Spanish King caught it) San Francisco used the most extensive look-down possible yet achieved a staggering death toll of that disease which developed in the crowded conditions of World War I. Italy, apparently after a critical mass of infection had been reached, instituted an extensive look-down but the disease progression seems to follow the same pattern that would have been predicted by observing other countries well after 5 weeks (considered much longer than usual incubation and symptom presentation.) Some suggest that Spain and France may be following the same pattern.
This country is predicated on the sanctity of life (although somewhat compromised by allowing construction, etc. to anticipate certain quantities of death’; denied by polluting companies practices particularly in poor communities, and mocked by governmental executions. We try to prolong the life of those in comas, with degenerative mental or physical diseases, aid the severely handicapped. Even Trump should recognize that very sick and dead people can not work and to weigh the cost is obscene.
But, if the economy is shut down by lock down for a sustained period, how many people (particularly with no “safety net”) will get sick and die?
- When will this number exceed those who are arguably saved by the look-down?
- What are the class and related racial impacts on health?
- What about those with mental illness?
- What will be available after a lock down of some duration to so many who just get by on their income?
- What are or will be the major strains on global supply chains for essential goods, foods, and medical, when, and how extensive?
If a global economic breakdown follows the spread and collapses, essential products including food may be not available for many or any.
Is there not a whiff of fascism?
In Rhode Island house to house searches were conducted to locate New Yorkers on belief they were infectious carriers. Once the situation has gotten dire, I suggest this governmental action is not demonstrably effective enough to justify its imposition, particularly given the length of contagion, so widespread, reaching a critical level, to believe that it will disappear (or diminish) from these unproven extreme measures.
Fears and a Hope
Fears.
- Once eliminated will COVID 19 “rebound” to return?
- Will this virus go down below the hemisphere with the weather changing to cause unbelievable carnage in areas unequipped and overpopulated?
- Will it return when the weather cycles reverse again?
- Are we in for an increased number of such new viruses (particularly with overpopulation) Perhaps. even more virulent?
Ironically, the difference between government efforts and limitations effects in different countries and different States in the United States will provide a lot of empirical data, e.g. whether and when a point of no return has been reached for a pervasive spread.
- Will we find out whether mathematical formulations exist which can reliably predict the time of rise, plateau or fall, and hopefully disappearance of the epidemic?
It would be particularly productive to learn what protective measures would really work how quickly the government should be required to implement them. We would like to know what differences exist that spreads infestations between areas of distinctly different population concentration, such as rural, suburban, and urban, crowded or not, etc.
- Is herd immunity possibly achievable? Sweden is operating on that possibility. We need valuable real knowledge for facing a frightening future, rather than speculation with Trumpian hope of miracles, many major mysteries, and the rapidly developing danger of increased improper authority.
- Suppose one accepts the current statistics of low percentage of total population now sick and dying to argue that this is but like a common cold but more virulent and contagious?
CVID 19 belongs to the same group of viruses but is not a variant of one of the three or four viruses which cause the common cold or other strains which create flu, although both produce similar symptoms in first manifestation. It is more virulent (causing deaths) and contagious. The answer depends on when a difference in degree becomes a difference in nature. How much more fear should an individual justly feel and try to combat?
I hold out one important hope.
Enormous energy and cooperation have been inspired to combat this horrific pandemic. There are those, like me, who think climate change, pollution that allows for an air borne virus to piggy back on some forms of these pervasive particulates, and that overpopulation’s driving contribution probably contribute significantly to its cause and spread – particularly in huddled and concentrated masses.
Whether my unpopular opinion is accepted, an enormous existential threat to humanity derives from human environmental degradation including especially < but not limited to> overpopulation – with contributions to global warming.
The energy, effort, and intense extensivity now devoted to this current world wide catastrophe should, and I hope, will be directed against this environmental expanding threat to humanity and civilization.
Additional Resources for your Review:
Old people like myself are still valuable. We are always ready to “ramp up” So, it turns out . . . NJ needs us.
COBOL is 60 years old and the programmers working with this are now in their 80’s!
New Jersey was seeking volunteer programmers who know COBOL, a 60-year old programming language that the state’s unemployment benefits system is built on.
In times of bureaucratic crisis over the last 50 years, Americans have been faced time and time again with the dusty, dated systems that undergird much of our government, and economy. In response to Y2K, when it was unclear whether the date of the new millennium might cause cascading errors across the entire world’s computing systems, legions of programmers fluent in largely forgotten languages like COBOL were specifically hired to fix government and enterprise code. As a result, Y2K was largely a nonissue.
The scarcity of COBOL programmers has led to increased interest in startups like COBOL Cowboys, made up of older, experienced programmers. The state, federal, and banking systems in 2020 still run on these very same programming languages!!!
At least 12 states still use COBOL in some capacity in their unemployment systems. Alaska, Connecticut, California, Iowa, Kansas, and Rhode Island all run on the aging language. According to a spokesperson from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, the state was actually only a month or two away from “migrating into a new environment and away from COBOL,” before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Simple Observation that Germany and New Zealand are both led by women and are crushing their curves. New Zealand isn’t just flattening its coronavirus curve. It’s squashing it.
4/11/2020 Media Watchdog Names Sean Hannity as a Chief Source of Coronavirus Misinformation
Countries are putting their spy agencies in charge of procuring ventilators, testing kits, and PPE, competing against each others’ spy agencies. Israel has officially put the Mossad in charge of procuring medical supplies.
UK government using confidential patient data in coronavirus response
CHINA (INCLUDES TIBET, HONG KONG, AND MACAU) 2019 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT PDF
4/9/2020 YLS Community Shares Expertise on COVID-19
How tight China’s grip is on the global medicine supply chain
Dutch rip off the American Tax Payer
Philly-area company gets $9 million grant to develop vaccine for new Chinese coronavirus
4/9/2020 Trump Family Loses Huge Court Fight to Force Fraud and Deceptive Practices Lawsuit into Secret Arbitration
4/11/2020 Bernie Sanders Proposes Emergency Version Of ‘Medicare For All’ For The Pandemic
4/11/2020 Taiwan reveals email, blasts WHO for possible ‘dereliction of duty’
4/13 Palantir, The Peter Thiel-Backed $20 Billion Big Data Cruncher, Scores $17 Million Coronavirus Emergency Relief Deal
A boy from a remote Amazonian tribe has died, raising concerns about Covid-19’s impact on indigenous people
HEY BETSY DEVOSS WHAT ABOUT CHILDREN’S ONLINE PRIVACY RIGHTS 4/4/2020 Two children sue Google for allegedly collecting students’ biometric data The lawsuit says the search giant violated privacy laws with its educational tools.
Nobody knows anything
Q. What do you get when you cross an octopus with a cow?
A reprimand from the Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics Committee and immediate withdrawal of your grant funding.
