Anders Tagnell
Anders Tagnell and the Swedish Covid experiment by Richard Milne for the Financial Times.
Coronavirus: What explains Pakistan doing so much better than India? by Shoiab Daniele for Scroll.in.
Brazil surpasses 4 million Covid-19 cases amid tentative signs of virus easing by France24.
Europe overtakes U.S. as coronavirus hotspot by Thomas Mulier for Fortune.
The fight against the coronavirus has resulted in collateral damage to world food supplies. Or rather it has revealed underlying weaknesses in the world economic system.
The world produces enough food that no-one need go hungry. An expert quoted by National Public Radio said average world food prices are lower than they were a century ago, despite the huge increase in world population.
The question is how to get the food to those who need it and who pays for it. There is nothing in the nature of things that makes this impossible, but only the structure of the world economy.
LINKS
‘Instead of Coronoavirus, the Hunger Will Kill Us’; A Global Food Crisis Looms by Abdi Latif Dahir for the New York Times.
COVID-19 pandemic leads to huge spike in world hunger by Kevin Martinez for thr World Socialist Web Site.
COVID-19 risks to global food security by David Laborde, Will Martin, Johan Swinnen and Rob Vos for Science magazine.
A 29-Year-Old’s Strange, Unforgettable Trip Into a Covid Coma and Back by Luke Mullins for The Washingtonian.
My friend Michael J. Brown, who teaches history at Rochester Institute of Technology, wrote a good article in the Rochester Beacon about the struggle against the coronavirus.
He compared it to the struggle to save the Union during the Civil War. That may seem like a far-fetched comparison, but the Great Influenza pandemic of 1918 took more American lives than all of the wars of the 20th century. The current pandemic could be just as deadly, and hundreds have already given their lives.
In the Civil War, as Brown pointed out, President Lincoln had a choice—to try to put things back the way they were before the war, or to remove the cause of the war—human slavery. In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln resolved that “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom” so that “these dead shall not have died in vain.” Brown asked—
Has this coronavirus calamity simply been an ordeal to endure, or does all the suffering and loss have some galvanizing purpose?
Will it result in a new birth of freedom for our time—a period of reconstruction and reform addressing the myriad inadequacies and deep racial inequities that COVID has laid bare—or will a return to “normalcy” leave these problems untouched?
Reckoning with COVID, we might reevaluate the disparity between the significant health risks of “essential” work and its comparatively meager economic rewards.
Michael J. Brown
We might ask why in a “booming” economy so many Americans were one paycheck away from miles-long lines at food banks.
The pandemic could prompt us to rebuild our Union better than it was, or its legacy could be limited to “We’re all in this together” commercials, in which “this” is the reassuring glow of national brands.
The difference between these outcomes is a function not only of what we here highly resolve, but whether we resolve anything at all.
At Gettysburg, Lincoln gestured beyond the Civil War to a better nation. But he also spoke of prosecuting that war until Union victory—for which so many had already given “the last full measure of devotion”—was achieved.
Our battle against COVID is today very much in doubt. More than 800 front-line health care workers have given their lives in the struggle.
While Lincoln resolved to finish his fight, “America is giving up on the pandemic,” according to the Atlantic.
“The coronavirus may not be done with the nation, but the nation’s capital appears to be done with the coronavirus,” reported the New York Times. “As the pandemic’s grim numbers continue to climb … Mr. Trump and lawmakers in both parties are exhibiting a short attention span.”
Just as it was in the mid-1860s, the outcome today is uncertain. Just as then, it will have to be determined by countless people—from elected officials to everyday citizens.
This is COVID’s Gettysburg moment. Will we meet it?
LINKS
‘These dead shall not have died in vain’: COVID’s Gettysburg Moment by Michael J. Brown for the Rochester Beacon. The whole thing is well worth reading.
In the Flower City, Take Root by Michael J. Brown for Dissent magazine (2010). An earlier article by Michael.
Source: XKCD
For decades, the USA and other rich nations have had the luxury of dealing with self-created problems.’
Some were self-created (deregulation of finance, foreign intervention), some symbolic (the border wall, Confederate statues) and some imaginary (the Russiagate plot).
Now, however, we’re up against real things. Pandemics don’t care about public opinion polls. Climate change doesn’t care about the limits of the politically possible.
Some nations are demonstrating the resiliency needed to rise to these challenges. Some aren’t. In a few years, we’ll have the results of real-life experiments as to what works and what doesn’t.
My hope is that we Americans will learn from experience. My fear is that we will be unable to endure the pain of facing reality and the consequences of what we have allowed our rulers to do.
∞
COVID-19 is the quiz, climate change is the final exam by Jeff Masters for Yale Climate Connections.
Muslims in India are being accused of deliberately spreading the coronavirus. By stirring up prejudice against India’s largest religious minority, Prime Minister Narendra Modi solidifies his own political power and escapes blame for the spread of the disease.
The treatment of Muslims in India is a major human rights crisis. Modi advocates an Indian nationalism based on the Hindu religion. He says Muslims cannot be patriotic because their holy places are located outside India.
Nationalism based on religion is dangerous because it tells people that they should regard themselves, collectively, as sacred. They are asked to, in effect, worship themselves. They are asked to give the nation the kind of unconditional loyalty that would be due to a superhumanly wise and good infinite being, and to exclude those not part of the nation from human sympathy.
Modi’s government has drawn up a new refugee law that admits fast-tracks admission Christians, Buddhists and other types of believes, but excludes Muslims. It has suspended self-government in Kashmir, the only majority-Muslim state under Indian rule.
It also is drawing up a new citizenship list, and asking Indians to provide proof of citizenship—a big hardship for poor people. Muslims fear it may be aimed at them. There have been a number of lynchings of Muslims, mainly on suspicion of having eaten beef.
Modi was chief minister of Gujarat state in 2002 during a three-day anti-Muslim riot. By some estimates, as many as 2,000 were killed. Mobs engaged in vandalism, looting and rape, 230 mosques and 274 Muslim shrines were destroyed and thousands were made homeless.
Modi was barred from entering the United States in 2005 under the International Religious Freedom Act, which denies visas to officials guilty of “severe violations of religious freedom.” He is reportedly the only foreigner barred under this law.
Since being elected Prime Minister of India in 2014, he was welcomed by both President Obama and President Trump.
The U.S. government is trying to form an anti-Chinese alliance, with India, Japan and Australia the key members.
Because of this, we Americans are likely to hear a lot about the persecuted Muslim Uighurs in China’s far west Xinjiang province and very little about Muslims in India.
The Uighurs, like the Tibetans, are being forcibly assimilated into the Chinese culture by brutal means. But in Modi’s India, the Muslims will never be assimilated. They will be forever outcasts and targets of persecution, like Jews in Tsarist Russia, African-Americans in the USA during the Jim Crow era or Central Asian migrants in the Russia of today.
LINKS
The Rise of Narendra Modi by Zahir Mohammad for Boston Review (2013)
Inside Delhi: beaten, lynched and burned alive by Hannah Ellis-Petersen for The Guardian.
How Indian Muslims are being scapegoated for the coronavirus by Namrata Kolachalam for Slate.
India’s treatment of Muslims and migrants puts lives at risk during COVID-19 by Jay Ramasubramanyan for The Conversation.
[Update 6/21/2020] Evidently outdoor protests were not as dangerous as feared.
It Doesn’t Look As If the George Floyd Protests Are Causing a Coronavirus Spike by Fred Kaplan for Slate.
Of course outdoor gatherings of people wearing masks are different from indoor gatherings of people unmasked.
Nicholas A. Christakis, a Yale professor whose specialty is how human biology and health are affected by social networks, wrote a Twitter thread about how mass protests can promote the spread of the coronavirus.
While protestors have the right to risk their own lives, they are likely to spread the disease into their own communities if infected.
He said it is possible to mitigate risk by means of masks and social distancing. He also called upon police to avoid the use of tear case and to not throw protesters together in crowded cells.
Certain fundamental Protestant and Pentecostal churches have held services in defiance of social distancing rules. Some members have become infected and some have died.
People who gather in mass protests risk the same fate. The virus is a blind force of nature. It doesn’t care if your religion is true or your cause is just. It will spread just the same to you and, through you, to the people you care about.
During the urban riots in late 1960s and early 1970s, we US Americans talked about “long, hot summers.” Now we’re looking forward to a summer of public unrest and mass protests against the backdrop of a pandemic, an economic crisis and a bitterly-contested presidential election. Interesting times!
LINKS
Suddenly Public Health Officials Say Social Justice Matters More Than Social Distance by Dan Diamond for POLITICO.
Nicholas A. Christakis Thread: “I want to go on record with obvious point…”
Nicholas A. Christakis Thread Reader. A copy.
The Perils of Writing a Provocative Email at Yale by Conor Friedersdorf for The Atlantic.
A World Historical Tragedy by Rod Dreher for The American Conservative.
Greta Thunberg urges climate protests to move online because of coronavirus outbreaks by Justine Caima for The Verge. [Added Later]
Click to enlarge
The chart above, via Kevin Drum, shows that the United States has gotten off fairly lightly during the coronavirus pandemic, compared to other Western countries.
The USA has the most total deaths because it has the largest population, but the death rate is the key measure. The USA is a big country. Some parts of it are relatively safe and some aren’t, but overall things aren’t as bad as they might be—at least not yet.
Click to enlarge
The chart above, also by Kevin Drum, shows that the number of new deaths from the coronavirus is tapering off in Western countries.
As the lockdowns end, the death rates will probably rise again—hopefully not to their previous peak. If they don’t rise, a lot of what epidemiologists have been telling us about contagion is wrong. I expect we’ll learn the epidemiologists were right.
John Maynard Keynes was one of the great economists of the 20th century, Maybe he was the greatest. He is the father of the idea of economic stimulus.
His insight was that, in a capitalist free-enterprise economy, economic growth depends on a growing mass consumer market, which depends on masses of the public having money in their pockets.
So when the economy stalls and people are out of work, the best way to stimulate the economy is to give the people more purchasing power.
J.M. Keynes
Once they started buying things, businesses would hire more people, and there would be a multiplier effect that spread through the entire economy.
The important thing, according to Keynes, was to get people back to work and earning money—no matter how. He famously said that hiring workers to dig holes and fill them up again would be better than nothing.
In the pandemic lockdown, governments are doing exactly the opposite of what Keynes recommended. The government is actively trying to prevent millions of Americans from going to work. By staying at home, they help limit the spread of the virus.
Congress recently voted an economic bailout that was called a “stimulus” bill. But economic stimulus was not, and is not, needed. What is needed is an economic sedative, combined with an economic life support system.
We do not need employment for the sake of employment. We need to have virtually necessary jobs get done, less necessary jobs put on hold and useless jobs not to be done at all. We Americans as a nation have not yet figured out how to do this.
The Risks – Know Them – Avoid Them by Erin S. Bromage, associate professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Hat tip to Naked Capitalism.
COVID-19 Superspreader Events in 28 Countries: Critical Patterns and Lessons by Jonathan Kay for Quillette.
The question nobody seems to be asking is whether the United States has the operational capability for “test, track, and isolate” regardless of the party in power. I don’t see how an automatic “yes” answer is possible.
What we have instead is a series of natural experiments, with the states as “laboratories of democracy” as it were, as we would expect in a Federal system.
And that’s before we get to parties. If Trump had ordered Cuomo to shut down New York two weeks earlier, what would the reaction have been? If Obama (or whoever) had ordered Florida to shut down before Spring Break, what would the reaction have been?
I started calling the United States a “failed state” more as a polemic forcing device than a serious diagnosis, but the more I watch how “our democracy” is meeting the #COVID19 challenge, the more I think the term is appropriate.
Fortunately, under the leadership of Joe Biden…. Oh, what’s the use?
Source: Lambert Strether for Naked Capitalism
LINKS
How Covid Will Play Out in America by Ian Welsh [Added 5/12/2020]
We Knew the Coronavirus Was Coming, Yet We Failed Five Critical Tests by Elizabeth Rosenthal for Kaiser Health News. [Added 5/12/2020]
The best thing I’ve read so far on this topic is an interview of Thomas Ferguson by Paul Jay.
They’re both interesting characters. Ferguson is a professor emeritus of political scientist and the best U.S. expert on money in politics.
Paul Jay
Paul Jay, along with Sharmini Perez, is a co-founder of The Real News Network, an alternative web-based news site. Last summer they left or were ejected from the organization for reasons unknown to the public. Jay has started a new podcast called theAnalysis.news.
In the interview, Ferguson made the point that, in the recent bailout, Congress chose to bail out big businesses with the expectation that this would enable them to hire laid-off and idled workers.
Instead, he said, most of the CEOs decided to keep the money and let working people fend for themselves. Ferguson said it would have been far better to provide individual relief. They would have spent money and helped to revive the economy when the lockdown ended.
Congress also should have provided aid to cash-strapped state, county and municipal governments, he said. One economic effect of the lockdown has been to choke off tax revenue they need to provide essential services. The federal government, unlike the states, has the power to create money and isn’t limited, as many states are, by constitutions requiring balanced budgets.
LINKS
Big Business Takes Cash As Workers Laid Off, States and Cities Go Bust, an interview of Thomas Ferguson by Paul Jay for theAnalysis.news. A bit long, but comprehensive and highly recommended.
Click to enlarge. Via Ian Welsh
.
Click to enlarge. Via Calculated Risk
Looking at these numbers, I can understand why some U.S. governors are eager to end the lockdown and get people back to work. But the economic system isn’t something you can turn on and off like an appliance. The impact of business losses, wage losses and job losses won’t be wiped out by a re-opening,
There weren’t any good choices in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, even if you decide to consider nothing except dollars and cents. Sick, dying and scared people are bad for business, whether you have a government-ordered lockdown or not.
Also, the U.S. economy was fragile to begin with. We U.S. citizens never fully recovered from the previous recession. We were due for another one anyway.
Nikolai Vladivostok is the blog handle of an Australian expatriate who has worked extensively in the Horn of Africa. He made four posts that contain good information about China, and its influence on the World Health Organization and Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of WHO, which I haven’t come across elsewhere.
Here are links to the four posts—all well worth reading.
Dr. Tedros
How did China wrest control of the WHO?
How does Tedros manipulate the WHO?
N.V. described how the Chinese have extended their economic influence into Africa and used their leverage on African governments to influence United Nations agencies, including the World Health Organization, and how that paid off during the coronavirus pandemic.
I’ve been skeptical of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s attempt to blame China for the spread of the virus. I see it as a cynical attempt to divert attention from U.S. failures and to weaken China politically.
But propaganda—systemic attempts to influence public opinion—is not necessarily false. There is circumstantial evidence that the virus could have originated in a Chinese research lab (not a bio-warfare lab) and escaped into the world through negligence. I don’t claim to know the whole story, but there certainly is something to investigate.
The Chinese government has used the coronavirus pandemic to increase its geo-political influence. It presents itself to the world as a kindly helper—the opposite of the U.S. government, whose diplomacy is based on threats and naked self-interest.
As the old saying goes, you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. But if you are a fly, it doesn’t matter how you are caught.
Adam Tooze is one of the world’s outstanding economic historians. He is the author of The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of Global Order, 1916-1931; The Wages of Destruction: the Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy; and Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World.
In the interview above, he talks about the impact of the coronavirus on the global economy. The actual interview begins about four minutes in.
He points out that ending the lockdowns won’t automatically restart the economy. Ford and General Motors closed their plants without any lockdown order.
Labor unions that represented their workers protested working under unsafe conditions. Suppliers were unable to provide necessary components on schedule. And the automobile sales collapsed. So what was the point of staying open?
Tooze also says that the talk of being in a war economy is wrong. In a war economy, the objective is to mobilize everyone to produce war materials. In a pandemic economy, the objective is to limit production to what is absolutely necessary. People should be paid to stay home to help limit the spread of the virus.
He doesn’t predict a second Great Depression, but neither does he rule it out.
The coronavirus pandemic has shown us Americans how we are divided by economic class. Robert Reich, the well-known labor economist, outlined the four main ones.
Robert Reich
The Remotes: These are professional, managerial, and technical workers – an estimated 35 percent of the workforce – who are putting in long hours at their laptops, Zooming into conferences, scanning electronic documents, and collecting about the same pay as before the crisis.
This group is doing fine. Their main problems are boredom and not being able to deal with their normal activities. Yet, interestingly, they get the bulk of the coverage in my local newspapers and in on-line newspapers I follow.
The Essentials: They’re about 30 percent of workers, including nurses, homecare and childcare workers, farm workers, food processors, truck drivers, warehouse and transit workers, drugstore employees, sanitation workers, police officers, firefighters, and the military.
Some of them are well-paid for the important work they do, and also are given what protection is available. But many aren’t. In a pandemic, janitors and cleaners are key to stopping the spread of infection. They ought to get hazard pay and the equivalent of a military medal for their work. Yet we mainly hear of the essential workers when they strike for better pay or better protection.
The Unpaid: They’re an even larger group than the unemployed – whose ranks could soon reach 25 percent, the same as in the Great Depression. Some of the unpaid are furloughed or have used up their paid leave. So far in this crisis, 43 percent of adults report they or someone in their household has lost jobs or pay, according to the Pew Research Center.
If the United States as a nation requires certain people to stay home in order to protect the rest of us, then we as a nation ought give them the means to stay home and still pay their bills. If not, they can’t be blamed for defying the lockdowns. We the public only hear of them when they engage in protest demonstrations.
The Forgotten: This group includes everyone for whom social distancing is nearly impossible because they’re packed tightly into places most Americans don’t see: prisons, jails for undocumented immigrants, camps for migrant farmworkers, Native American reservations, homeless shelters, and nursing homes.
Everybody, including movie stars and prime ministers, is vulnerable to the virus. But people in jails, nursing homes, meat-packing plants and the like are the ones who are going to die in largest numbers. When pundits or politicians say a certain number of deaths is acceptable, these are the people who are being written off.
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Countries Beating COVID-19 on Endcoronavirus.org.
Tale of Two Cities Redux: Hong Kong to Ease Its COVID-19 Restrictions, While New York City Situation Remains Dire by Jeri-Lynn Scofield for Naked Capitalism.
Over the weekend, I read an insightful five-part on-line series of articles on the coronavirus pandemic by Prof. Maximilian C. Forte of Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, on his Zero Anthropology Project web site.
He doesn’t think the pandemic is a temporary emergency that will soon blow over. He thinks it is a major turning point in history. So do I. Of course we both could be wrong, but I don’t think we are.
Here is an excerpt from the first article. Links to the full five-part series are below.
Max C. Forte
The plain fact of the matter is that until a vaccine is developed, and everyone on Earth has been vaccinated, the struggle against the virus will not truly be won.
Anything less than that is merely a temporary, selective and fragmentary means of approximating an end—something that is better than nothing, with each decrease in lives lost being something that is heroically gained by front line workers risking their own health.
Otherwise, anything short of total vaccination boils down to a way of indirectly apportioning the virus to some, while managing it for everyone else.
Unnecessary deaths will not be rendered any less unnecessary, they will simply be confined and reduced in number, for a while. In other words, without vaccination it is absolutely inevitable that what comes next will be worse.
The main issue now for public officials appears to be how to ensure that what comes next will not be as bad as it could be—making worse less worse.
To be clear, the most recent estimates are that a vaccine for COVID-19, which has not yet been invented, would—to be optimistic—become available within the next year to 18 months.
Not only has a vaccine never been invented for any prior coronavirus (with previous research prematurely shut down), even discovering a vaccine before five years would be a record-breaking pace when compared with other vaccines.
Experts think it would be unprecedented. Plus the coronavirus is apparently mutating profusely, which complicates efforts to develop a vaccine.
Without a vaccine or effective therapy, the assessment from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health is that “prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022,” and that there could be a resurgence of the outbreak as late as 2024.
Instead, from the UK to the US and Quebec, an understanding that is prevalent among officials involves foggy, even dangerous ideas about “herd immunity,” which assumes—with little conclusive evidence and despite some contrary evidence—that (a) immunity against COVID-19 can be acquired and (b) that the immunity is permanent or long-term.
To make matters worse, some researchers think a vaccine for COVID-19 may never be found and that the virus is likely not to be containable.
No matter which decisions governments take—whether to continue mass confinement and a closure of most of the economy, or to gradually reopen economic activity (though it was never fully closed) and loosen restrictions—it will seem like the wrong decision will have been taken.
It’s not even a matter of choice between the “economy” versus “health.” Without health, there can be no economy. Without production, distribution, and consumption, health may be undermined.
Sirte, Libya, after NATO bombing (via Craig Murray)
Craig Murray, a former British Foreign service officer, had an interesting observation on his blog.
Nobody knows how many people died as a result of the UK/US Coalition of Death led destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and, by proxy, Syria and Yemen.
Nobody even knows how many people western forces themselves killed directly. That is a huge number, but still under 10% of the total.
To add to that you have to add those who died in subsequent conflict engendered by the forced dismantling of the state the West disapproved of.
Some were killed by western proxies, some by anti-western forces, and some just by those reverting to ancient tribal hostility and battle for resources into which the country had been regressed by bombing.
You then have to add all those who died directly as a result of the destruction of national infrastructure. Iraq lost in the destruction 60% of its potable drinking water, 75% of its medical facilities and 80% of its electricity. This caused millions of deaths, as did displacement.
We are only of course talking about deaths, not maiming. This very sober analysis from Salon makes a stab at 2.4 million for Iraqi deaths caused by the war.
[snip]
There are also the vast unintended consequences. The destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria launched a wave of refugee migration which led to politicial instability throughout Europe and contributed to, among many other consequences, Brexit.
For the purposes of argument, I am going to put an extremely conservative figure of 5 million on the number of people who died as a result of Western military intervention, direct or proxy, in the Middle East.
Now compare that to the worldwide death toll from coronavirus: 220,000.
Let me say that again. Western aggressive wars to coronavirus: 5,000,000 : 220,000.
Or put it another way. The total number of deaths from coronavirus in the UK so far is about half the number of civilians killed directly by the US military in the single city of Mosul.
Makes you think, doesn’t it? There are four horsemen of the apocalypse, and while of course I do not blame people for focusing on the one which is riding at them personally, do not forget the others.
Coronavirus has not finished killing. But then nor have western wars.
Source: Craig Murray
That’s not all. U.S. economic warfare against Iran and Venezuela is helping the virus to spread in those countries.
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Death rates from the coronavirus could be 60 percent higher than estimated, according to an article in the Financial Times of London.
Reporters compiled weekly death rates from cities and countries where this information is available, and compared the current death rates with the five-year average for previous years.
As the charts show, death rates are unusually high in certain countries and cities. These figures actually may undercount the number of coronavirus-related deaths because they do not take into account possible savings of lives due to the lockdowns, such as fewer auto accidents.
Click to enlarge
LINKS
Global coronavirus death toll could be 60% higher than reported by John Burns-Murdoch, Valentina Romei and Chris Giles for the Financial Times.
We Still Don’t Know How the Coronavirus Is Killing Us by David Wallace-Wells for New York magazine.
The Pandemic Doesn’t Have to Be This Confusing by Ed Yong for The Atlantic. [Added 4/29/2020]
This is a copy of an e-mail from my friend Walter Uhrman.
The following is from Irene Ken physician, whose daughter is an Asst. Prof in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University, quite informative.
* The virus is not a living organism, but a protein molecule (RNA) covered by a protective layer of lipid (fat), which, when absorbed by the cells of the ocular, nasal or buccal mucosa, changes their genetic code (mutation) and converts them into aggressor and multiplier cells.
* Since the virus is not a living organism but a protein molecule, it is not killed, but decays on its own. The disintegration time depends on the temperature, humidity and type of material where it lies.
* The virus is very fragile; the only thing that protects it is a thin outer layer of fat. That is why any soap or detergent is the best remedy, because the foam CUTS the FAT (that is why you have to rub so much: for 20 seconds or more, to make a lot of foam). By dissolving the fat layer, the protein molecule disperses and breaks down on its own.
* HEAT melts fat; this is why it is so good to use water above 77 degrees Fahrenheit for washing hands, clothes and everything. In addition, hot water makes more foam and that makes it even more useful.
* Alcohol or any mixture with alcohol over 65% DISSOLVES ANY FAT, especially the external lipid layer of the virus.
* Any mix with 1 part bleach and 5 parts water directly dissolves the protein, breaks it down from the inside.
* Oxygenated water helps long after soap, alcohol and chlorine, because peroxide dissolves the virus protein, but you have to use it pure and it hurts your skin.
* NO BACTERICIDE OR ANTIBIOTIC SERVES. The virus is not a living organism like bacteria; antibodies cannot kill what is not alive.
* NEVER shake used or unused clothing, sheets or cloth. While it is glued to a porous surface, it is very inert and disintegrates only
- -between 3 hours (fabric and porous),
- -4 hours (copper and wood)
- -24 hours (cardboard),
- – 42 hours (metal) and
- -72 hours (plastic).
* The virus molecules remain very stable in external cold, or artificial as air conditioners in houses and cars. They also need moisture to stay stable, and especially darkness. Therefore, dehumidified, dry, warm and bright environments will degrade it faster.
* UV LIGHT on any object that may contain it breaks down the virus protein. For example, to disinfect and reuse a mask is perfect. Be careful, it also breaks down collagen (which is protein) in the skin.
* The virus CANNOT go through healthy skin.
* Vinegar is NOT useful because it does not break down the protective layer of fat.
* NO SPIRITS, NOR VODKA, serve. The strongest vodka is 40% alcohol, and you need 65%.
* LISTERINE IF IT SERVES! It is 65% alcohol.
* The more confined the space, the more concentration of the virus there can be. The more open or naturally ventilated, the less.
* You have to wash your hands before and after touching mucosa, food, locks, knobs, switches, remote control, cell phone, watches, computers, desks, TV, etc. And when using the bathroom.
* You have to Moisturize dry hands from so much washing them, because the molecules can hide in the micro cracks. The thicker the moisturizer, the better.
* Also keep your NAILS SHORT so that the virus does not hide there.
Gov. Cuomo
Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York—not Joe Biden, not Bernie Sanders—has emerged as the Democrats’ alternative to President Trump in fighting the coronavirus pandemic.
He is like Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks—a reassuring symbol of leadership. Of course many of us think differently of Giuliani now than we did then.
He has said he isn’t interesting in running for President this year. But he would be a more electable candidate than Biden, so who knows? Whether he’d do anything to end the forever wars, rein in Wall Street, negotiate nuclear disarmament or deal with climate change is another question.
LINKS
The Foundations of American Society Are Failing Us by Bernie Sanders in the New York Times.
Trump’s poor poll numbers trigger GOP alarm over November by Alex Isenstadt for POLITICO.
News media stoke Gov. Cuomo narrative as counter to Trump by Jeffrey M. McCall for Microsoft News. Cuomo, not Joe Biden.
Gov. Cuomo’s speech to the New York National Guard on March 27, 2020. Actually, a stirring speech.
Andrew Cuomo: Emergency Responder by Michael Greenberg for New York Review of Books.
There Are Worse Governors Than Andrew Cuomo, But None Who Are Responsible For As Many Coronavirus Deaths on Down With Tyranny! [Added 4/26/2020]
Even in a Pandemic, Andrew Cuomo Is Not Your Friend by Akash Mehta for Jacobin magazine.
Photo via Rand Blog.
The Trump administration blames China for the coronavirus pandemic. Administration sources say that if Xi Jinping had acted a week sooner than he did, some 95 percent of the infections in China could have been avoided.
Some go on to suggest that the Chinese government may lying about the pandemic. They say it may have originated in a bio-lab and not in unsanitary live-animal meat markets as is generally believed. And they say that Xi Jinping is lying about China’s success in bringing the pandemic under control.
Xi Jinping
I think there’s something to the first claim, but it’s a case of a pot calling a kettle black. The world would have been better off if Donald Trump had acted six weeks sooner than he did. People who live in a glass house throwing stones.
And while it’s possible that the Chinese government is lying, the U.S. government does’t have a good record for truth-telling. Recall the claims that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction, that the Syrian government used sarin gas against its people and that Iran was developing nuclear weapons.
I’m reminded of a comment made by the late Richard Feynman when somebody asked him whether it was possible that UFOs are piloted by extraterrestrials. He replied that he wasn’t interested in what was possible, but in what was so.
Lots of things are possible, but claims require evidence—or at least the considered opinion of some qualified expert who doesn’t have a conflict of interest.
The states of Missouri and Mississippi are suing China in U.S. courts. Presumably the lawsuit won’t get anywhere because of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which bars lawsuits against foreign countries.
There’s a good reason for such a law. If the Americans could sue foreign countries in U.S. courts and get damages, presumably by seizing foreign assets in the United States, then foreigners could sue the USA in their own courts and seize American assets.
My first thought in writing this post was that ramping up the cold war with China was a terrible idea because the U.S. depends on China for 80 percent of essential drugs.
However, a Google search turned up an article in Reason magazine that show this dependence is greatly exaggerated. Nobody knows for sure, but the likely figure is closer ti 13 percent from China.
It is true that we Americans are overly dependent on foreign countries overall for medical supplies and much else. We should do what we can to reduce that dependence, but that will be a project that will take years—assuming we can do it at all. Meanwhile we can’t afford any break in these fragile global supply chains.
The other problem with scapegoating China is that it is a distraction from American failure. For example, many countries screen travelers arriving at their airports from foreign countries. If the traveler has a temperature, he or she is placed in quarantine for 14 days. But travelers arriving at the New York City airports are allowed to go their way without checking.
It’s not a good sign when governments put excuses for failure in place while the crisis is still ongoing. It means nothing will be learned from experience.
