Fevered Musings from the Cabin on the Isolation Crisis
We who have attained a sufficient number of years are
cloistered in our comfortable “active” retirement suites with no activities
planned or allowed, not even with “social distancing”. So, we are reduced to watching the daily
Trump-Pence-Fauci-Brix-Azar-etc-etc-etc show about the world-wide and national
progress of the Chinese Corona Virus, and what is being done to slow it down
and eventually stamp it out. This
consists of a lot of medical, technical and political effort and trillions of
dollars planned to be expended to this end.
Firstly, I’ve posted these links from the New York Times
previously as representing the best source for the numbers, curves and statistics
relating to the Corona Virus crisis.
Some people use the data provided by Johns Hopkins as the standard, but
I find that the NYT numbers are a little higher at any given point in time than
any other source, indicating that the NYT data is more up to the minute. NYT say they draw from all sources, including
Johns Hopkins in preparing their data. I
stand by my choice of the NYT data as the most complete and comprehensive source
of Corona Virus data.
One thing I notice from this great NYT data is how few cases
and deaths of this virus are being reported in relatively warm climes. As of March 20, 2020, India, with a
population of over 1.3 billion people, has 249 cases of the virus, and 5
deaths. For Indonesia, population 264
million, there are 369 cases and 32 deaths.
Pakistan, 197 million people, 500 cases, 3 deaths, Philippines, 105
million people, 230 cases, 18 deaths.
What is common for all of these countries is they are mostly warm and
tropical. Apparently, this virus does
not like heat, which bodes well as our more northern areas head toward spring
and summer.
Another thought I had is about masks. Before travelling to China in 2015, I bought
a dozen 3M N95 industrial face masks, and took several of them to China with
me. As it turned out we had sunny blue
skies in Beijing when we arrived, later some mild smog at the great wall
outside of Beijing, and rainy, cloudy and again mild smog in Shanghai. I did not need the masks for smog, although
the Chinese in the cities seemed to wear them as a matter of course. What I used did use the face masks for
eventually is to keep myself from spreading a cold to others that I had
contracted while on the Yangtze River.
My experience with masks supports the CDC contention that masks are not
to protect me from them. They are to
protect them from me.
Another topic. I’ve
been watching President Trump, Vice President Pence, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr.
Deborah Brix, HHS Secretary Alex Azar, State Secretary Mike Pompeo and others
stand in front of the TV cameras and the press literally for hours every day to
keep the people of the country informed of ongoing events with respect to the
Chinese virus crisis. It is evident that
some members of the hate Trump mainstream media press just cannot avoid loaded
questions and snide remarks aimed at politicizing the crisis. They do not seem to understand that we all
have to pull together to defeat this invisible enemy, republicans and
democrats, pro-Trumpers and never-Trumpers.
The disease does not distinguish.
Instead they exacerbate the crisis by denigrating the efforts of the
government and health professionals who are trying to contain it. Politicians of opposing parties are
cooperating more and more fully to defeat this thing. Representatives of the press should take a
clue and follow suit.
One last thought. If
you didn’t get in on the great toilet paper buying spree, I can suggest a great
use for the paper editions of the New York Times and the Washington Post. I only have digital access to these to
maintain a full view of the news, so that doesn’t help me. Lends a new meaning to “can you spare a sheet”.
Ray Gruszecki
March 20, 2020
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