December 16
Covid Deaths Hit New Records
Americans die at the rate of 2.4 a minute as the US's highest single day death count hits 3448. Experts note that it will likely continue to climb as additional holiday induced infections surface and Americans refuse to employ even the simplest possible ways to reduce it. Trump has not met with his Coronavirus task force in months and issues strings of fictitous tweets about the election.
American Death Tolls:25,000 The American Revolution
35,574 Korean Conflict
58,209 Vietnam Conflict
116,516 World War I
405,399 World War II
655,000 The US Civil War
675,000 1918-1919 Influenza
833,016 Covid 19 (updated: January 11, 2022)
Despite
the completely inept, inconsistent and incoherent utterances of our recklessly uninformed ex president (who was clearly more worried about re-election than the health of his own citizens),
there have been many global pandemics before, (think bubonic plague), one massive pandemic even right here in the US in 1918 / 1919.
And, no Mr. Ex President, you glibly traded the "either / or" option of deciding to prevent a pandemic or trash our economy by downplaying and ignoring an impending global pandemic for two critical months and, by your inaction, aimed America squarely toward the worst possible impacts of Covid
and the largest single year of economic carnage in our lifetime.
You could not simply waive a hand and decree a global pandemic will be "over" by
Easter or any other arbitrary date.
Lets look at history. In the 1918 flu pandemic 28% of the world's population eventually became infected and 50,000,000 people perished worldwide.
For those keeping track the 1918 / 1919 flu resulted in more American fatalities than the Civil War.
Influenza 1918!
When
I was a kid my grandmother showed me photos from 1918 taken in
Oakland's beautiful (three year old) Municipal Auditorium on the shores
of Lake Merritt. The photo showed the giant auditorium (big enough to
annually house all three rings of the Ringling Brothers / Barnum &
Bailey Circus) compartmentalized and converted into a huge emergency
hospital.
A Section of The Oakland Auditorium in Hospital Mode
The flu, referred to as the "Spanish" flu (finding someone else to blame is nothing new) hit Oakland twice, first
in 1918 and then, like most flu's, it returned again in 1919. During
its two visits to Oakland it claimed the lives of 1,400 residents (at
a time when the city only had a population of 216,000).
At the time my grandmother was just 21 years old. She said that "everyone knew someone" killed by the flu.
Although hospitals in the Bay Area were overrun, she also said everyone took it seriously and "just pitched in".
History,
in fact, gives kudos to the San Francisco Bay Area for how it responded
to the 1918 flu. The region took immediate and effective measures with integrity and honesty. Taking Draconian steps resulted in SF faring much better that places like Philadelphia where politician's and
local newspaper's downplayed the risk and actively misrepresented its severity (while quietly
excavating mass graves).
Sadly, San Francisco changed course in 1919 relaxing social distancing measures. It then suffered one of the highest national death tolls during the flu's second wave.
The Oakland Auditorium
John J. Donovan Architect (Completed 1915)
Thoughts of Grandma all came to mind as I made a last essential pre-lockdown day trip on Tuesday to the Bay Area.
On my flight to San Jose there were 12 passengers aboard. My evening return flight
had 22. The planes had been totally scrubbed. Passengers at Sky Harbor
were doing a good job at social distancing.
Flying With 11 Other Passengers
San Jose Airport's Consolidated Rental Car Facility at Noon
When
we arrived into San Jose the airport was a ghost town. Just a few cars
in front of the terminal. After renting our car we drove onto San Jose's
normally overcrowded, but now virtually empty, freeways. We quickly
departed Santa Clara County where a shelter-in-place order had just gone
into effect at 12:01 PM.
The
California Highway Patrol was performing criss-cross sweeps across the
freeway in the other direction making me wonder if there were random
checks to verify that people were deemed "essential". Driving
toward Monterey we saw mostly semi's on the road, otherwise traffic was
light.
The mountains along the way were positively lush and green.
Nature was not giving any hint that anything was amiss.
Airline Ticketing Counters at SJC
Upon
return to the airport we encountered zero passengers at the ticketing
counter and TSA. We then boarded, what will likely be, Roadboy's last flight
for awhile.
So, what have we learned?
We
suffered the worst death rate since the Civil war as the result of the complete abandonment of duty by Trump. He recklessly ignored and downplayed the clear and unambiguous global warning signs of an
impending pandemic, while pointing fingers of blame at everyone else on the planet.
The nitwits at Fox News, cheered on by Trump's Presidential Medal of Horror winner, then went on to exacerbate the problem by repeatedly downplaying it's severity. He held rally's where his followers contracted the disease (even killing a supporter and ex presidential candidate Herman Cain)
The
direct result of this gross incompetence was economic hardship on an epic scale. the rich just moved home and worked by web. But to America's small business owners and its poorest citizens the pandemic was a catastrophe. And, as people lost their livelihoods they also lost health care.
The result was the needless
loss of hundred's of thousands of lives with a special vengeance directed at our poor, elderly and immune suppressed
citizens. And, as we expected America's richest emerged even more financially sound with their healthcare plans intact.
So please remember Santayana's oft repeated quote as it certainly applies to us today and in the future!
Now - Continue washing your hands!
Be kind to your neighbors; grocery store clerks and
especially healthcare staff and first responders!
Don't hoard!
When you hear lies based on complete stupidity even when uttered by those in power, call them out!
If we've learned one thing from this, it is that complacency and apathy kills.
Register, vote and fight voter suppression!
America THANK YOU for voting. Mr. Ex can now spend all of his time iin frolic with his oligarch buddies at Mar-a-Lago. Sadly, he departed by whipping up a riot resulting in the deaths of peace officers guarding the Capital.
As his own sister warned the nation that Mr. Ex cannot be trusted, his followers persist. Now neither he nor they can discern the truth anymore after enduring an endless stream of pathological lies from Trump and his media toadies.
Despite the complete lack of a vaccine distribution and inoculation program from the Trump Administration, the new administration rapidly stepped up establishing cohesive national procedures and protocols (national mask mandates etc.) and quickly turned the corner on the pandemic. All this despite Trump's fanatical supporters, many who still claim there was no pandemic, are avoiding vaccination, believe the election was rigged (despite Republican wins on the very same ballots they challenge) and breathlessly await the daily fantastical myths spewed by Q Anon and faux news.
In our state a botched Republican led recount eventually concluded that Biden's Arizona win was under counted by 300 votes and identified almost no issues. So the Same Republicans that hired the right wing "Cyber Ninja's" then fired them (hurts when your own hacks come up with answers you didn't want). Now that firm has folded.
Happily, we have incrementally begun to rejoin international efforts to study and globally address the pandemic.
Sadly, despite having access to a way to stop the spread (vaccines and masks), too many American's dithered in the name of "Freedom" and fear of shots (seriously?). As a result we missed the window to stop the virus entirely.
The result has been widespread infection rates allowing the virus to mutate rapidly into more severe (Delta) and contagious (Omicron) forms.
The best we can now achieve may be Covid as an annual endemic.
Roadboy's Travels © 2020/21/22/24
