Sometimes, visuals convey more information than text. As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
As our mentally-ill President pretends he knows what he’s talking about and brags about what a “great” job his administration has done, and as too many states are fudging the numbers of dead and dying so that they can open much too quickly, a reality check is in order.
These pictures are from EndCoronavirus.com.They show the progress of various countries in combatting the pandemic. Spoiler alert: America is far–far--from being number one.
These countries do best:
A second, nearly equal number of countries, was shown at the link as “almost there.”
The third set was “Countries that need to take action”–i.e., countries doing the worst:
Picture this the next time Trump declares that we’re doing more testing than any other country–we aren’t, not even close–or that we’re ready to “re-open.” Better still, if you happen to come across Trump’s tweet about his proposed new motto–“Transition to Greatness”–click on this URL of the same name for the real story.
If his perverse refusal to listen to experts or learn only threatened the morons who insist that their “liberty” entitles them to ignore your safety, I might be inclined to say “let them go for it!” Unfortunately, they are endangering the rest of us.
As a friend pointed out recently, their “liberty” doesn’t allow them to drive 100 miles per hour on city streets, or to dispense with wearing clothing in public, either. Until they understand the legitimate limits of individual liberty, the “land of the free” won’t be free of the Coronavirus.
The common good—which most citizens understand, value, and are seeking via observing basic science-based health safety protocols—is being undermined by some citizens who—indoctrinated into a paranoid perspective (ideology?) that assertion of limits or regulations (however temporary or limited) is sinister—believe that their individual rights (or liberties, or Liberty itself) are being undermined by the constraints of COVID19 directives. Or, so it seems to me.
Like so many others here, I have been closely following the reports on the virus each day by recording the numbers reported each morning by Reuters. For the past four days the number of cases in the United States has gone back up from a daily total of new cases of 21,311 to 25,642. Meanwhile the daily death toll in the U.S. has declined, most likely IMO, because doctors and nurses have improved on treatments. Only in that respect have things improved. As reported, in some states, including Indiana, the numbers are being played with.
So, keep those masks on and stay home. We’re not even close to the end of this.
Judging by comments on this blog; we appear to be an older audience, some with set views and values which don’t meet our current situation with the leaderless government in charge of this Pandemic on all levels. Reopening IS vital to the nation but with the rising number of cases and deaths, even the lower death count, we do need live people to reopen businesses and to patronize those businesses as we seek a return to “normal” life. “normal” in our near-caste system in this country today has different meanings to the different economic levels. This includes our education system from pre-school, K-12 and higher education, how do we reopen school systems at all levels and keep our children of all ages safe from Covid-19? How do we provide safe areas and more teaching staff on site or for on line schooling with the voucher system bleeding public education tax bases dry? How do we provide repeated cleaning and sanitizing their school areas daily? Will we add Pandemic education to current required classes and provide masks for those who cannot afford them or replace those lost by children who seem adept at losing things?
It now appears there is a new childhood disease rearing its ugly head. Is it an offshoot from coronavirus or a new “childhood disease” appearing coincidentally at this time? Will we know enough about this new disease in addition to coronavirus to plan a safe August school reopening? Picture your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, or your college age children, in their school settings and remember the graphs in the blog today as a guideline.
Albert Einstein, Why Socialism, 1949:
“I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.
The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.”
During this crisis, the Billionaire Class has once again seen substantial gains while the Working Class sees record-high unemployment rates with almost no support from the government.
Todd,
GREAT posting today. Einstein is, of course, one of my heroes in many ways. The irony attached to his statement here is that humans EVOLVED as a social organism. It’s the only way we ended up becoming the most populous mammal on the planet. Those who reject the socialistic aspects of our capitalistic way of life are so retro- that the must see themselves coming AND going at the same time. They have embraced a lifestyle that even troglodytes didn’t consider.
The aggrieved white male leads this backward glance into a time in human history that never existed.
We might not be number 1 in testing, or in flattening the curve, but nobody can claim that we’re not number 1 cases AND deaths from the virus. I wonder what 45 will do when Bolsonaro leads Brazil to the top of both of those misery indices. To quote Tom Petty, “It’s good to be king.”
Vernon,
And this is the irony of the MAGA movement:
“The aggrieved white male leads this backward glance into a time in human history that never existed.”
The graphs are clearly indicative of the arrogance many humans have about this highly contagious and deadly disease. The politicians in countries with the upward sloping graphs are all conservative and willing to let people die for the sake of their own political power, reelection or their bowing to the money people for whom they work. Sweden may be an exception, but their mass immunity theory is being tested on the headstones of the dead. They must think they have an overpopulation problem.
Nothing will change in the United States until either Trump and his sycophants are out of office, or he gets infected. If he does, you will see him put restrictions on everything related to him and to hell with everyone else.
I saw today that he want to have the G-7 at Camp David next month. Who in their right mind would want to come to the most COVID virulent country on Earth to talk about things that they can’t control? And Trump wouldn’t wear a mask. I have a publisher friend in the UK who likens their Boris Johnson to Trump and, coincidentally, the UK has the per capita lead in Europe for infections and deaths. You know, like we lead the world in those categories. Imagine that.
bumper sticker:
trump finally did something for the
working class, he gave us
corona virus..
I find it interesting that people come to their own conclusions about society, when Scripture has pointed out the discrepancies concerning mankind ruling himself for millennia.
The prophecy in Daniel of the immense image, (Daniel 2:44, 45) where it describes mankind’s history, and the strength of powers in that history! Going all away down to the end of mankind’s history, not only in Daniel, but correlated in the New Testament not just the old.
It discusses the feet of molded Clay mixed with iron, and everyone knows, iron is strong and Clay can be molded, but, it is very weak. The clay does not bind with iron! This denotes factions in society which fight against government, mankind’s government. The iron is the government or governments, the clay refers to elements of society that refused to cooperate with government.
So, the whole history of man, sets on a fragile casting of anarchy! This is prophecy, this has been setting in a book for thousands of years, it’s not a secret!
In Matthew, Jesus Christ referred to this disunity, this anarchy and how it portends to the future. In Matthew the 24th chapter, you can go all away to the 25th chapter. But it discusses the amount of world wars which was new to human history during the 20th century. So as governments have worked to try and make society safer, you have groups such as the anti-vaxers, climate change deniers, conspiracy theorists, flat earthers, truthers, birtherism, xenophobia, racism, sexism, theocratic fanaticism, science deniers, and on and on and on and on!
They all work against government, they work against their best interests, they work against their own lives, they espouse their own opinions as some sort of fact, their own mental illness as some sort of reality! The UN has predicted mass famine because of the start of this particular pandemic. As it continues to alternate between hemispheres, the supply chain for food to wealthier countries is going to be disrupted. We all know what happens when people cannot feed them or their families. The UN said about 300,000 a day will die, this is due to those playing games with the pandemic and not getting it under control. Even the United Nations calls it a famine of biblical proportions!
With the emergence of this particular coronavirus covid19, it is already morphing and adapting as it spreads to other hemispheres! So there will be no slowdown in the change of this virus. So when it comes back, just like flu season, or cold season, which are both coronavirus is by the way, it will be something completely different and probably resistant to any possible vaccine that could be available no matter how unlikely. So, what to do? Not having faith is a terrible thing! Oh, people have some faith, just not the right kind of faith. Will people leave everything behind to go somewhere where they might be safer? People would rather die then give up their stuff! Stuff comes, and stuff goes, but when you lose your life, or you bet your family, your children and spouse, parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers, you bet it all on your rights, well, you’ve made your decision as to what is important. And it’s not the life of your family and friends.
If people weren’t so stupid, our unstable genius would not be burning everything down, because he would’ve been removed per the 25th amendment, or thanks to Mitch McConnell for not plugging the hole in the side of the Titanic which could’ve solved the problem during the impeachment process. Another sign of no cohesion!
Jesus Christ of course being a Jew, referred to Daniel’s prophecy in the Old Testament under the Mosaic law!
15 “So when you see standing in a sacred place the desolating abomination spoken of by the prophet Daniel, 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; 17 let him who is on the roof not go down to take away what is in his house, 18 and let him who is in the field not go back to pick up his cloak; 19 and woe to women who are pregnant and nursing in those days! 20 But pray that your flight may not come in winter or on a sabbath; 21 for then there will be such great distress as there has not been from the beginning of the world till now, nor shall be. 22 And if those days had not been cut short no flesh would have come safe through; but because of the chosen those days will be cut short. 23 Then if anybody says to you ‘here is the Messiah at this place or this’ do not believe it; 24* for there will arise pretended Messiahs and pretended prophets, and they will exhibit great tokens and wonders, so as to delude even the chosen if possible; 25 now I have told you beforehand. 26 So if they say to you ‘here he is, in the wilderness,’ do not go out; ‘here he is, in the closets,’ do not believe it; 27 for as the lightning comes out of the eastern horizon and shines to the western, so shall be the coming of the Son of Man; 28 wherever the carcass is, there the vultures will gather.
Matthew the 24th chapter!
In Hebrews the 11th chapter, it states in verse 1,
“Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld.” This is referring to the faith everyone should have, and, Moulton and Milligan suggest the rendering: “Faith is the title deed of things hoped for.” (Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, 1963, p. 660) The Greek word eʹleg·khos, rendered “evident demonstration,” conveys the idea of bringing forth evidence that demonstrates something, particularly something contrary to what appears to be the case. Thereby this evidence makes clear what has not been discerned before and so refutes what has only appeared to be the case. “The evident demonstration,” or evidence for conviction, is so positive or powerful that faith is said to be it.
In Ecclesiastes, written by King Solomon, the Hebrew name discerning Ecclesiastes and referring to King Solomon was Qo·heʹleth meaning “Congregator; Assembler; Convener; Convoker” ruling over his theocratic government. The 3rd chapter of Ecclesiastes reads;
There is a season of everything, and a time of every concern under the heavens: 2 a time of being born and a time of dying, a time of planting and a time of grubbing out what was planted, 3 a time of killing and a time of healing, a time of wrecking and a time of building, 4 a time of weeping and a time of laughing, a time of wailing and a time of dancing, 5 a time of throwing stones about and a time of gathering up stones, a time of embracing and a time of shunning embraces, 6 a time of hunting up and a time of losing, a time of keeping and a time of throwing away, 7 a time of tearing and a time of sewing, a time of keeping silence and a time of speaking, 8 a time of loving and a time of hating, a time of war and a time of peace. 9 How much is the doer better off by his trouble? 10 I have seen the employment God has given to mankind to employ themselves at: 11 he has made everything fine at its time, he has even put eternity into their minds except that man does not find out the work God has done from beginning to end; 12 I have learned that there is nothing good among them but to enjoy one’s self and get on well while one is alive. 13* And besides, when any man does eat and drink and see good by all his trouble it is God’s gift. 14** I have learned that everything that God makes will be so forever; there is no adding to it nor subtracting from it; and God makes them fear before him. 15* Whatever is, already was; and what shall be, already is; and God hunts up antiquated things.
So, as mankind relies on himself, he has no cohesion with his fellow man, he has no faith, and his labors are futile! Man tries to be self-reliant but he is not, animals are social creatures for the most part, but man was supposed to be so much more, Too Bad!
Maybe a 21st Century childhood fable entitled: “The Emperor who wore no mask”. Wonder how it ends with an enduring moral to the story.
Jon,
I really like your sifting through biblical scripture to make your points, vis-a-vis the Satanic grifters in the White House, etc.
But, you might want to divide them up into smaller, more readable bits. From my experience on other blogs, I learned that readers need short paragraphs and sharp vectors to the point.
Keep up the good, righteous work. Everyone who reads your stuff benefits. Your blog today is, as usual, apropos. I read it. It took a while, but make your comments shorter and your points will be much clearer. Sorry. Old school teacher. Can’t help it.
Yes, I am a baby boomer raised by 2 people who lived through the Great Depression and WW II. The threat to America was visible and external. People made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
Sadly, with this invisible threat the occupant of the White House is unable to put the greater good before his own egotistical, childish desires.
Since I am retired, I am not having to sacrifice near as much as the younger generations. So I am giving food to a food bank and spent 20% of the 1200 dollar stimulus check to Planned Parenthood, Emily’s List, Amy McGrath’s campaign, and Glick Community Center which serves hundreds of families in my neighborhood.
I am staying home, wearing masks etc and will continue to do so until I see a marked drop in the rising cases here in Indiana.
And, I will continue to look for opportunities to help my fellow Hoosiers.
NPR has reported on Indiana’s difficulties with issuing unemployment checks due to the pandemic. They still don’t have enough staff.
In the meantime, Shiela, I am wondering what your opinion is on our governor’s response to the pandemic is and whether or not our Republican state government is opening the purse strings enough to address this crisis.
It seems that we now have an Agent Orange is our country
Robin–Believe it or not, I try not to comment on issues I don’t know enough about–and I am simply not knowledgable enough to evaluate Indiana’s response to the pandemic. Holcomb has access to information I lack; he also governs a state with vastly different urban and rural situations, AND as a Republican in our era of cultish misinformation, I’m sure he’s being pressured by donors and others whose interests are bottom line, not constituent health. That said, this administration has displayed little or no comprehension of the needs of urban areas like Indianapolis (even though the entire state depends on Indianapolis, as the state’s economic driver.) Some readers of this blog are probably in a better position to evaluate the adequacy of Indiana’s response..
The American caste system has three economic castes. Those who live off of owning the means of production. Those who live off working with those means to create wealth for everyone in terms of services an example of which is to specialize by educational deep diving into a narrow field in order to apply their expert knowledge to problems demanding it. Finally those who live off working with the means to create wealth for everyone in terms of goods.
Of course all of our castes contribute to our American economy and the world economy that we are a diminishing partner in but the monetization of that wealth is distributed among the producers using processes devised under capitalism by the owners of the means. They are first to the table. If they are the royalty the nobility that serves them for a share of the bounty are “thinkers” who, among many other services, manage the distribution network for the money. Of course they are second at the table. Last are the workers who make and buy most of the stuff for the smallest possible share of the wealth that allows them to survive in order to be able to work for another day.
What has been revealed by reality is that our caste system is both unstable and unsustainable given the human population and the home planet’s bounty of resources continuously being diminished by permanently converting them from a useful state to waste. We are, using an old agricultural term, overgrazing.
The instability and unsustainability has created a growing body of dysfunctional parts that threaten the functionality of the entire system.
It’s not at all clear if the system can fix itself. If that is true it will collapse and then the question will be what will arise from the rubble?
Yesterday, a team of epidemiologists from Columbia University published a new “model” showing that had Trump shut the Country down just 1 week earlier in March, there would likely have been somewhere around 30,000-36,000 fewer deaths in the U.S.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/us/coronavirus-distancing-deaths.html
Modeling is, of course, imprecise. But the number is so large that even if it is off by a few percentage points either way, it’s a simply mind boggling number of people dead who probably didn’t need to die!
Stop and think about that for a minute. 30,000+ human beings dead because Trump either refused to heed the advice of knowledgeable people or he didn’t care because he didn’t want to shut down the economy because it would hurt his re-election prospects (or both).
We know Trump was warned by our intelligence community in January that the virus was coming, it was going to be bad, and we needed to get ready for it. We also know several members of his Administration and inner circle told him the same thing in February, but the idiot chose to go on TV at the end of February and announce that the virus was going to simply go away and we didn’t need to do anything. Everything was just fine! Go about your business.
If Trump had taken the experts seriously and timely acted upon it, there would likely be 30,000 some U.S. Citizens still alive today instead of being in their graves. Not to be overly dramatic, that comes awfully close to being guilty of 30,000 + criminally negligent homicides because he failed to act to protect the lives of U.S. citizens.
Yet, as also reported yesterday, the same 40% of our population, who have supported him all along, still tell pollsters they believe Trump has done a good job handling the pandemic and will vote for him again in November. Simply incredible! As someone famously said: “You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.”
I have concluded that while any ism is subject to abuse (as ours is now by the rich and corporate class via their political lackeys), a move for adoption of either a pure capitalism or socialism is not the answer; that our task is to continue to mix the two as we go along with a view toward a more fair and equitable sharing of the fruits of our economy by all which, I suppose, is a socialist response, but whatever the description one necessary to bring fairness to the current imbalance of rewards to the investor class at the expense of other stakeholders in our economy, including corporate workers, consumers, communities in which corporate enterprises are sited, environmentalists et al.
Einstein was on to something but he left this world in 1955 (when we had a New Deal economy and before Reagan), but that economy, where wage equality tracked the Dow and like Einstein, is not with us anymore. We need to adjust the blend of isms as we go along to (in my view) conform to certain market realities but always with a view toward fairness and equity in distributing the economy’s fruits with a view to the common good. That’s my ism, whatever you want to call it.
Gerald,
I’d offer the term, “smartism”.
The mixed economy is the only survivor of last centuries experimentation in alternatives. What’s missing now is the necessary regulation of it to insure all stakeholders get a fair consideration including and especially life on earth in perpetuity.
The problem with any of these graphs is data reliability. I took a statistics course in college. It was rather amazing you could make reliable predictions based on small samples. The larger the sample the better the prediction or probability of being accurate.
There is the old warning though, “Garbage in Garbage Out”. With a normal deck of 52 cards, you can predict the odds of getting a Royal Flush, two of kind, etc. The issue is not enough tests to begin with and who receives the tests???
The problem with Corona is, I could test Negative today and in a week test Positive, in a sense Corona changes the rules. Unlike the deck of cards where an Ace of Spades remains the same, Corona is a Wild Card.
The Reactionary Right and the Trumpter’s faced with deaths approaching 100,000, now is challenging if all these deaths are caused by Corona. The other scenario the Reactionary Right and Trumpter’s have thrown out is let “Herd Immunity” takes it course, i.e., some will die but most will survive and have future immunity to Corona. Right now we know very little about immunity this has not stopped the Trumpeter’s from creating their own facts.
im wondering what the republicans and limo liberals will do now that the goverment has covered most butts in this virus run job killer.. since the amount of trillions have been boosted by the wall street elites,leaving pigeon feed for the small buisness models,and fewer for the service sector. mcconnel isnt about to forget it,or sleep on his,or as he thinks,giveaways…theres a article,common dreams today,GOP plan to gut social security,,,,bringing back romneys oct bill to, as we see,change it,privatize medicare,eliminate it..since the virus has somehow,as mcconnel will whine,broke the bank. ill let ya fill in the typical response of the gop.. looking over ones shoulder should be in ones eye,before this gets traction again. trumps blow hard crap will take affect to shed cover,as the republicans muster all they can before november.. more judges,more cuts,more authoritarianism. best to do, is ignore trump,and focus on the workings of the senate. we have made a stand to stay together on the virus needs,and respect ones space,and need to life. while making trump a clown,and the media sucking up more revenue for his act. mcconnels mob should be questioned and made to answer to all..
ML
short interview with Dr Fauchi with NPR,about a vaccine,and some other facts,today..
nice to hear some sanity for a change
Vernon: very well said and much kinder than my suggestion a couple of months back. I do scroll right past the overlong replies. Perhaps your idea will work. My fingers are crossed.
I haven’t heard of any end to the pandemic other than herd immunity by vaccine. Before that there will be a continuous death rate among the vulnerable at a rate determined by the behavior of the invulnerable.
We are generally grossly inept at collaboration especially under the “leadership” of King Wannabe and his clown nobility.
That means that things, perhaps every thing, will get worse until Jan of next year when recovery can begin but from a starting point significantly worse than now.
Well there is a major problem with this “Let’s all get infected and obtain herd immunity” crap.
Most authoritative sources say it takes somewhere between 70% to 90% of the population to be immune (from having been infected and survived) before effective “herd immunity” can be obtained and counted on to keep most of us safe (based on experience from prior known viruses and hoping SARS-CoV-2 will be similar).
So although math is not my strong suit by any means, let’s do the math. I will round the numbers off — and if I haven’t done the math properly, please feel free to correct me:
As I understand it, the U.S. currently has a population of around 328.2 million (minus of course the nearly 100,000 who have died from Covid-19 in the last two months, but I digress).
That means that somewhere between 290 to 300 million of the total U.S. population would have to become infected[confirmed U.S. infections appear to currently be at about 1,611 million as of today] and survive before there would be any realistic hope for there being any meaningful “herd immunity”(no matter what Rush Limbaugh might bloviate). And that doesn’t take into account the fact that no one is absolutely certain that you will in fact be immune, after surviving an infection and can’t be reinfected, or for how long that immunity will last.
Although there are no precise figures available because of the criminally low amount of testing being done in this Country, some estimates are that in many areas somewhere around 4% or less of the population have currently been infected — and that includes those who have died –over 95,000 as of today. In hard hit areas like New York City, there are estimates of maybe between 15 to 20%.
So we need nearly somewhere around another 299 million or so U.S. Citizens to attend Clovid-19 infection parties and become infected in order to get even close to a possible “herd immunity” (Of course, some of those might die before becoming immune, so the number of necessary infections could be a bit higher — sorry for the sarcasm about a deadly serious subject).
Does that sound like a reasonable plan to you? No, that is insanity. Realistically, we stand a better chance of having an effective vaccine available before the U.S., let alone the world, would obtain “herd immunity.”
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/from-our-experts/early-herd-immunity-against-covid-19-a-dangerous-misconception
Vernon,
Thanks, Betty has said the same thing, LOL! But, I try to post what I feel applies to the comment so to speak. Because people won’t look up the scriptures, so I post them! I read all of the comments, because I feel if people went through the time to research and post, then it must be their belief. Therefore, even though I don’t comment on everyone else’s comments, I learn a lot and I try to show respect by digesting the information.
I know Marv likes to split it up into several posts, maybe I will try that. I hoped folks attention span was a bit longer than reading a 10-minute thread at the most.
But I really really and honestly thank you for the advice teach, and I promise I will work on that!