virus

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We are Forever Changed — COVID-19 Just Started It All


The reason it is called “COVID-19” is that the 19 refers to the year in which is was discovered and that would be 2019. I believe it was in November. The Chinese discovered it. And everyone wants to lay blame of some sort at their feet but the Chinese scientists were at that time grappling with what they had discovered. People need to remember that just because science discovers something does not mean they immediately and fully understand exactly what they have discovered. To the contrary, most scientific discovered take decades to fully explain and sometime longer, much longer.

No one knew this would become the pandemic is has. No one knew and most still grapple with what the immediate and long term effects of this disease are and will be. The best immunologists and epidemiologists are working very hard to get the arms around this virus but to get it right they need time. It is almost a shame that Dr. Fauci informed us that it would take at least 18 months to get a vaccine for this disease. He has told us that such would be the case if everything went right and we got it on the first try. He has also said that it is unlikely those things will happen. But no one seems to be hearing what he is saying. I am not in the medical field but I remember from the one microbiology course I took in college that the professor told how a virus is the most difficult of all maladies to remedy because of the way it exists.

Let’s take AIDS as an example of the above difficulties. We first new of AIDS is the early 1980s. It is a virus. Problematic to it is that it mutates hence the finest minds have yet to create a vaccine 40 years later! What does this have to do with COVID-19? Two things, first, COVID-19 is a virus that the Chinese believe has already mutated as they are having new outbreaks of this disease. Second, the best way to prevent the spread is through personal protection. My personal experience in traveling from Boston to Montana, Wyoming and Idaho is that people in these states are not taking this virus seriously and are not wearing masks. That will change.

I fear we will suffer with this disease for the next 2 years which will cause states to close down again, hospitals to become overwhelmed and more people dying. This may well be one of our new realities for some time to come. I hope I am wrong.

COVID-19 has already forever changed the way businesses will run. Those business who had never done work from home have been forced into it and have discovered it to be a very effective way to do business. Businesses have been forced to change the way they do business or die. And I read this morning where it is expected that 1/4 of all small business will not reopen. I expect business schools will be changing their curriculum to accommodate the new business models that will inevitably come out of this pandemic.

Additionally, the way we look at response to health crises has already changed and will change more. We simply were not prepared for this pandemic in large part because our belief systems had not allowed for such an occurrence.

We have a new phrase in our language, “social distancing.” Will this be temporary or long-lasting, possibly a new standard?

Amid the Pandemic and new ways of doing business came the policeman who murdered a black man by asphyxiation. First it forced police forces around the country to reconsider apprehension techniques. Then another black man was killed just because three white men thought he was a wanted man when in truth he was just out for a jog, something he had done regularly for a long time and finally there was the policeman who shot and killed a black man in the back because he was resisting arrest.

I knew America was still ways to racist for my liking, but to the extent it has suddenly reared its ugly head was surprising. These events caused demonstrations against racism across America. When it was discovered in the black community that some of them were taking advantage of the situation to cause property damage and looting, black leaders took it upon themselves to call out these thugs and remind both them and America that the protests are to be peaceful. In a number of demonstrations it was police mishandling of the protests that cause them to turn violent. But maybe, just maybe, out this will come a more widespread intolerance for all forms of racism. We can only hope.

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COVID-19 Forever Changes the U.S. and the World


There is an old maxim: whatever you have thought, others have thought; whatever you have done, others have done. The effect of COVID-19 has forever altered our look at the world.

The first thing any new disease does is to expose weaknesses in the health system. When EBOLA came to the U.S. there was a temporary scare because of the uncertainty of what would happen. What did happen is those with EBOLA were immediately isolated and quarantined until the disease passed. As it worked out, only a very few people got this disease and most of the rest of us put that outbreak in the back of our minds, to our own detriment.

In May 2018 the Centers for Disease Control warned of the outbreak of COVID-19, although at the time it had not reared its ugly head. How did they know? The disease was discovered in bats in that portion of China where the outbreak started. But governments around the world, certainly the industrialized nations, did not listen to the warning scientists. Why cause a panic they asked.

Ever wonder why it is named COVID-19? Simple, this is not the first iteration of this disease, both SARS and MERS are versions of the disease. We knew in 2002 we had a highly contagious disease on our hands but our governments, around the world, chose to ignore the early warnings. Why? Those cases were confined and not allowed to spread. They also we not nearly as contagious as what we have now. Sadly, in early February when warned of an impending U.S. pandemic, our President chose to politicize it and called it “a Democratic hoax.”

But here we are, most small businesses closed, large corporations have laid off hundreds of thousands, and people are dying by the hundreds each day. May Trump’s foolish delay was a blessing in disguise. It has made all Americans keenly aware of just how vulnerable we are in every aspect of our daily lives. As a nation we will probably do a better job of washing our hands and being cautious around sick people.

But then there is the heavy downside. Trump’s $2.2 trillion stimulus is supposed to help individual Americans and small businesses, as well as some large ones, to bridge the gap between shut down and restarting. But there are two facts our nation’s leaders refuse to talk about. The first is many small businesses will not survive, Probably some of the intermediate sized companies too. The large corporations that have laid off hundreds of thousands of workers will probably not bring back all those employees for a long time, if ever.

The stock market tanked and then settled. But once the first quarter earnings are published, already skittish investors will likely engage in another large sell off. Corporate American will find itself greatly devalued and its ability to borrow reduced. Many economists have predicted a deep recession, and possibly we are looking at unemployment rates that challenge those of the Great Depression. If the U.S. goes into a deep recession it means the rest of the world will be doing the same.

Individual Americans are in line to receive a $1200 check from the government to help them. But the reality for most Americans is that that $1200 will barely cover rent or not be enough. Most Americans do not have a cash reserve to fall back upon. It won’t be long before news programs are reporting on the large amount of defaults among average Americans as they cannot pay their mortgage, their credit cards bills, because they are so cash strapped that they can only buy food and medicine. Of course there are the most unfortunate who will be forced to choose between food and medicine. This means that a single $1200 payment does not come close to meeting the needs of most Americans.

We are just one nation in both a world health crisis and a world economic crisis. Our best hope is that many of the restrictions can be either lifted or modified by May 1. Social distancing would still be enforced but in a modified version. That is, people would be allowed to return to work places where a six-foot separation can be managed. Non-essential businesses would be allowed to reopen but again with the six-foot separation dictum. This will take some good planning but it is absolutely something which lawmakers, U.S. House and Senate, can figure out. A starting point is to have enough tests available that returning works would be tested prior to being allowed back into the workforce.