Politics

There’s been a lot of information coming out about the virus SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes, COVID-19. We were told people outside of China shouldn’t panic about the Coronavirus, except after March 16th when the same people told us what we do and don’t know about the deadly Coronavirus outbreak. CBS was found using their footage from emergency rooms in Italy to describe the situation in New York City (mirror). There’s a lot of information out there, so let’s take a very shallow look at what else the news media has told us.

Powers of State

The United States is entering the world of George Orwell in his novel 1984. Rhode Island is using the National Guard to lock down the State and go door to door identifying travelers. However, eight US States have refused to issue lockdown orders. Police in Louisiana and police in Washigton D.C used the siren from The Purge to signal curfew. The governor of Iowa refused to lock down her state, instead asking for people to take personal responsibility. Chicago redditors tell OP to rat out a neighbor who is having a party. Police claim there were only 5 people there. Redditor does not believe him. The governor of Mississippi refuses to lock down his state because he doesn’t want Mississippi to be like China. Police in San Francisco release a prisoner charged with shooting into a crowd and caught on video, with a GPS bracelets because of fears of COVID-19 within jails.

Voting during this season is difficult. Chicago had a very low turnout to the polls as the governor of Illinois refused to implement vote-by-mail options. The Supreme Court ruled that Wisconsin could not extend absentee voting. Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign, but there’s a chance he could still win the nomination since between zero and seven senators may die from COVID-19.

Foreigners who legally reside in China are being denied access to medial supplies. Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income, but it turns out this was bad reporting on a statement by a far left party with no ability to implement policy.

Meanwhile, Google and Facebook make sure people shelter in place by using all of our tracking data. The name of a Corona virus patient was released in India, and concerns were raised about health privacy law violations. Both Google and Apple have announced Android/iOS based apps for tracking Coronavirus.

Mortality

People are dying. This first preliminary description of outcomes among patients with COVID-19 in the United States indicates that fatality was highest in persons aged ≥85, ranging from 10% to 27%, followed by 3% to 11% among persons aged 65–84 years. Even if you’re young though, the chance of dying of COVID19 is higher than that of BASE jumping. Children are mostly spared from the Coronavirus, but on March 25th, someone under the age of 18 died of COVID-19, possibly the youngest victim in America. In Spain, Italy, South Korea and Wuhan China, the vast majority of those who died were over 50.

At the same time, a Milan University study estimates 20 million Italians may have Coronavirus. The Case Mortality Rate May be in 0.25% to 0.30%, Much Lower than Predictions. Italy may not be properly counting all the people who have died from COVID-19 (original). And COVID-19 is either outpacing the flu, or flu numbers are getting attributed to COVID-19. It is difficult to project the end of an exponential growth while you’re inside one, even account for the margin of error.

Currently, mortality rates, estimated on March 1st, are 5·6% inside of China and 15·2% outside of China. Germany’s Coronavirus Death Rate Is Far Lower Than In Other Countries. The mortality rate for people under 50 is less than 1% as of March 24th for Spain, Italy, South Korea and China.

Within four months in the United States, COVID-19 fatalities have surpassed the average number of motorcycle fatalities for an entire year.

Hysteria

In Seattle, a woman yells at a street preacher for being not staying home. Some people believe COVID-19 is caused by 5G, so they’re burning cellphone towers, and a 32 year old woman in in Brooklyn struck 86 year old to the ground for not social distancing. The elderly woman eventually died. A train engineer in Los Angles attempted to ram his train into a docked hospital ship, convinced it was not there to help with COVID-19, but instead was part of a government secret operation. In the UK, a video emerged on YouTube of an English woman claiming men in hazmat suits and masks were telling people a homeless man had died who she had just seen alive.

Capital

In parts of Europe, there are no migrant workers for the fruit harvest, leaving fruit to rot. In Florida, some vegetable farms have large amounts of products left to spoil due to lack of sales to schools and restaurants. For the first time in decades, there are concerns about famine in the developed world.

A Tennessee man had over 17 thousand bottles of hand sanitize he had purchased early on in the epidemic, which he sold on Amazon for up to $70 each. Amazon halted the sales and the state attorney opened an investigation into the man violating laws against price gouging during a disaster. He was forced to donate the supplies to charity.

A Lt. General talked about the problems with privatized emergency supply chains, and how such chains would not be seen when he worked in military procurement; suggesting profiteering. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says this crisis will test the limits of our medical system, and how the US health care system should be free at the point of service for everyone.

Bill Gates is the 2nd largest donor to the World Health Organization, and critics argue that Gate’s priorities have become the WHO’s. He’s suggested a nationwide lock-down everywhere within the United States. Meanwhile, millions of Americans live in counties with no ICU bed.

On the 26th of March, The Wall Street Journal reported that over three million people, nearly 1% of Americans, were filing for unemployment with millions more unable to get through the overloaded websites for their state. A record breaking $2 trillion dollar stimulus was passed. Millions of Americans could wait months for a stimulus payment, or it could just be a few weeks

An Iranian company produced anti-Coronavirus masks with the image of General Soleimani’s. Vermont wants big box retailers to only sell supplies and stop selling clothing, electronics and toys. No industry want to be left out of the chance to market themselves in the face of this crisis.

UK

Things are getting weird in the UK. Native wildlife, like this Dalek, can be found on suburban streets, telling people to self isolate instead of threating to exterminate. The UK has also had it’s share of dealing with the Coronavirus. Health officials quietly lowered the official threat level days before Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a lock down. The UK ordered testing kits that were contaminated with Coronavirus. Certain politicians within the UK want to end the lock down using controversial “immunity passports” and antibody tests that have not been proven to work.

People in the UK are using the crisis to advocate for emptying prisons, filling hotels with the homeless and guaranteeing a basic minimum income. In England, decisions to cancel certain soccer games, using different tiers for the men’s and women’s teams, has lead to accusations of discrimination. Concerns have been raised over UK’s HC 122 which allows the government to forcibly take biological samples, use lock down measures to prevent protests and give authorities emergency powers that last two years with six month reviews. Boris Johnson came down with Coronavirus himself, yet is recovering after hospitalization.

Health

Prof. Sucharit Bhakdi believes a major factor in the high Italian mortality rates is their air pollution, even though a study shows smokers may have a lower chance of serious illness from COVID19.

There were some researchers who claimed they had found links between 2019-nCoV and HIV-1, but after being being slammed by other researchers for lacking scientific merit and being misleading, the paper was withdrawn.

Michael Osterholm told the world to expect over 480,000 deaths in America from COVID-19. In a March 16th paper by the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, they predicted approximately 510,000 deaths in the UK and 2.2 million in the US if the disease went unmitigated. Later Ferguson, an author on the paper, lowered his estimate to 20k in the UK, but still stood by the original estimate had mitigation not taken place.

The BMJ journal published that cloth masks should not be used and are ineffective at preventing the spread of viruses compared to medical masks. Other studies suggest makeshift masks should only be used as a last resort. Yet Dr. Deborah Birx and President Trump have both advisted people to wear masks, or even scarfs, and people on the Internet are endlessly debating if masks are or aren’t effective. The Obama administration did not replenish the nation’s M97 mask supply after the H1N1 epidemic.

Fin?

A Bloomberg op-ed piece suggests the changes in New York City might leave it younger, cheaper poorer and more segregated than ever, while National Review tells us China wants to use the epidemic to take over the world.

Some have asked if this is this a dress rehearsal for how nations deal with population management in the face of catastrophe? Like the biological infection of coronavirus itself, our temporarily necessary social and political responses to it are monstrous aberrations, a rising three-degree fever and a truck parked on the lungs of our now-wheezing economy and body politic itself. The impacts of these actions may result in more coronavirus deaths by delaying the build up of herd immunity.

Coronavirus might be a once in a lifetime epidemic, but it also might be a once in a lifetime fiasco. The one thing most of us can agree on is that the majority of Americans disapprove of media’s handling of coronavirus