Covid Crisis: Where We Are Now

Is this April resolve fading away in May?

May 1 has become an important date in the covid crisis, and depending on what happens in the next weeks and months, a fateful day.  The federal government has ended its stay at home suggestion and is encouraging states to reopen businesses and public life.  A number of states are doing so, in different ways and to different degrees.

This seems to be happening for no other reason than it is May 1, a date of convenience in issuing initial stay at home orders.  Some places are showing a decline in new cases and a decline in deaths attributed to covid.  Others are experiencing increases, and there is little correlation in many instances between those who are "re-opening" and those who are experiencing declines.  Texas for instance began relaxing restrictions as their daily death rate hit a new high.

The previously announced medical criteria for loosening and ending restrictions were adequate medical resources to handle a possible influx of cases, universal testing for the virus, and the ability to trace contacts of those who test positive.  None of these conditions have been met anywhere, though some places are closer than others.

Consider this: we are so far from a capability of universal testing that the US Senate is incapable of testing all 100 members and their staffs.  Virtually the only people who have complete access to testing--to multiple tests--are the president and vice-president.

So the reasons for re-opening (if that's what we want to call it) at this time are not medical but economic and (mostly) political.  There is a certain understandable human impatience with restrictions which is now boiling over, along with more domestic violence and child abuse being reported.  It does seem almost miraculous that so many people have put up with these restrictions for a solid month or more.  And despite the demonstrations funded by cynical right wing rich and fomented by their demented minions,  polls show an overwhelming support for restrictions that save suffering and save lives, even despite the economic wreckage.

So the demonstrations are mostly a distraction that the media and politicians can use for their own purposes, but only mask the political and economic interests at work.  The federal government is fully capable of doing what other western democratic governments have done, which is fully fund both essential workers and those without income because of the covid crisis.  But Republicans will not allow that, and so the only alternative for people without paychecks is to risk their lives going back to work.

The calculation is easy enough to make: those known to be dying from covid are mostly from the categories of elderly, poor and/or black and other racial minorities.  The elderly are economically useless, and the poor and working poor have no choice but to risk their lives trying to make a living.  Big corporations and big Republican donors must survive.

Even the money that has been allocated is often being channeled to precisely them: big companies, including in rightist-friendly fossil fuel, and specifically the biggest Trump donors.  It is potentially the most massive corruption in American history, and it barely makes the news.

As for covid itself, we are still largely in the dark.  I wondered why the more I read about it the less I seemed to know, until I read this piece.  That seems to be where we are: knowing almost nothing.  We just know it is a terrible disease and a killer.

What we mostly know is that the entire country ground to a halt for a month, and most of us have been under house arrest for at least that long--all of this was supposed to break the chain of transmission and provide the time to do what else had to be done to re-open, especially in testing capability.  But in terms of preparation, the month of April was instead largely squandered.  The federal government refused to do what only it could have done to scale up for this crisis, instead making things worse by diverting resources from where they were needed to where the R's thought would be politically advantageous.

Now the Rs intend to pretend the crisis is over.  Having deferred all responsibilities to the states, they now want to deny states the financial resources they need.  April looks to be just the beginning.  Meanwhile, more than 60,000 Americans died from the virus, mostly in April, an undercount that probably means a hundred thousand or more.  It will take more good fortune than anyone can expect even to make it to some of the changes we need in January without many more deaths and social chaos, assuming voters understand what is at stake in November.

As for breaking the chain of transmission, that largely worked where people stuck with sequestration and distancing, but hot spots like crowded factories, care homes and essential workplaces have kept the numbers going up.  Now restrictions will be eased, and we can hold our breath for the next several weeks and months to see how bad it gets.

Jacinda Ardern

In all of this, there must also be admiration for those who have met the occasion with what amounts to heroism.  These may start at the top with people like Dr. Fauci, and others who tell the truth and are threatened and punished for it by the psycho paranoid in chief, as well as public officials who have threaded the needle, each in their own way.

 That list must start with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern but it includes German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the governors of California, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and others, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

But they also include local health officials such as Humboldt County's Dr. Teresa Frankovich and other county public health workers.  They include the essential workers keeping us fed and protected, and they also include the millions of people who have both supported and maintained restrictions with as much humor and grace as they could muster.  That's everywhere it has happened, but I have a special place in my heart for the people of Italy, who suffered so much but provided the first example of how to behave in this crisis.

As for the future, we may hope that the leadership that has yet to materialize from the various regional compacts of states does soon assert itself, and--together with Bill and Melinda Gates--hope that the European Union or other international entities can come up with international solutions.   (Here's an interview with Bill Gates which links to his latest essay on where we stand at the moment in the covid crisis--something he's been warning about for at least five years.)

Here on the North Coast, we've been fortunate so far.  We've had only 54 positive tests in Humboldt County, 4 hospitalizations and no deaths.  Nearly all of those 54 have recovered, and most days for the past three weeks we've had no new positives.  At the same time, our hospitals and public health people have scaled up and geared up, with testing and medical capacity, if that changes for the worse.

I do see impatience with restrictions, especially among the young.  I've seen several articles recently questioning whether the statistics still showing most of the deaths come from the ranks of the elderly are feeding age bias.  In other words, we're an acceptable sacrifice.  I don't know.  I do assume that we in this age group are in for house arrest for a good long while.  I saw an estimate today saying that covid is likely to continue for at least two years.  That's also the estimate of the minimum length of time it would take for a vaccine to be widely available.

The demonstrations, the impatience, suggest that as unexpected the social cohesion has been so far, it could break down rather rapidly.  Our fearless leader has already lost his nerve.  The rest of us must somehow keep ours.

Update: On May 1, the US experienced its highest single day number of recorded deaths from covid, at nearly 3,000.