Weekend Update: Tulsa Turndown and Covid News

"Rarely has a single campaign rally drawn as much hype as the one President Donald Trump held Saturday night at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma—a relaunch of his reelection bid that, according to the president himself, more than 1 million people had requested tickets to attend" writes Russell Berman in the Atlantic.  "Rarely has a presidential event endangered the public health of the community it was held in. And rarely has a spotty crowd made such a statement. It turns out Oklahomans might care more about their own health than the president does."

Gee, did anyone suggest this might happen?  Let's see...In my Weekend Update of June 13 I wrote: "There are still the AlwaysTrumpers, the reliable one-third, but it's not clear how reliable they are anymore. We will see if they are really insane enough to crowd into covid pits to shout and spit in Tulsa, where infections are rising fast, or even in Jacksonville. What if the tickets aren't actually going like hotcakes in Tulsa, and what if Trump suddenly realizes that for an hour or more he'll be facing thousands of possibly infected people screaming at him?"

Now we know the answer to those questions.  In the battle between the Germaphobe-in-Chief vs. the Narcissist-in-Chief, the Narcissist won.  But the AlwaysTrumpers didn't show in the usual numbers-- estimates have the arena anywhere from a third to a half from the capacity of 19,000 [Update: Tulsa Fire Marshal estimates the crowd at 6,200, which is a third of capacity, or two-thirds empty.  The Trump campaign says it was 12,000.], and the overflow outdoor venue had so few attendees that speeches by Trump and Pence were cancelled.  Of course we don't know how many of those who might have attended changed their minds because of the covid crisis.  But normally people don't miss a chance to see a President, and a lot of people took a pass on this one. (The actual attendance has really nothing to do with any fake reservations made online which may have affected only the campaign's prior estimates.)

Those who did show bunched together and though some wore masks, others immediately threw away the ones they were dutifully given.  Which suggests another explanation: that the true number of diehard AlwaysTrumpers is fewer than assumed.

That business of the outdoor arena being the overflow venue is very telling. If they had that venue available, why didn't they hold the main event there?  It would have mitigated somewhat against the risk of spreading the virus.  People can make nearly as much noise outdoors as in an echoing indoor arena.  That is, if they show up, which apparently the Trump campaign believed they would.

The reason has to be that the indoor arena was an in-your-face statement that the virus and people who could contract it don't matter. Virus, what virus? Trump made fun of it in his remarks.  But the very selection of the indoor venue was a vicious statement. It is the superspreader of denial.

A lot more happened this week that added up to administration racism, corruption and the ongoing attempt to hollow out and destroy the federal government, and the states besides. Each week gets more grotesque than the last.  But in this update I'm sticking to virus news.

Global infections are at record highs, and in the US they are climbing to the highest previous point of spring.  No one doubts they will exceed prior levels. Not long ago the headline was that half the states were "re-opening." Now the headline is that at least half the states are seeing big increases in infections.

It is now generally concluded that reopening and group activities on Memorial Day weekend and after have accelerated infections and hospitalizations. It's also widely concluded that at least so far, the protests after George Floyd's murder did not contribute to greatly increasing infections, possibly because they were outdoors and the majority of protesters wore masks.

It's also clear that hot weather has done little or nothing to slow down the virus, since prominent among the virus hot spots are the hot states of Florida, Arizona, Texas, southern California and Oklahoma.

There's more consensus on risk factors.  The virus most easily transmits, current thinking goes, when people are together for hours indoors without masks and without physical distancing, especially if they are breathing harder--shouting, singing, dancing, etc.  So apart from nursing homes, crowded factory floors, and overcrowded migrant housing, as well as repeated exposure to an infected member of the household, infections have been traced back to large social activities in homes and other rooms (birthdays, funerals, weddings), and to bars and nightclubs (30 members of the national champion LSU football team were infected as a result of an evening at a nighclub.)

The new clusters of infections seem to be taking place among young people, possibly linked to those social settings, and not boding real well for reopening colleges.

Wearing a mask, a face covering, is becoming the most recommended deterrent to infection, along with physical distancing.  Catching the virus from surfaces is thought to be less likely.

Naturally people are interested in any scientific study but it's best to get beyond the headlines.  There were lots of stories last week about a study showing that blood types are a factor in severity.  But the difference turns out to be negligible.  Other factors are more important.  And while more is being learned, most of the mysteries of this mysterious virus are still, you know, mysterious.

And there is this disquieting column in the Washington Post by Erin Blakemore     about the claims made by a gerontologist and a public health expert at the CDC claiming "that ageist perceptions of seniors as helpless and expendable affect how they’re cared for, and how many of them die of covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus."

 This brief column links to the article by these doctors that outlines the problems and the possible solutions.  But I find myself staring at the two words I highlighted: helpless and expendable.  And how, consciously or not, they may go together.  As well as the assumption that seniors are both.

Nationally some 80% of covid deaths are of Americans over 65.  Here in Humboldt County it's been 100%--although I believe at least 2 if not all 4 were in their 90s.  Our numbers are too small to mean anything, but I can't help  noticing anyway that my age group--the 70s--has by far the fewest cases of known infection, only 3.  Yet the 60s had the most cases until recently, and now comes a close second to the age group with the largest number, the 30s.  With only 110 cases total since the pandemic was identified, the age group numbers vary little really--they just look different on a bar graph.  Still, if there is a reason for the 70s being the lowest I can't think what it is.  But of course I'll take it.