April 27, 2020: A Ray of COVID Hope - And a President Focused on Tweeting

 

4/27/20: If you missed this potentially positive development in the COVID-19 story, you can consider yourself excused. My oldest daughter, who works in infectious diseases at the Centers for Disease Control, tipped me off to a study done by USC and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Unlike guests on Fox News, my girl Abby knows what she’s talking about. 

Based on a representative sampling of 863 county residents, they estimate that as many as 4.1% of the adult population already had antibody protection against the coronavirus in early April. That would mean far more people had been infected than health officials or even those infected knew. 

At the time, Los Angeles County had 7,994 confirmed cases and 600 deaths. That would appear to be a fearful mortality rate of 7.5%. But if the sampling figure held up, the county would have already had between 221,000 and 442,000 cases of coronavirus. Selecting even the lowest figure, the mortality rate would be .003 percent, or 1 death for every 368 cases. That would be similar to an exceptionally virulent strain of seasonal flu, proving President Knucklehead was partly right when he said COVID-19 was “like the flu.”

 

So, I asked Abby if this meant we were safer than we realized. “Yes, and no,” she explained. “This virus is far more communicable than flu.” She also said the coronavirus was not like the flu. It was similar in its structure to SARS and MERS, which had proven wicked deadly in the past. 

I listened attentively. Smart kid. I didn’t understand everything she said. But there did seem to be a ray of hope amidst the gloom.

 

Anyway, there may be other signs of hope. New tests indicate that 96% of 3,277 inmates in Ohio, Virginia, Arkansas and North Carolina who have tested positive for the disease were asymptomatic. 

“It adds to the understanding that we have a severe undercount of cases in the U.S.,” Leana Wen, adjunct associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University, explained. 

It also means the death rates we see – which look frightful, to say the least – may be not as horrendous as they appear. 

That would be welcome news.

 

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“He was soberly addressing health experts on the coronavirus task force, urging them to launch a study.” 

Fox News

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Generally speaking, the Trump administration – led by a dimwit president – continues to bumble and stumble along. Poison control centers have seen spikes in calls after the man with the “very, very large brain” suggested that injecting disinfectant might protect a person from the virus. Kentucky officials say calls related to misuse of household cleaners rose 50% in March, even before the president leaped aboard the Lysol bandwagon and rode it until it broke loose and went flying down a steep hill and smashed into a scientific tree. Even Fox News seemed to have had its fill of the president’s unshakeable idiocy. Since there are still a few journalists working for Fox, they reported that while Trump claimed to have been speaking sarcastically when he touted the virus-fighting glories of disinfectant, “he was soberly addressing health experts on the coronavirus task force, urging them to launch a study.” 

The Maryland Emergency Management Agency said it had received a hundred calls in the wake of Trump’s baffling performance. Officials decided it was time to issue an advisory: “This is a reminder that under no circumstances should any disinfectant product be administered into the body through injection, ingestion or any other route.” 

The State of Washington also saw a spike in disinfectant-related health emergencies. Again, health authorities were forced to plead with citizens not to “drink bleach” or “inject disinfectant.”

 

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MEANWHILE, the president wasted his entire weekend (with no official events on his schedule Saturday or Sunday) and spent his time roasting and toasting foes on Twitter. Among other issues, he was infuriated by a story in The New York Times, which mocked his work habits. The president proceeded to prove he was focused on critical issues confronting the nation by firing off 45 tweets on Sunday. He started off well enough, wishing the First Lady a “Happy Birthday.” 

 

“The hardest working President in history.” 

Then you had a barrage of wild posts, punctuated by self-pity. Trump insisted (again) that he hadn’t left the White House “in months,” except to send off the hospital ship Comfort. He said the story in the Times was the work of “a third rate reporter who knows nothing about me.” He went that one better, claiming people who did know him “say that I am the hardest working President in history. I don’t know about that,” he continued, “but I am a hard worker and have probably gotten more done in the first 3 1/2 years than any President in history.” 

Poor Donald soon turned his focus to the crushing dilemma of 26.5 million Americans who had lost their jobs in five weeks. 

Or not.

 

Trump started tweet-blasting reporters at papers like the Times, who had won “Noble” prizes “for their work on Russia, Russia, Russia, only to have been proven totally wrong.” (They weren’t wrong, by the way.) He said they should have to give those Noble prizes to … Trump took a moment to hit the CAPS button … “REAL REPORTERS & JOURNALISTS.” 

Don proved he was focused on dying Americans…by howling about mean reporters at length. “Lawsuits should be brought against all,” said the man who dreams of dealing with the press the same way his friends Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un and Prince Mohammed bin Salman do. (Calling those three “friends” is, in itself, a sad statement about what kind of man sits in the White House today.) 

Lawsuits?

 

Yes, sue them all, “including the Fake News Organizations, to rectify this terrible injustice. For all of the great lawyers out there, do we have any takers? When will the Noble Committee Act? Better be fast!” 

Yes, forget the 50,000 plus dead. The real victim of “terrible injustice” in this sad time is Mr. Trump. 

The Twittersphere can be a cruel place, of course, and Trump was roundly mocked for repeatedly misspelling “Noble” prize. 

Then, honest to god, the President of the United States spent even more of his precious time claiming he was being “sarcastic” when he typed “Nobel” wrong. I mean…Jesus H. Christ.

 

You could probably argue at this point that the Narcissist-in-Chief is falling apart in real-time. He spent most of Sunday on the attack. He blasted the “RINO Paul Ryan,” the “fraud” Donna Brazile, and described Chris Wallace, on Fox News, as “nastier to Republicans than even Deface the Nation or Sleepy Eyes” Chuck Todd. Trump dug up and retweeted a number of tweets by others he liked. “John Brennan Hid Evidence Putin Favored Hillary in 2016,” read one. Pelosi was a “serial fraudster, & generational corruptocrat,” said another. The sister of General Flynn claimed her brother “Was Framed By His Own Government!!” Then, for good measure, she added the hashtag, “#HumanScum.” 

Then, for f**k sakes, the President of the United States thought it was a great idea to retweet a doctored film clip of Joe Biden, his tongue lolling out like a cow, apparently trying to speak. 

I, for one, was appalled.

https://twitter.com/SilERabbit/status/1254551597465518082

A busy schedule.

  

 

I’d have spent my time thanking them. 

I don’t know how we ended up with a president so petty and lacking in class. I don’t know how his fans continue to ignore his love for authoritarians, his attacks on the free press, and his disinterest in studying the issues related to the COVID-19 threat. 

I do know this. If I were president, I’d not waste a weekend tweeting and retweeting idiotic crap. I’d have aides connect me by phone to the crew of the U.S.S. Kidd. The destroyer had been stationed off the coast of South American, tasked with interdicting drug smuggling. That included working to thwart drug cartels that have been building their own mini-submarines. At least 33 sailors aboard the Kidd had tested positive for COVID-19. I’d have spent my time thanking them for their sacrifice and promising to get them whatever they need. 

I’d spend part of my Sunday boning up on documents related to possible reinstatement of Captain Brett Crozier, who warned that infection was sweeping the crew of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. 

I’d be on the phone with the U.S. Navy’s top admiral, who favors returning Crozier to command. I would tell the admiral to get it done.

 

If I were president, I might kick back awhile and see how my favorite NFL team did in the 2020 draft. (My team, the Cincinnati Bengals, had an  excellent haul if anyone cares.) But then I’d tell aides, “You know what, let’s get the numbers for people who have lost jobs. Let’s get the number for Amy, who works in the plumbing department of Home Depot in Sacramento and still shows up every day for work despite the risk of infection. And Gina, the Costco checkout lady in Cincinnati. And Amanda, the nurse practitioner on the front lines in Chicago. Let’s get Sean, the high school teacher, who lost his mother to the disease, on the phone. 

I would call them up and offer words of consolation, as best I could. That’s how I’d spend my weekend if I were in charge. 

Then again, I use the word “empathy” a great deal. 

And I’m not Trump.