March 8-11, 2020: What Did I Miss while Hiking in Virginia?

 

3/8-11/20: What did I miss while I was off hiking in the Virginia mountains? When last I checked Sunday, Donald J. Trump, called “Dr. Zero” by all his biggest fans, was headed for the golf course. 

That made 264 days, since taking office, spent in golf spikes, baggy white polo shirt, khakis and red MAGA cap.

Flowers on Old Rag Mountain trail.

View from Old Rag Mountain trail.

View from the top of Old Rag Mountain.

Blurry picture of a bear shot by nervous hiker.

 

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“I would not be a president who took vacations.” 

Then-Candidate Trump

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Just like he promised! 

In a June 2015 interview he said he’d be too busy, if elected, working for the American people, to play golf. “I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done,” he promised. “I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off.”

 

I had to assume, by the time I got home Thursday, that the coronavirus problem was solved. On February 26, Dr. Zero said he didn’t think he’d need all the money Congress was allocating to fight the spread of COVID-19, because he was doing such a great job of deciding. He was deciding with fantastic skill. This was the most amazing deciding ever done by any president. The Democrats in Congress wanted to give him $8.5 billion to address the problem. Bah! He was only asking for $2.5 billion. He wouldn’t need all that money. He said we were heading for zero cases. 

I saw him say that with my liberal peepers. 

Plus, I had watched Trump talk to reporters (before heading off to Mar-a-Lago) during his visit to the Centers for Disease Control on March 6. He said none of the real doctors could believe how much he knew about this new virus. He would have made a great real doctor, himself.

 

So, I got home on Thursday, after my walk in the mountains. And I rushed to check the stock market reports. I figured the stock market was soaring again. “I bet it’s up to 35,000,” I said to myself. 

And… 

“WTF!!!!!” I said in amazement. 

The market had taken a giant skid! I thought Dr. Zero had market magic in every finger and thumb and toe! The Dow had closed at 23,553 on Tuesday, down from 29,551 on February 12. 

It had plunged 6,000 points!

 

 

Just a “fraud” perpetrated by the Deep State. 

As of Thursday morning, Johns Hopkins was reporting there had been 126,660 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide and 4,641 deaths. Italy’s caseload jumped to 12,462 and there were 827 deaths. Iran had 9,000 cases, but only 354 reported deaths. That number hadn’t changed for days – which may have something to do with authoritarian censorship, not miraculous medical care. South Korea had 7,869 cases. France, Germany, and Spain had all surpassed 2,000. 

But Dr. Zero said he had kept us all safe. So, I figured the U.S. must be down to about… 

“WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I screamed when I looked at the latest list. We had gone from 15 cases to 1,321. 

It got me thinking that Dr. Zero and some of his right-wing buddies were just a bunch of quacks.

 

Still, Dr. Don and his good friend, Dr. Sean, on Fox News, kept insisting the liberal media was overreacting. Dr. Hannity said the coronavirus wasn’t much worse than the flu. In fact, Thursday night, Dr. Hannity called the whole COVID-19 mess a “fraud” perpetrated on the American people by the Deep State.

 

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FOR NOW, all we can do is look at the evidence before us. We can’t just pull medical diagnoses out of our asses. We know more than half the patients with confirmed cases have recovered. Of the 54,000 current sufferers, worldwide, 89% have what are considered to be “mild” cases. But 5,710 people are in “serious” or “critical” condition. So far, the fatality rate seems to be running at 1 in every 27 cases. If we count current patients, 1 in every 9.5 cases end up hospitalized. 

For seasonal flu, even in a really bad year, the hospitalization rate is 1 in every 563 cases. The death rate is 1 in every 750.

 

Around the globe, the virus continues to spread, and economic damage snowballs. Wednesday night, an NBA game between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma Thunder was postponed at the last minute, after one of the players warming up had a positive test result confirmed. The doctor for the Jazz came racing out to the court and ordered both teams to their locker rooms. By the time I headed for bed Thursday night the NBA had suspended its season. 

Problems continue to multiply. The Coachella Festival in California, which drew 600,000 music fans last year, was pushed back from April to October. “The whole live music industry,” said one executive, “is really being shaken and challenged by this.” Harvard cancelled in-person classes. Florida colleges began telling students to leave early for spring break. Mark Emmert, NCAA president, announced that all March Madness games would be closed to the general public. New Rochelle, New York, with a cluster of more than a hundred COVID-19 cases, was cordoned off by the National Guard.

 

Still, the virus continued to find avenues to spread. Three TSA agents at an airport in San Jose, California tested positive. An Uber driver in New York City likewise. Chinese officials say new cases are falling. But visitors to Beijing must remain under quarantine for fourteen days. One Chinese citizen who traveled to the United States was found to have been infected here. Older Americans have been advised not to travel on airplanes. Most nursing homes are banning unnecessary visitors. Kentucky churches are being asked to cancel services. The two remaining Democrats vying for the presidential nomination decided not to hold rallies.

 

But Dr. Zero is staying strong! He’s not going to worry about some liberal hoax. He’s going to keep holding his big rallies, because you know…this virus isn’t really any worse than the flu. 

Trump spoke briefly to the American people Wednesday evening. He wanted to reassure us all. He said his administration was doing great. They had this crisis covered. They were all over it, like germs on a toilet seat. I figured he was going to say we were headed for zero cases soon. Instead, he decided to ban flights to and from 26 European nations, for the next 30 days. He also said trade, and cargo would be banned. 

That didn’t even make sense. 

Not long after he finished his chat, the Trump campaign announced that it thought it might be a good idea to prove the coronavirus story was totally overblown by canceling all rallies scheduled in coming days. 

Also, Trump had to tweet-correct his own speech. Trade and cargo would not be banned. Because…yeah…that didn’t make any sense. 

Thursday came. The stock market opened again, and investors proved how reassuring the president’s speech had been, by panicking and starting a monster selloff. By the time the trading day was over, the Dow Jones average had fallen another 2,353 points, ending the session at 21,101.