I was on a bus Saturday when I observed two females, about the 16-20 age range, get on board. One was wearing the required face mask; the other, who had that self-satisfied look about her, was not. Her companion, noticing that everyone else was wearing a mask, offered her an extra mask that she had, but was turned down; the maskless person proclaimed loudly that she didn’t need to wear one, because she had a “medical condition.” She was at least acting perfectly healthy to me, except maybe in the head. I murmured “she’s lying,” the response to which was the typical sarcastic “confusion,” and I felt obliged to point out what the requirement was. She then asked me if I knew what she was, and I said I did, and she proceeded to tell me what she thought she was anyways: a “queen,” which wasn’t exactly what I was thinking. I suspected she thought she was because her mother had given her one of those “French” sounding names, perhaps L’Q’wene, or something. What was a I in her royal opinion? A “hillbilly.”
After she offered a commentary on my mental state, I mentioned to her another person who had delusions of occupying some higher state: “Trump has COVID-19. You’re just as stupid as he is.” To my shock this actually ended the “conversation.” This young woman immediately took to her phone, and eventually said to her companion “He does. I didn’t know that.” Of course that didn’t mean she was going to do the required thing, which was to put on a mask; people who purposely choose not to do the right thing tend to “double-down” on doing the wrong thing rather than admitting they are wrong (see Tucker Carlson).
You would think, of course, that once Donald Trump, his wife, several aides and even three Republican senators tested positive for the virus, something would have been “learned.” But not if you are Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson (you know, the one who spun Russian conspiracies into “fact” in his Hunter Biden report), who tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in September, then “recovered,” and feeling no further need to change his ways, has now reported a second positive test. He may be feeling “good,” but he may have infected another person or two who isn’t feeling so great. Of course, few on the Republican side felt any need to “change” their thinking when Herman Cain, the businessman and former Republican presidential candidate in the 2016 primaries, attended Trump’s controversial Tulsa rally in June, contracted COVID-19 while there, and died of it in July. But hey, it’s just a “thing.”
Stupid is as stupid does, and throw in a few more lies while you’re at it. Trump senior campaign adviser Jason Miller insisted to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that the Trump campaign has been taking “very serious” precautions during Trump’s rallies, despite fairly obvious evidence to the contrary. Just because a temperature test is “normal” doesn’t mean a person is not infected; everyone should be required to wear a mask. But not maybe Joe Biden, who is always seen in public wearing one. Miller whined that Biden must be wearing a mask as a “prop”; sometime he might be 20 feet away from a person, and it is just silly to be wearing a mask, because it takes maybe three seconds to cover that distance pacing, and Biden has that much time to put on his mask.
As they say, it ain’t over until its over, and in some places it is just beginning. In this country, states like Wisconsin are seeing not just sudden surges in positive cases, but even faster surges in hospitalizations. France and Germany are seeing sudden spikes in virus cases; in Germany last week, a Berlin virologist named Christian Drosten said that “The pandemic is really in full swing now.” There are of course hard heads in Germany just as there are in this country. Following the spike in cases and tougher restrictions put in place, the usual bunch of “anti-vaxxers, neo-Nazis, far-right groups and conspiracy theorists” attended smaller than expected rallies to protest their “rights,” and not the rights of those who prefer not to get sick.
Remember back in May when some people expressed surprise that country with a huge impoverished population where in many places people were packed like sardines had few reported cases of the COVID-19? Not anymore. Now India has such a fast growing positive number of cases that it likely will surpass the U.S. in “official” numbers by the end of the year. But India’s numbers may actually be higher than the U.S. even now; CNN reported that “A national survey of more than 29,000 people across 700 villages and wards found that about one in 15 people above the age of 10 had antibodies against the coronavirus, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research”--which suggested on a nation-wide level the true figure could be more that 60 million infected.
The “official” number of deaths from the virus--a little over 100,000--may also be a significant undercount. One infectious disease researcher, Shashank Tripathi, admitted that there were problems with the data, and that all deaths “are not properly registered” and that he was "not very confident that the mortality rates reflect the right numbers,” although he suggested that because many of the infected were younger people, this might “explain” the lower mortality figures.
The website The Conversation notes the poor health services for many in India, and the failure by the government to educate against suspicions about the reality of the COVID-19. “Most rural communities rely on untrained health workers. Over two-thirds of these rural health providers have no formal medical training but remain the only option of medical support for most of the rural population.This situation is worsened by the stigma and misinformation that surrounds Covid-19 in India. Fear of the virus has led to widespread mistrust of trained healthcare professionals. Indian doctors have reported being evicted from rented accommodation and others have been violently targeted in some slum communities. The misconception is that health professionals are sources of infection and that they will force people to be removed from their families into quarantine centres. These centres are viewed with suspicion and fear.”
Meanwhile, there are those who are accusing India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, of taking advantage of the pandemic to turn India into an authoritarian state, particularly in its suppression of the free press. A recent Los Angeles Times reported on both phenomenons:
Four days after India locked down in late March to fight the spread of the coronavirus, Jagat Bains got a call from a group of migrant working families in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh. With construction work having ground to a halt, the laborers had run out money and their children were going hungry.
Bains, a freelance reporter for a regional television channel, drove to the encampment and found two dozen people hunkered down in shanties consisting of plastic sheets held together by bamboo. They said local officials had failed to give them food they were supposed to receive under a government relief program, and that when they tried to fetch water, police beat them because they were violating the lockdown.
Bains’ report on the workers was posted on the YouTube channel of a small local news outlet March 30. That evening, he learned that police were opening an investigation against him on criminal charges including spreading false information.
“They are trying to pressure and harass any journalist who was writing stories criticizing them,” said Bains, 33.
Since March, at least 55 journalists have been arrested, investigated or questioned by police across India in connection with their COVID-19 reporting or for alleged lockdown violations, according to a report by the Rights and Risks Analysis Group, a New Delhi-based think tank.
Authorities have opened criminal investigations against many of the journalists for allegedly publishing false reports and for violating the Epidemic Diseases Act, a colonial-era law that grants the state sweeping powers. In conjunction with other statutes, the law has been cited by authorities threatening journalists with fines and up to two years in prison.
We haven’t reached that point here in this country yet, but think about: if there is a second major surge in this country and Trump is by some crime of nature reelected, the real “prop” will be him claiming that just because he had all the best medical care that being president allowed him to survive the virus, then we really shouldn’t be too concerned about all those who have died or may die in the future. That was just their tough luck; Trump has never expresed any real sympathy or understanding for those who died under his “watch.” He “survived”--it is just “losers” who don’t.
It ain’t over until its over, but we can’t expect Trump to have learned anything from this episode, if his people--like Jason Miller--insist that no one need learn anything from it, either.
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