With new cases of the COVID-19 spiking again over the majority of the country in a third-wave with the coming of colder temperatures, that dangerous lunatic Donald Trump is back at it again, attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci: “People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots, all these idiots who got it wrong.” You know what? If Trump is such a believer in “herd immunity” than why didn’t he just refuse all those expensive therapies when he was infected, and just allow the virus to run its course? Maybe he could have learned what happens to most people who are not availed to the finest care money can buy, since he doesn’t “get” how 220,000 people could be so “wrong” about dying.
What we did learn is that Trump is a hypocrite bar none, and he and fellow far-right conspiracy theorist Scott Atlas--whose tweet “Masks work? NO” was removed by Twitter for violating its dangerous misinformation policy--are the true “idiots.” Dr. Deborah Birx reportedly pleaded with Mike Pence to remove Atlas from the COVID task force; Pence--whose incompetence as “head” of the task force should be apparent to all--merely advised Birx to “work it out” with the unhinged Atlas.
Meanwhile, it is being reported that the test run for Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine is “on hold” due to an “unexplained illness in a study participant.” That hasn’t stopped Pfizer from rolling out hundreds of thousands of vials of its own vaccine, which it hopes to release to the public after all the data from its trials are in the third week of November. That’s right, Pfizer wasn’t waiting to see if its vaccine is actually safe or effective before it began manufacturing in quantity; no doubt it wants to be the “first” to “cash in.”
What is going on in the rest of the world? We already know that things have gone from bad to worse in India, which should pass the U.S. in total number of infections by the middle of next month. We also know that China continues to report low numbers; perhaps they are taking a page from North Korea, which hasn’t reported any COVID-19 cases. Latin America is not doing well, with Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador all in the top-10 in the world in deaths per 1 million. Of course, the U.S. is “only” Number 10 on that list, but then again, this country is supposed to be more “advanced.”
Surely Europe has shown greater leadership on issue, outside of countries like Sweden which attempted and failed at the “herd immunity” strategy? Not counting the countries of the former Soviet Union, Europe has done somewhat better overall, although some countries have controlled the virus better than others. Doing a little addition with Worldometer’s numbers--which may not be completely accurate (who can claim to have “accurate” numbers?), but they are close enough and can be used for relativity purposes--Europe with 50 percent more people than the U.S. has only 60 percent of the total positive cases than the U.S. has reported, and slightly less total deaths. Whether that is “good” is debatable, but it is “better” than what has been happening in the U.S., where there has been no national strategy coming from the top to control the spread of the virus.
It is interesting what is happening in the “mother” country, the United Kingdom, which is currently being lorded over by Britain’s own version of Trump, Boris Johnson--whose unkempt blonde hair makes him looked drugged-up, drunk or just woke-up after sleeping in the rain. The failure of the Johnson government to come to an agreement with the EU on Brexit has been likened to “sleepwalking to disaster.” Johnson has conned many that a trade agreement with the Trump administration will “fix” any problems of trade and supply disruptions, but as expected such a deal is currently non-existent. One sticking point is re-instituting a “hard” wall between Northern Ireland and Ireland, which is still in the EU; Joe Biden has said that for himself there will be no special trade deal with the UK unless that problem is solved.
Meanwhile, the Johnson government also doesn’t appear to have much of a plan to deal with the next wave of COVID-19 cases, mostly just hot air. John Crace of The Guardian writes that “History repeats itself. Sort of. There are now more people in hospital with coronavirus than there were in March when the prime minister imposed a lockdown on the entire country. The difference back then is those restrictions came with the promise of some kind of strategy.” But six month later Johnson has a new plan to replace the failed “Operation Moonshot” mass test and tracing plan, a name that sounded as “deranged” as it was in practice. Crace writes that the UK’s own version of Trump is offering “no glimmer of hope. Just an exhortation to keep aimlessly buggering on.”
However, Johnson does seem to lack Trump’s belief in an alternate universe where there is nothing wrong at all, save what the “fake news” claims just to make his life miserable; it’s all right there in front of him and he can’t deny it even when he tries. Trying to convince the country that his latest virus plan must be implemented, Crace notes that “For a moment it looked as if the narcissist had been confronted with his own sense of futility. A situation that he couldn’t bend to his will, no matter how delusional the thought process. He is cornered by hubris: a man hating every second of his life but condemned to experience its unforgiving horror. Not even the health secretary could be bothered to attend to watch this latest meltdown.”
Of course, Johnson does share certain traits with Trump that reveal he finds it hard to take things too seriously. His “balanced approach” led him to be “too slow to react back in March with the result that the government has one of the world’s highest death tolls. As in he did next to nothing during the summer when we had a chance to prepare for autumn. As in he actively encouraged people to go back to work for weeks before switching to advise them against it. As in unlocking the north at the same time as the south, even though infection rates in the north remained higher. That kind of balanced.” And now his latest “plan” to control the virus is “a new three-tier approach. Bad, very bad and very, very bad,” writes Crace. The UK is not a large country; without a uniform policy, “bad” in one place can quickly become “very, very bad.”
Businesses, schools and colleges remain open, but testing and contact tracing to keep tabs on the spread of COVID-19 has not gotten better since “Moonshot.” Although there are enough testing swabs to go around, labs capable of processing the tests seem to be in short supply and overburdened, unable to keep up with the demand for tests by the public. What that means is that there will be people who will not know if they are infected or not, and if they are, that just gives them more time to spread it around.
But to Johnson’s credit, unlike Trump he admits that “I believe not to act would be unforgivable,” which is at least a start. In the face of opposition to stricter measures in the northern, working-class parts of the country, Johnson proclaimed “If we can’t get agreement, then clearly it is the duty of national government to take the necessary action to protect the public and public health and we will.”
That is definitely something you would not hear from Trump. Perhaps in some ways Britain is still “superior” to this country.
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