Vividlee

Touting a recent, small study of drug treatment of Covid 19 patients, public health officials sound reassuring that this positive news is encouraging. Fast tracking it’s approval for treatment sounds good as well.

But the benefits are overblown. The effects are dramatic in some cases. But it is the same belief in magic bullets that we always have. If we don’t yet understand how it kills, how can we truly understand how it cures?

In our panic we can be reckless. Reasoning is shortcut. If it is life or death, we should be more careful.

If I were sick, I would probably ask for anything and everything. Proven or unproven. But, typing away on my phone, safe inside, it’s easy to claim bravery. Easy to stay calm. Easy to reject drugs.

Assault rifles are banned in Canada. Two weeks after a mass shooting in Nova Scotia. AR15’s are included. 1,500 models and many components are included.

I understand the desire to own such powerful weapons. But I also understand the absurdity of having weapons of war so easily obtainable. The absurdity of doing nothing while mass shootings continue on and on.

Without a doubt the economy, the world of business is in recession. The definition of recession is multiple quarters of slowing or declines in growth. We have that.

But do we have a depression? The depression in the thirties was long and hard. It started in the US and became worldwide. It lasted for ten years. People did not spend money if they did not have to. Only food and shelter. Nothing frivolous.

Do people now feel that way? Is the unemployment rate as high as the Great Depression? There are many signs of depression nowadays. It is a time of great uncertainty and worry.

More people are more aware of what is essential and what is frivolous. Whatever the outcome, I hope that sticks in more people’s minds.

There two ways to attack a problem.

• Attack the root cause
• Attack the branches or effects

One will solve your problem. The other may make you feel better or look like you are active. Heck maybe even heroic. But, step back, look at the big picture.

Sometimes the root cause is too big for individuals. Then you need a hero to lead an army. But you need the army to act as one. To think as one.

Today we lack a hero. We lack the army. We can only attack branches. Our big problems will remain.

What’s our big problem?

Too many people using too many resources non-sustainably. Destroying the planet.is our problem. Fix one of these three things and we have a good start. Fix all three and success is more likely.

• Lower human population
• Use less, improve efficiencies
• Be more sustainable

It is said “The first casualty of war is the Truth”. This pandemic is far worse because of China’s suppression of the facts. Most important fact is SARS CoV2 is easily transmitted from human to human.

The Communist regime and the whole system is designed to protect the state and it’s reputation at all cost. If some facts are uncomfortable. Or some doctors disagree. Or reporters tell the truth. Suppress it by all means necessary.

We suffer the same thing here. But instead of suppressing it, we get confused. Instead of clarity, we get outrage. Instead of consensus, we have debate. Don’t like the truth? Plant doubt. The more outrageous the lie, the better. Just keep the flow high. Floods of bullshit can do wonders at obscuring the truth.

No flattening yet. The deaths in the US have risen 65 times. The total is over 46,000 now. More than the seasonal flu. And we are only two months into this thing.

Opening up the economy and getting back to normal now is plain stupid if you want to avoid more deaths and devastation. The curve may be flattening regionally or locally. But nationally the death rate is accelerating. Not good at all.

It is astounding how hopeful and wishful some thinking is. How uncritical and illogical some decisions are. Data and numbers can show good and bad trends depending how you look. Or what you look at in isolation. It’s the big picture and past experience that tells you how bad this is and how much worse it will be. And how this is not over for a long time.

The virus will not go away. The spread will continue for days, weeks, months and maybe years. It is invisible and unstoppable.

Suppression efforts are really only delaying tactics. A vaccine is many months away. Deaths, chaos and disruption may be delayed but will eventually come to every continent, country city and town.

The virus will not go away. The spread will continue for days, weeks, months and maybe years. It is invisible and unstoppable.

Suppression efforts are really only delaying tactics. A vaccine is many months away. Deaths, chaos and disruption may be delayed but will eventually come to every continent, country city and town.

Survival rates of Covid 19 patients mechanically ventilated is astoundingly low. Death is the outcome for 50-60%. In New York, 80% of ventilated are dying.

Of the survivors there can be long term lung damage. Maybe even permanent disability. The cure sounds brutal and desperate.

A simple breath. So normal and yet so vital. So natural and yet such a delicate balance. It’s too bad that our crude invention, the ventilator, is more like a death sentence and less like a godsend.

Hospitals and ICU’s should be a place to seek out in desperate times. Instead have become fearsome pipelines to the grave.

Covid 19 deaths in the US are the highest total number of any country. Public health policy is now a political firefight. Public health and protecting human life is being defined as a bad choice. The economy and business as usual, the business of destroying the planet, is more important.

Wildfires are contained with thoughtful and strategic actions. Fighting this disease in this country, at least by federal officials, feels less than the most thoughtful and strategic. Maybe more chaotic and thoughtless than needed.

Maybe that’s why over 42,000 people have died. Or maybe I am just blaming. Maybe I’m angry too. Maybe our health care workers have not trained for this and federal officials ignored our own advice and preparations.

Wildfires and economic collapse are maybe inevitable. And the spark may be as irrelevant as a pile of ashes in a windstorm.