THE DOOMSDAY PANDEMIC

A virus that is new to the world without anyone having antibodies, with ease of transmission through breathing small particles is bad enough.  Add the factor that has epidemiologists worried is a study of 100 Covid-19 patients that have recovered and found that antibodies lost their effectiveness after only a few months 2-3 months.  This phenomena was especially noticed in those that had the virus and were asymptomatic.  These had the shortest degradation of the antibodies.

Another study found that anyone who had the virus and had any respiratory symptoms, all had lung damage, which could cause further problems in older individuals, making them more susceptible to pneumonia and other lung ailments such as asthma, bronchitis and emphysema.

The potential for a doomsday scenario would be having the virus make the rounds over and over again, degrading the health of the individual each time until the virus kills.  The other possibility for doomsday would be if the virus mutated with something like the common cold or is found not to degrade on surfaces, which then creates super spreader events world-wide.

With no one immune and with the ability to re-infect and a up to a 5% mortality (120,000/2,200,000) rate, we have potential for a doomsday pandemic, which could wipe out millions without a vaccine that can provide antibodies and cannot degrade in such a short time. 

Trump’s ignoring science, medicine, and advisors concerning the virus and encouraging re-opening of the economy has backfired.  The red southern states he so badly wants to visit and hold events are all now suffering, with spikes in case numbers over the percentage testing would generate.  Trump is asking his followers to risk their health to attend his rallies.  Trump and his entourage are tested daily, the tribe is not.  Texas had 10 straight days of record increases in cases and were one of the first states to open prematurely.

  Magical and wishful thinking will not make the virus go away.  Leadership for response to the pandemic is absent. The governors are in charge and have bent to the will of the people following the commander in Chief. Trump’s minions are following someone that does not believe in science. Science is truth so  therefore, Trump does not believe in truth.

His lack of his ability to face the truth is damaging to his response to the virus.  If he thinks it’s going to go away and he ignores the problem, to him the problem has gone away.  This attitude is transferred to his dotards in training, so they too do not believe in science and thus the party of stupid.

His crowds are risking their own life for someone that actually would not give them the time of day and actually deplores the people that have adoration for him.  He is only after the optics of large crowds and has no emotional connection or empathy for any of them.

By discouraging testing, Trump at the helm is the worst case for the virus.  Without testing you can’t know who has the virus and who doesn’t.  If contact tracing cannot be performed, outbreaks cannot be traced.  Flying blind is no way to control the virus. 

The only way to fully open the economy with full confidence, is an available vaccine.  Lacking a vaccine, only testing, tracing, masks, and social distancing are the safest ways to open the economy and give everyone partial confidence they won’t die, as a result of Trump’s inaction and discouragement of testing.

On testing, Trump tweeted “cases are going up in the U.S. because we are testing far more than any other country and ever expanding with smaller testing we would have fewer cases”.  How does one respond to the lunacy of the statement?  Someone needs to tell Trump that testing is not the cause of the virus.

Larry Kudlow, who is an economic advisor, but plays a medicine man and horse whisperer to Trump, is substituting for Dr’s Fauci and Birx and said in an interview, “There is no second wave coming, it’s just, you know, hot spot… they send in CDC teams, we’ve got testing procedures the diagnostics we have the PPE and so I really think it’s a good situation.”

The White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett had a different take on the virus.  He said the following about the financial impact: “I think everyone should be worried about how this is going to turn out in the end, because it’s a shock unlike anything we’ve ever seen…Certainly, the crisis is not over- and there’s a lot of work to do, but there’s an incredibly competent team in place to do it”.   Mixed messaging seems to be the norm in this administration.

GOOD NEWS-MAYBE?

Dr.Fauci was cautiously optimistic “if we are going to have a vaccine it should be available by the first of the year”.  His initial prediction was 12-18 months from January 2020.  He also said we do not have control of the virus.  I cling on to the words “if” and “should”.   Magical thinking again?