Tuesday, April 28th, 2020

Testing

Spend the morning working and took the afternoon of as I wasfeeling rather nauseous - no idea why. Since it is raining yet again, we did not get round to our daily walk, but I did have an outing to the nurse practitioner’s offices for a COVID-19 antibody test. The nurse said, if I have antibodies it is like winning the Corona lottery! She also encouraged me to donate plasma in the event off. Fingers crossed.

Today was a very eventful day news wise. I found a lot of interesting and funny reads and of course some infuriating news, so a mixed bag. Now I know that the question about pants is a valid question as evidenced by this ABC reporter on air without pants. Along the same lines German doctors have found a stripping naked to protest the shortages of protective equipment. I never thought Germans would have this much humor, given this - in German - is a play on words "naked truth". Though my sympathies are limited, as relatively speaking Germany is one of the best equipped medical systems and 40% of their ICU beds are not in use.

There is also news on the hopeful front: Jenner of Oxford, England has started testing a vaccine on some 6.000 people, which, if tests go well, could be available as early as September as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is supporting building out production capacity. The downer is, that this guy has been attempting to develop a Malaria vaccine for the past twenty years - without success, so he does not exactly have a great track record.

Also Belgian Zentech has developed rapid antibody test, supposedly 100% accurate delivering results within 15 minutes. But it is not a home test!  The test is going into mass production and will be available in Belgium,then Europe and later the rest of the world.

In addition to medical advances, there are significant advances in robotics also, with robots being developed which clean and disinfect using UV light. I guess the main reason this is noteworthy is due to agent orange’s statements on using UV light to treat virus infections.

On that note: the USA has surpassed 1 million in infections, in reality probably 10 million seeing testing is still limited to people with severe symptoms. Funnily enough the organizer in chief of a to stay home protests in North Caroline managed to get tested despite being symptom free. She tested positive, pity about the symptom free thing.

40 new infections are tied to Wisconsin election.Now I ask you, who could have guessed this might happen? (This is sarcasm, just saying)

In other news I am yet again surprised by US politics. I find it Interesting that in the US the “ taker states” are raising the issue of distribution of funds between states. Germany has this discussion on a regular basis, but it is the wealthier states who demand they pay less into the common pot and that the poorer states take out less. Bavaria being particularly vocal about this, which is annoying as it for decades took out way more than it put in and now that thanks to wealthy states like Hamburg paying Bavaria is doing well it is refusing to show solidarity with weaker states. but at least I understand the logic of those well to do not wanting to share. That is how individuals act, how corporations behave, so why not states.

What I do not get is why poor recipient states would attack the wealthy states paying in. McConnell (Kentucky) last Wednesday said he would never agree to a “blue state bailout. Trump tweeted: “Why should the people and taxpayers of America be bailing out poorly run states (like Illinois, as an example) and cities, in all cases Democrat run and managed, when most of the other states are not looking for bailout help?” Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) agreed with Trump, telling reporters, “We sit here and live within our means, and then New York, Illinois, and California and other states don’t, and we’re supposed to go bail them out. That’s not right.”

New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut are the largest giver states. Illionoise by the way is also a net payer. The biggest taker states are Kentucky, Mississippi, and West Virginia. Coincidentaly, Florida is a net taker state as well. So for every dollar New York puts into the federal government in taxes, it gets back $0.91. For every dollar Kentucky puts in, it takes out $2.41. Connecticut gets back just 84 cents for every dollar it sends to the federal government. Florida gets $1.12.

Now, can someone please explain to me, why Florida and Kentucky do not want the Federal government to bail out the big Giver states? Is this not:

(a) rather short sighted, and

(b) potentially dangerous?

Shortsighted, because if these states do not do well, they will not be able topay anything into the kitty, ergo Kentucky & Co cannot take anything out either. And given McConnell's push to allow states to declare bankruptcy, would they then not be the first to have to do so?

Dangerous, because what if giver states do what Bavaria has done in Germany and renegotiate the terms of contributions (which they successfully did), citing that funds were needed to supplement shortfalls in taxes and avoid bankruptcy/ ensure a faster recovery of the state economy.  

And the combine this with Sumner's approach to sharing/ caring....

This country keeps puzzling me.