Thursday, April 30th, 2020
In keeping with the general mood it is a very rainy day with strong winds in the morning. And it has been pouring with rain all day, so no walk, sadly. Because of a number of early morning calls skipped the exercise routine also, so not feeling to good. Will need to make up for it with extra crunches tomorrow, though the call schedule does not bode well for that either; unless I manage to get a 6am start, which would allow me to check whether the deers roaming our streets are responsible for the deicmation of my Iris (or is it Irises?).
Admittedly, I have fallen into a routine of working 7-8 and then again as of 8:30 – 13:00/ 13:30 when we break for lunch and a walk, so I notice when I miss the 8-8:30 slot of me time. Just like I was miserable when I missed my luch time swim in a life that seems very loong ago.
I have really been enjoying posts in the FB group “View from my Window” I was going to post on mine on our day 50, just to learn the organizers have had such an overwhelming response they closed the site for new posts as of yesterday day 49. This is very sad as it was comforting and inspiring to connect with people from all over the world. This is now also gone.
I cannot believe we have been working from home for 50 days now. Schools have been closed for 43 days. My initial estimate was a return to normal after 74 days, following China. Now I am not so sure. Numbers in the US are still increasing at 3% per day, adding 20k newly reported infections every day; despite some States now no longer reporting. As in "if we do not report numbers, we are good to reopen because the problem has gone away". It is too depressing for words as it makes the pain just last longer and I - like many others - am desperate for some semblance of what has been my life.
The world today has 3.27 million reported infected a third of which in the USA. At least testing seems to have gone up since yesterday, with reported tests in the US at 6.2 million versus 5.7 million yesterday, still nowhere near the levels where they need to be to safely reopen.
Also, scientists cross board believe relaxing social distancing should not start unless new infections have been seen to decline over a two week period. Not the case, so 74 days may have been an overly optimistic estimate. I am very impressed by Maryland’s governor Hogan, who is demonstrating real leadership in combatting the crisis (he is a Republican, just saying).
What I found interesting today, is scientists effort to move medical research to open source as it is not viable for one lab to develop treatments and vaccines for marginal diseases. What a wonderful initiative. Just imagines cientists everywhere sharing knowledge for the benefit of humanity rather than profit.
The latest public discussion under the leadership of instigator in chief seeking to punish China for the Corona virus because of “concealing and distorting information” however is deeply disconcerting as it raises more than one question given plenty of on record evidence of misinformation here between January and March. As a German proverb goes “he who sits in the glass house should not be throwing stones”…
The reasons for the blame game are of course recent polling numbers, which show that that there is little support for agent orange and the MAGA crowd overwhelmingly believe China is to blame. After the agitator in chief has spoken for months now about the “Chinese” virus, it is not surprising that voters believe the entire pandemic to be China’s fault.
Penalties under discussions include not repaying Chinese held debt obligations and legislation stripping China of sovereign immunity (which means states and individuals could sue China for damages in US courts). In addition, there is a notion to get billions and billions in reparations. We all know how well this worked with Mexico paying for the wall. But trying this avenue is probably the least harmful.
I am neither scientists nor doctor, but to my knowledge viruses do not hold nationalities, and while China might not have informed the world on day one or even week three of the outbreak, they were very quick at disclosing everything they knew about the virus’ genomes in early January, when it became apparent that they were dealing with something very different to flu or pneumonia.
Even if one were to find fault with their information policy or lack thereof, it meant the world did not know there was a new, highly contagious virus out there for three to four weeks. Had the world known earlier; would it have changed the spread of the virus? Would the USA specifically have taken a different course of action? Or any of the other countries in the world for that matter?
What is scary is the message this may send to the rest of the world.
Firstly, would not any state holding US debt to want to offload it very quickly, just in case they come into a position where blame for something or other might be found?
Secondly, if the trade war is any indication will China retaliate by not repaying its obligations to the US to make up?
Thirdly, even if a voluntary default, it is still a default and would affect US credit rating, which might well make it harder and more expensive for the US to borrow money.
The idea of limiting another States sovereign immunity is taking things to an entirely new level. Given litigation culture, how keen will other nations be to have relations?
Overall while finding someone to blame and punish may help with poll numbers among the MAGA crowd, if actually any of the current thinking is implemented is it not likely to cause an even harder blow to the US economy than the lock downs ever could? And while neither my country nor my president, the economic implications of any of these scenarios have me deeply concerned, seeing pretty much all of my assets are here and I have very little appetite for losing them.
At the same time the US wants China to be transparent about possible incidents in a lab in Wuhan. Of course, with looming retaliation China has a great incentive to do just that. And lastly, the discussion is on bringing back jobs from China to America, well how about Ivanka spearhead that initiative stop all productions/ sourcing in China kind of now? This is all so two faced.
My prediction: a storm in a water glass which will turn out to be a PR campaign for the electorate. Surely are enough intelligent people in this country to think through possible consequences of all of the contemplated alternatives.
I hope!