Life in the Age of Corona

A Daily Diary

Tuesday, October 27th, 2020

One Week to Go

Day 2 of virtual conferencing was as good an experience as day 1. Cudos to the team.

With exactly one week to go before the US general election this country is more divided than ever, especially after the GoP voted through a justice to the supreme court strictly on party lines. This woman will ensure the USA from a legal perspective reverts to 1793, the year the US constitution was written.

She is fully aligned with the individualist movement and the conviction that the government has no right to infringe on people’s freedom, i.e. individual rights. So, for instance the government cannot mandate health insurance. At the same time, naturally, women are not free to have control over their body as she is a firm believe in the right of the fetus over the right of the living woman. Of course, once the child is born it is free to die because it cannot get health care or it cannot be fed, because of course the state should not provide any form of social security. Likewise, people are not free to choose their gender identity, because this is not natural and infringes on the freedom of those who believe in the natural order between man and woman. It is just so two faced! It is a sad day for the United States.

It also means that a government that does not have the support of the majority of Americans, the orange Cheeto lost the popular vote by well over 3 million ballots, has now nominated 3 out of 9 justices, so the Supreme Court is hardly a reflection of the population in its make up. Democrats are obviously up in arms and driving out in flocks to vote and vote earlier, because this lady will uphold voter suppression claiming each State has to organize the general election independently. Given the gerrymandering that the GoP has pursued for decades this means that a minority of the actual number of voters for instance in Wisconsin can dictate how the entire State has to vote. In this case any mail in ballots arriving after 20:00 on election night will not be counted, even if due to the slow down of mail courtesy of the moron in chief they were send well in advance of the election. The way the GoP is manipulating the election to de facto steal it, is outrageous. There is nothing democratic about this country. Even if Biden wins, it is not clear he will actually be the next president of the USA as the GoP is already preparing to file lawsuits against ballots, election officials and processes across the country and of course this new justice is fully aligned with the administration and will to show her gratitude for her life time appointment always cast a vote in favor of the current usurper of the WH. Best of all, she is not actually qualified as she has never argued a case in court leave alone the Supreme court.

How is this related to the virus? SCOTUS is hearing a case to strike down Obamacare on November 10th and rest assured they will. Over 20 million Americans will than lose their health insurance and will be unable to afford other private health insurance because of pre-existing conditions such as a COVID infection (9 million to date), pregnancy, diabetes, and so on. Based on this lots view anyone unlucky enough to not be completely healthy or have given birth is free to die. This is the land of the free! Miraculously though none of these people will forego the health insurance, pension or salary afforded to them by tax payers money.

Living in a wealthy suburb to Washington the only support I have seen is for the Biden/ Harris ticket. I am obviously living in a bubble as current a neck to neck race has been predicted. I am including an image of the different signs of support. Wondering which one is your personal favorit?

79k new infections added yesterday to bring the tally to 9 million and more than 231k have died. In the USA the virus is spreading like a wildfire. This is just too depressing for words. Definitely no more indoor activities like last night’s dinner. In hindsight, even though the Shisha lounge was well ventilated it feels rather reckless in hindsight.

Infections on the rise in Europe are driven by Belgium and the Czech Republic and population density maybe one of the reasons for high per 100k infection rates.  There is also more evidence now that antibodies wane and do so rather quickly. This may explain why my antibody test came back negative seeing I took it three months after what I believe was a Corona infection.

Seems we are back to March – stay home, avoid infection at all cost.