I saw a tweet yesterday regarding some disagreement with the use of “incalculable” in the New York Times banner headline this morning.
I agree with the New York Times word choice.
For one, the number “100,000” is almost surely an undercount of the number of dead in the United States due to COVID-19. Quite literally, to the extent that COVID-19 deaths can be “calculated,” we can only approximate at best.
Secondly...and more importantly...lurking behind the sheer enormity of the death toll is a parent, a grandparent, a spouse, a child, a worker, a friend, a loved one, a member of the community; the enormity of such a loss cannot be truly calculated.
The purpose of obituaries, after all, at least in large part, is so that others realize that the deceased mattered to this world.
That the deceased mattered to this world is one of the reasons I found (and still find) obituaries of those that died from AIDS to be so utterly profound in meaning. This was particularly true at a time, during the mid-1980’s, when the United States government was not even able to acknowledge that these lives even existed, much less lived. And if acknowledged, their lives were only to be spat upon or dismissed (with the very rare exception of being the movie star friend, I guess).
There’s that.
And…
Some years ago, a person that was very influential in my (continuing) recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction passed suddenly. One of the things that Vince used to talk about and ask himself was: If I was to leave this earth today, what would be my legacy?
What did I put into the world that helped make this planet a little bit better of a place to live?
Some people do notable “great things” that deserve, perhaps, front-page headlines.
OTOH there were (and are) people like, say, my grandmother; a woman who didn’t do anything that could be readily identifiable as “great” in the sense that the term is used but I know that she unconditionally loved all of her children...and grandchildren...and her great-grandchildren.
This year in November will make 25 years since she passed. I still miss her. I cannot possibly “calculate” the enormity of her loss, even today.
Some of the more...profound listings on the front page of the Old Grey Lady this morning aren’t the one-liners listing what might be considered a notable “accomplishment,” but the one-liners that say “great-grandmother with an easy laugh” or “generous young man with a delightful grin” or even “police detective in Harlem with a gift for interrogation.”
It all matters.
Good morning to everyone! Time to read some pundits.
Meghan O’Rourke/The Atlantic
That number—100,000 dead from the coronavirus—is hard to grasp. For those who have lost someone, the pandemic’s scope is not just a statistic; within the abstraction lies an intimately life-changing event. For the rest of us, it is a fact we must try to wrestle into perspective. One hundred thousand people is nearly the population of the city I now live in; it is a neighborhood’s worth of people in Brooklyn, my longtime home; it is perhaps 10 times the total number of people most of us will cross paths with in our entire lives. It is graveyard upon graveyard upon graveyard. It is mass burials at Hart Island, bodies stacked in refrigerated trucks outside hospitals and nursing homes. It is PTSD for the nurses and doctors in the hardest-hit areas. Mostly, it is the shocking echo that follows the loss of even one person: zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. A lament: O, O, O, O, O.
After my mother died at the age of 55, in 2008, I wrote a book about mourning. I read through scholarly texts and novels and poems that touched explicitly on grief. In the process, I learned how physical it is, causing changes in cortisol levels, memory, sleep, and appetite; leaving the mourner exhausted, scattered, struggling to resume “normalcy.” But perhaps the key thing I learned is that grief needs a vessel: It needs language, it needs lamentation, it needs expression, it needs demarcation in time; it demands a pause in everyday activity. My mother died on Christmas Day. I recall the shock of comfort in having my mother’s sisters and brother gather with us a few days later, the “small, good thing,” as Raymond Carver put it, of sharing bread, wine, and stories late into the night. Their presence was soothing: the light in their faces, their enduringness. In this pandemic, you lose the person, and you lose the ability to mourn that person together. And you lose that after having already lost the ability to spend time with your loved ones in the hospital, in hospice, or at home in the days, hours, or minutes before they died.
Morgan Godvin's essay at AlJazeera is long and, at times, rather personal but all of that foundation was needed because: it is all connected.
I detected a pattern - America is constantly questing for an external enemy, one which can be cast as pure evil. The legitimacy of it is baked into the American psyche with the help of good-versus-evil Hollywood action movies that omit shades of grey from their storylines. There is a villain and that villain is bad, simply because they were born that way. There is an omnipresent enemy, whose animosity is spontaneous and unfounded, and they must be destroyed. It is the way of the world.
A few months ago, the enemy was Iran. The history of US involvement there erased, as if Iranian sentiments towards America were spontaneous and born out of some innate disposition towards hating us. Most actions are actually reactions, though. Still, the US framed it as a fight of good-versus-evil, implied there was an imminent threat, and claimed hugely expensive military intervention would protect American lives.
But while some politicians rallied for war and others raged against it, a pandemic had already been unleashed on the world. Early warnings of the impending pandemic were largely ignored as we continued to squabble over the appropriateness of military action and diplomacy with foreign governments.
We have spent trillions on the military, on homeland security, on national defence. We were so busy hunting for a villainous external enemy against whom to wage our war of good-versus-evil, that we failed to defend ourselves and were ambushed - by a virus. We spent so much time and money preparing for a phantom enemy that we ignored the real threat.
Pamela Owens-Moore writes for the Detroit Free Press that, yes, janitorial workers are valuable and essential workers and that, yes, they should have a say in exactly what “reopening” entails.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis and the implementation of safer-at home orders across the country, we have been hearing the term “essential workers” a lot. Working people, such as those of us who work in healthcare, grocery stores, airports, security and janitorial industries, continue to leave our homes every day to keep our cities clean, safe and functioning. As janitors, we appreciate that everyone is recognizing us as important during this crisis because we know that we have always been essential. But essential should not mean sacrificial.
I always say that janitors may take out the garbage, but we are not anyone’s trash. In my 33 years as a janitor, I have worked through many things, including the H1N1 pandemic and Ebola outbreaks, that have equipped me with the knowledge and experience that I need to face times such as this. People are finally starting to see and appreciate the work that we do. That’s great, but now more than ever, we need to take that gratitude further and turn it into real solutions for real Detroiters.
We need our local government to include our voice in the conversations around reopening our city. Not only will janitors be the ones responsible for adhering to stricter cleaning and safety standards, but we have expertise and ideas to contribute when new protocols are being developed and decided on. We also need our federal government to support working people by protecting our pay and benefits so that we can continue to provide for our families without having to rely on an already overwhelmed unemployment system. Ensure that we have the PPE we need to protect ourselves and essential pay to compensate for the work that we do.
The medical journal The Lancet seconds Ms. Owens-Moore’s motion...and then some.
But essential work extends beyond health care. Although some people have been able to shift their jobs to their homes, millions of workers have jobs that cannot be done at home—not only custodial staff and orderlies in hospitals, but also teachers and child-care workers, grocery clerks and supermarket workers, delivery people, factory and farm workers, and restaurant staff, often without adequate PPE. These people leave their homes to help maintain a semblance of normality for others, at great risk to themselves and their families.
What constitutes an essential worker in the USA varies by state, but black and Latino Americans make up a large part of the essential workforce and have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. In New York City, over 60% of COVID-19 deaths have been in black and Latino populations. Meat processing plants have become hotspots for transmission, with 700 new cases at a Texas plant on May 16. 81 employees at a Walmart in Massachusetts tested positive for COVID-19 on May 2. Those who would rather quit their jobs than be exposed to a dangerous work situation face a daunting prospect in the USA. 36 million people have filed for unemployment in the past 2 months and quitting a job (even one that is unsafe) would disqualify workers from unemployment insurance benefits. In the UK, 33% (10·6 million people) of the total workforce are deemed key workers according to the Office for National Statistics. Despite a government plan to pay furloughed workers 80% of their salary, many low-wage workers such as cleaners, migrant and seasonal workers, and student labourers might not be eligible.
Sue Halpern writes forThe New Yorker on the societal dangers of so-called “immunity passports.”
The deployment of immunity passports raises a number of logistical and ethical concerns. In the United States, testing could become a barrier to getting a pass: diagnostic testing has been limited, and serology tests, which measure covid-19 antibodies, are still being developed. Even if testing were universally available, people without antibodies will be shut out from the activities of everyday life, creating a divided landscape of antibody haves and have-nots. “The reality is that access to society with [this kind of] certification will likely reflect existing systemic biases, corruption, and discrimination in the system,” Alexandra Phelan, an assistant professor in infectious diseases and law at Georgetown University, told me. And, if testing positive for covid-19 antibodies becomes a prerequisite for being able to work, there may be a perverse incentive for people to put themselves in the path of the virus. “This would not be like bringing your kids to chicken-pox parties,” Phelan said. “Individuals who have economic pressures to get back to work may already be in socioeconomically vulnerable positions, and we know that these are the people who are disproportionately more likely to get more severely ill.”
Here’s a link that goes further in depth about the ethics of “immunity passports.” And another link about the circumstances of “immunoprivilege” as practiced in antebellum New Orleans. We’ve been down this road.
Dahleen Glanton of the Chicago Tribune is so finished with those that would follow The Damn Fool’s “medical advice” regarding taking hydroxychloroquine.
It didn’t matter to these people that medical experts and Trump’s own U.S. Food and Drug Administration have warned about the drug’s dangerous side effects, including serious heart problems. They dismissed studies showing that hydroxychloroquine doesn’t even work against COVID-19.
They couldn’t care less that taking the drug might kill them. As far as they are concerned, what’s good enough for Trump is definitely good enough for them.
So some started scrolling through their phone contacts. Could anybody they know already have a prescription for the antimalarial drug? Did anyone have an extra packet of pills in their medicine cabinet that they might be willing to share?
Unsuccessful with that, they decided to call their doctor. Most doctors wouldn’t even consider approving such a ridiculous request. But maybe one person was lucky enough to have a doctor who, like Trump, decided, “What do you have to lose?”
IMO, Ms. Blanton’s column is only a subset of the “what is the Trump voter thinking?” stories that have been written ad nauseum since November 9, 2016...and even before that.
I have no sorrow, pity, or understanding for anyone who would choose to follow the medical advice of an unlicensed damn fool that would also recommend injecting bleach and disinfectant into their bodies over the advice of those in the medical profession or the FDA. None.
I’ve been through with that. There’s nothing that I can do for them.
What I do regret is that hydroxychloroquine is an accepted medication for the treatment of lupus and rheumatoid arthritis (and, in some areas of the world, malaria) and the available supplies are being needlessly used.
Hans Pfeifer at Deutsche Welle explains exactly why I am “through with it.” All of “it.”
I decided to conduct an experiment with Karl. I entered into a debate, in which I took the time to quietly employ my investigative journalistic skills and seriously consider his claims. I took those claims seriously, followed them up and ultimately wrote back to him. When I informed him that the sources he cited were fictitious, I asked him once again for his thoughts on the matter. His response: "I don't care if they are fake or not — they could still be true!"
Eventually, Karl asked me if I wasn't perplexed by the fact that the Bible predicts that humanity will fall prey to a massive virus between 2020 and 2030, and that vaccines are the devil's work? Despite persistent requests to tell me where exactly I could find that information in the Bible, I never got a reply.
Karl had disappeared on Facebook.
Long story short, the experiment was a failure. Karl isn't looking for someone to have a rational debate with; he is looking for fellow combatants. And that is the same thing most people yelling about vaccines, Bill Gates and lockdown measures on the streets these days are after, too. They are not interested in participating in a broad social debate — they want total victory. And anyone wearing a yellow Star of David on their chest with the word "unvaccinated," as was recently the case in Berlin, belittles the murder of millions of European Jews during World War II. Such people have one goal, and one goal only: Maximum provocation and a thirst for attention.
I don’t agree with everything in The Root’s Stephen A. Crockett, Jr. and his view on the fallout from Joe Biden’s appearance on The Breakfast Club and his interview with Charlamagne Tha God but I do agree with this...and a bit more.
See, my biggest problem with Joe Biden is well, Joe Biden. He’s the old white guy at the job who always wants to talk with you about basketball or hip-hop to prove that he’s not like the other white guys who mistake you for the valet. The problem is that all of his conversations about Jay-Z and whether Bradley Beal is getting traded are supposed to make him endearing, but he can’t even do that right.
Maybe it’s because Biden still believes in democracy. He still believes he’s fighting a fair fight. Biden still believes that he can rally up the votes to beat President Bane in an election he’s trying to steal! Currently, the president of people who enjoy videotaping themselves being thrown out of stores for not wearing masks, is rallying his base to believe that mail-in voting is akin to voter fraud.
And Joe Biden is supposed to save all of Gotham, except Joe Biden isn’t Batman; he’s more like an overly aggressive Alfred.
Yesterday morning, I decided to go ahead and take the contact tracing course final assessment and I now have a certificate verifying that I completed the course. John Tozzi at Bloomberg writes about the importance and difficulties of staffing up with contact tracers in the U.S. right now.
Contact tracing is a critical tactic to slow and eventually stop the spread of an infectious disease. It has been used for decades to track outbreaks of everything from tuberculosis to Ebola, and other countries have adopted it to try to slow the transmission of Covid-19. In Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus began to spread late last year, at least 9,000 contact tracers tracked down tens of thousands of people who might have been exposed to an infected person each day, according to a World Health Organization report in February.
Across the U.S., local officials like Shah are preparing for new waves of Covid-19 as lockdowns ease. They hope by documenting the virus’s path, they can limit new outbreaks before they strain the health-care system. But contact tracing is a high-stakes logistical challenge that, like manufacturing diagnostic tests and securing protective equipment, gets harder as cases rise. Shah is worried that even his ambitious plans won’t be enough.
“It feels like we’ve gotten better than we were but not as good as where we need to be,” Shah said. “None of us will know if it’s going to be enough until we see what’s happening with case transmission in our community.” The county had more than 10,000 confirmed
cases as of May 21, with scores of new cases per day.
Jason Strother of Buffalo, NY’s NPR station WBFO writes about a darker side of the uses of the contact tracing technology used in South Korea to combat the spread of COVID-19.
South Korean health officials gain access to the cellphone GPS records, credit card transactions and transportation history of anyone who tests positive for COVID-19, and then they release much of that information to the public. Text message alerts urge everyone who might have crossed paths with the patient to immediately get tested.
In a series of notifications sent out earlier this month, authorities disclosed that a 29-year-old man who had contracted the disease had visited several bars and clubs in Itaewon, a Seoul neighborhood known for its nightlife.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control warned that up to 5,500 people could have been exposed to the coronavirus based on location data reportedly obtained from mobile carriers. A message sent by the Seoul Metropolitan Government stated testing was mandatory for anyone who visited a club in the area between April 29 and May 5. The city has ordered all bars and clubs across the capital to halt business until further notice.
The KCDC states that as of Friday, it has traced 207 of the country’s 11,142 COVID-19 cases to the Itaewon cluster.
Some emergency alerts identified the venues the man had visited. To Kim Yu-jin, these places stand out: They were all located in an LGBTQ-friendly corner of the neighborhood.
Seattle Times: Charlie Burrell, beloved KCTS supervisor and king of one-liners, dies of coronavirus
Charlie Burrell was good with one-liners.
Known at work for both professionalism and jokes, he made employees around Seattle’s PBS station KCTS laugh during his decades as a broadcast operations supervisor.
He joked with the nurses during his cancer treatments after a 2014 diagnosis of multiple myeloma. “It’s all good,” he would say as he was poked with needles over and over again.
“He thought he was so funny,” said his wife, Diane.
Mr. Burrell died April 11 from complications related to the coronavirus, after being hospitalized for nine days. He was 78.
Born on Jan. 25, 1942, in Monroe, Louisiana, Mr. Burrell grew up in Bremerton and went to Olympic College. He served in the Army in Korea starting in 1965 before beginning work at KCTS in the late 1960s.
Kyle Whitmire of AL.com writes about an utterly fascinating...and all too familiar correlation.
...someone living in Greene County, which is 80 percent black and has a median household income of $20,954, was about 50 percent more likely to be audited than someone living in Shelby County, which is 83 percent white and has a median household income of $74,063.
Greene County wasn’t alone. That familiar pattern stretched like an old wound across Alabama’s midsection— from the Mississippi line, through the state’s most fertile plains, and across to Georgia.
The Black Belt.
It was there that cotton once grew better than anywhere else. It was there that plantations sprung. It was there that a gruesome slave trade transplanted black people against their will. And it’s there that many of their descendants still struggle.
IRS audits and race shouldn’t have anything to do with each other, but that map showed that wasn’t the case.
When something bad happens in Alabama, it always seems to hit the Black Belt hardest.
Do hit the link and look at the maps. I really shouldn’t be surprised that the type of correlation exists...but I honestly was surprised.
Finally today: Chaos theory and COVID-19? Why not?
Brian Resnick/Vox
An outbreak isn’t a double pendulum; it’s much more convoluted. Myriad chains of events, operating in overlapping networks, conspire to chart its course.
That’s why, when pressed, epidemiologists have to say they don’t know what’s going to happen.
Still, they know the mechanics of outbreaks. The chaos “doesn’t necessarily mean we know nothing,” Kissler says. They understand the conditions that make an outbreak worse and the conditions that make it better.
There is a tough tension of the current moment that we all need to work through: The future is clouded in chaos, but we know the mechanics of this system. We know what’s possible. Just as we know that, when pushed, pendulums swing, we can sense the direction the future of the Covid-19 pandemic is heading.
Here are the mechanics. Scientists know that if we let up on social distancing, without an alternative plan in place, the virus can infect more people. They know this virus is likely to persist for at least a few years without a vaccine. They know it’s very contagious. That it’s very deadly. They also know that its pandemic potential is hardly spent, and that most of the population of the United States and the world is still vulnerable to it.
Everyone have a good...and safe morning!