Tag Archives: Epidemiology

Justice Matters – 9/26/20

Here’s today’s “Justice Matters,” from Glenn Kirschner. Glenn lays out the latest Appellate Court ruling involving the Manhattan D.A.’s subpoena for Trump’s tax returns. He points out the judges essentially told Trump’s lawyer, William Consovoy, that his arguments were “full of shit.” (my words)

Check out the video. It’s a little more than eight minutes. One point worth remembering; it’s virtually impossible at this point we will see these tax returns prior to the election. This is because the subpoena Vance is seeking to enforce is for a Grand Jury proceeding and, unless it results in a criminal indictment against Trump, in which the documents would finally appear as evidence, they will remain secret. So … essentially, this means Trump’s dilatory moves have succeeded … at least to the point that his taxes will not be revealed to the public prior to November 3.

I think it’s important for us to recognize how disrespectful this is to the American people. Time and again Trump makes it clear he has nothing but contempt for democracy or the people of the United States. He professes to love this country; he perversely hugs the Stars and Stripes as if it has something he wants to grab, but he has shown no respect at all for the human beings that make up the vast bulk of the nation’s people. As of this moment, we’re approaching 210,000 deaths from, and nearly 7.3 million people infected with, the Coronavirus, yet there’s still no national testing or contact tracing plan, and precious little else in the way of Federal leadership.

Regardless of what these tax returns end up showing us, and past experience makes it likely—IMO—they will show us how dishonest Trump actually is, we know who the man is. He’s shown us repeatedly how little he cares for anyone save himself and those who praise and support him. We need to throw him out of office, along with as many of the weak-kneed, treacherous sycophants and bootlickers we can muster the votes to remove from their positions.

These are desperate times, and our nation is on the verge of becoming an autocracy, with a deeply flawed person at its helm. We can’t let this happen. We need to show up this election season in numbers like never before.

Older people like me need to recognize that Trump and those who support him would prefer we were dead. Many, like me, are now collecting social security and are on Medicare. We worked and paid for these things. They aren’t entitlements—at least not in the sense the right uses the word—they are earnings that our representatives have not managed well over the years. We’re perceived as a financial drag on the economy.

Younger people, more than ever before, need to show up this election season as well. This is an all-hands-on-deck moment. Trump and the entire Republican party are science deniers and, as such, they cannot (and will not) accept the science of climate change, nor will they accept the science of epidemiology. The future of our planet and our species is being threatened by these idiots.

!!VOTE THEM ALL OUT!!


Contemporary American History

I just came across one of the better summarizations of two disparate responses to infectious diseases by our two latest Presidents here in the United States. I am not the author of what follows, but I would like to post it here, as I believe it will ultimately get more exposure than it will on Facebook (where I encountered it.)


For those of you complaining about Trump being blamed for the COVID-19 pandemic, here’s a little history lesson for everyone on both sides of the political divide. It’s important that we understand the truth, especially come November when it’s time to vote. Forgive the length, but hey, we all have time on our hands to read, correct?

In December 2013, an 18-month-old boy in Guinea was bitten by a bat and died a brutal death a day later. After that, there were five more fatal cases. When Ebola spread out of the Guinea borders into neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone in July 2014, President Obama activated the Emergency Operations Center at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. The CDC immediately deployed CDC personnel to West Africa to coordinate a response that included vector tracing, testing, education, logistics, and communication.

Altogether, the CDC, under President Obama, trained 24,655 medical workers in West Africa, educating them on how to prevent and control the disease before a single case left Africa or reached the U.S. Working with the U.N. and the World Health Organization President Obama ordered the re-routing of travelers heading to the U.S. through certain specific airports equipped to handle mass testing. Back home in America, more than 6,500 people were trained through mock outbreaks and practice scenarios. That was done before a single case hit America.

Three months after President Obama activated this unprecedented response, on September 30, 2014, we detected our first case in the U.S.A. A man had traveled from West Africa to Dallas and somehow slipped through the testing protocol. He was immediately detected and isolated. He died a week later. Two nurses who tended to him contracted Ebola but later recovered. All the protocols had worked. It was contained. The Ebola epidemic could have easily become a pandemic, but thanks to the actions of our government under President Obama, it never did. Those THREE EBOLA CONFIRMED CASES were the ONLY cases of Ebola in the U.S.A. because Obama did what needed to be done THREE MONTHS PRIOR TO THE FIRST CASE.

Ebola is even more contagious than COVID-19. Had Obama not acted swiftly, millions of Americans would have died horrible, painful, deaths like something out of a horror movie (if you’ve never seen how Ebola kills, it’s horrific). It is ironic because since President Obama acted decisively we forget about his actions since the disease never reached our shores.

Now the story of COVID-19 and Trump’s response that we know about thus far:
Before anyone even knew about the disease (even in China) Trump disbanded the pandemic response team that Obama had put in place. He cut funding to the CDC, and he cut our contribution to the World Health Organization (WHO). Trump fired Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer, the person on the National Security Council in charge of stopping the spread of infectious diseases before they reach our country – a position created by the Obama administration.

When the outbreak started in China, Trump assumed it was China’s problem and sent no research, supplies or help of any kind. We were in a trade war, why should he help them? In January he received a briefing from our intelligence organizations that the outbreak was much worse than China was admitting and that it would definitely hit our country if something wasn’t done to prevent it. He ignored the report, not trusting our own intelligence.

When the disease spread to Europe, the World Health Organization offered a plethora of tests to the United States. Trump turned them down, saying private companies here would make the tests “better” if we needed them. However, he never ordered U.S. companies to make tests and they had no profit motive to do so on their own.According to scientists at Yale and several public university medical schools, when they asked for permission to start working on our own testing protocol and potential treatments or vaccines, they were denied by Trump’s FDA.

When Trump knew about the first case in the United States he did nothing. It was just one case and the patient was isolated. When doctors and scientists started screaming in the media that this was a mistake, Trump claimed it was a “liberal hoax” conjured up to try to make him “look bad after impeachment failed.”

The next time Trump spoke of COVID-19, we had SIXTY-FOUR CONFIRMED CASES but Trump went before microphones and told the American public that we only had FIFTEEN cases “and pretty soon that number will be close to zero.” All while the disease was spreading, he took no action to get more tests. What Trump did was to stop flights from China from coming here. This was too late and accomplished nothing according to scientists and doctors. By then the disease was worldwide and was already spreading exponentially in the U.S. by Americans, not Chinese people as Trump would like you to believe.

As of the moment I am posting this, the morning of April 20, 2020, we have 770,076 COVID-19 CONFIRMED CASES and 40,316 COVID-19 DEATHS in the U.S.A. The actual number is undoubtedly more than triple that amount.

As if you needed one more reason to vote, here it is.


Hunkering Down

After hearing a television pundit suggest that millions of people are terrified of what’s happening with the Corona Virus, I got to thinking about it and posted the following on Facebook:

“I’m not terrified, but I am dealing with the reality I may not survive this pandemic. I’m nearly 73 and have numerous underlying conditions, including mild COPD. My family and I are isolating in our home, but we need groceries now and then. I’ve been out a couple of times in the past week, but I’ve been careful to maintain distance and refrain from touching my face until I get home and can wash my hands.

“There are, however, numerous vectors and I have a hard time imagining I can avoid them all. I normally don’t get colds or the flu, but I had an as yet unexplained episode of pulmonary distress that lasted a couple of months and finally dissipated with a regimen of Prednisone, but not until I’d coughed so much I needed double hernia surgery. It also led to the testing that resulted in my COPD dx. Needless to say, I’m taking this seriously. I’m sure many of my friends are similarly situated. Wishing everyone the best. Hopefully, we’ll see each other on the other side.”

The Morona Virus

So far it’s received over eighty reactions and dozens of comments either telling me to hang in there or suggesting I do everything from what I am doing to wearing a mask, gloves, and face shield any time I go to the grocery store.

I’m sticking with the protocols I’m following, though may adjust if things deteriorate, which it seems likely they will.

This morning I did go to Trader Joe’s to pick up some groceries we needed. After I returned, I posted about it (actually, I checked in when I was waiting in line, sharing a picture of the two lines they were using – one for old farts like me and one for the younger folk) and responded to a couple of friends with the following comments:

“This worked out fine. Everybody pretty much stayed at least six feet away from each other. When we went in, they allowed about twenty people at a time so it’s not crowded and you can maintain distances. I have never seen this store as well stocked as it is now. The guy who checked me out said this was their first order that they actually wrote, i.e. they were just taking whatever the warehouse was sending until now. When we went in it was a mix of us old farts and then those under 65. We were each handed a disinfectant wipe as we walked in, so I wiped down the handle I’d been touching and wiped my hands thoroughly. It’s a challenge opening TJ’s produce bags without licking my fingers, but I got ‘er done. I waited about 10 minutes and was in the store no more than 10 minutes. I’m pretty sure we can remain inside now for at least a week before I’ll have to either venture outside or take someone up on their generous offers to shop for us, though I just don’t feel right exposing others regardless of my situation.”

and, in response to a suggestion I have my children, who are 16 and 18, shop for me, I wrote:

“Being a bit compromised myself (Type II Diabetes, essential hypertension, Hep C, stage 2 kidney disease, and COPD-all mild and not currently life threatening) I’m wary, but I don’t like the idea of risking my children. My understanding is the disease can severely compromise lung function for the remainder of one’s life and I’ve already lived enough for two or three. I also have good life insurance and a pension that will continue as long as Linda lives. I do take what I consider prudent steps to avoid contamination, but you can’t just wipe down every damned thing in the world. Is everyone wiping down their mail? I imagine some folks are, but I’m not in that camp.”

So . . . the adventure continues. Currently, in my hometown of Simi Valley, California, there are eleven cases of COVID-19. That’s double what they were two days ago. This is a very conservative city in CA and I have no doubt many residents (and a majority of the City Council, including the Mayor) believed this was a hoax because you-know-who told them it was. Some undoubtedly still believe it to be one. I expect the number of cases to increase dramatically in the next week or so.


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