Category: Coronavirus

Halfway There!

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The crocus have bloomed in our lawn and garden slopes. The first signs of spring, these most hopeful of flowers often will bloom through the snow as they let us know that warmer temperatures are coming. We look for the first signs of spring and cherish them.

I just received my first dose of the coronavirus vaccine today. Like the crocus, the increased spread of the vaccines offers hope that the world may emerge from the doldrums of winter into the bright sunlight of summer. Perhaps we can look forward to those things we once took for granted, like enjoying a meal at a restaurant, or singing in our various choirs without fear of contagion.

Being the science nerd that I am, I am glad that I received a dose of the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine. There is no better example of technology to demonstrate how far we have come to understanding the genome and how to influence the biology of life. To think that we can now introduce fat particles in a vaccine that are designed to penetrate cell walls. There they will deliver their dosage of mRNA that causes the immune system to recognize, and attack, invaders that have the distinctive type of latching mechanism of COVID. No longer do we need to rely upon killed versions of the whole virus (although the Johnson and Johnson vaccine does rely upon a killed virus other than the COVID to produce immunity). Most of the arguments against vaccines, like they rely upon cells from aborted fetuses, or contain aluminum or mercury, are rendered moot by the nature of the mRNA vaccines. They contain no items that were ever alive, and thus avoid most of the qualms that the anti-vaccination crowd should have.

But never doubt the ability of those who do not understand the underlying science to sow doubt even with this brand-new mode of vaccine delivery. No, since the scary boogeyman of DNA is invoked, those who must protest medical advances to justify their own superiority have declared that these new vaccines will hijack your DNA, and cause unspeakable mutations that will show up in later years to enable the goal of population reduction to be achieved. Whose goal? Why, Bill Gates of course. It is he who has taken the place of George Soros in many regards as the face of evil for those who refuse any scientific advance. Bill has mandated the insertion of microchips into the vaccine, so that the vaccination status of all may be determined by a simple scan, and your access to travel, recreation, and money can be held hostage to your vaccination status. I’ve even seen discussion about ingesting a horse de-wormer (Ivermectin) as a treatment regimen rather than subject people to the vaccine.

Since I was trained as a chemical engineer, and have studied biochemistry and other related fields, I have much less fear of products developed through adherence to the scientific method. I wish there were a way I could convey the knowledge I have gained to those who are insistent upon believing the pure BS that is spread through on-line media. But I should not be surprised. Those who believed in the past president as being a great businessman have proven to be remarkably recalcitrant in abandoning their adherence to worshiping the great one. You need look no further than to see the adulation given to the golden statue of their chosen leader this past weekend at CPAC. Those who have been taken in by a scam artist, are loathe to admit their own folly. It has been said the mankind goes mad in herds, but come to their senses one by one. We who believe we are the rational ones, will never go and win an argument with those who are still in the throes of their delusions.

Anyway, I’ve now had the first dose of the vaccine. I anticipate that when I receive the second dose in about four weeks, that my immune system will already recognize the new dose as an interloper that must be attacked, and I expect to feel like crap for a day or so. That is one small price to pay compared to the price that can be exacted from full-fledged infection with the virus. I’ve been following the progress of a friend who was severely infected, with pneumonia from the virus. Just the stories of his near brush with death, and the tenacity he’s had to use to battle back, let me know that I don’t wish to share his experience.

In some ways this pandemic has served as a wake-up call for the world. Imagine if this airborne virus had the lethality of Ebola? I think that’s what some deniers are maintaining, that if people aren’t dropping dead on the streets, then this is not a disease worth fearing. I really am hoping that those in charge of political power decide it is worthwhile to pay for insurance policies for the future. What does that look like? It looks like scientists from multiple nations working at facilities across the globe, ready to sound the warning when they detect a disease of concern. It looks like adequate stocks of protective equipment kept on hand. It looks like an analysis of supply chains, and investment to harden those supply chains, so that we are not subject to interruption of those supply chains for vital supplies when the world shuts down for the next pandemic. Because one thing we know. As long as mankind keeps impinging upon virgin territory, we will come into contact with new and more deadly diseases in the future. May we have the wisdom to actually learn from this episode, instead of adopting amnesia as a coping mechanism.

Demographic Waves Crashing

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Over the decades, demographic waves crash upon our shore during our elections. The last four US Presidential elections offers the best evidence of the ebb and flow of these cross currents. The demographic changes showing up in the increased population of non-white residents enabled the election of the first non-white President. It cannot be overstated how much this stirred up the undercurrents of racism that were always present in this country. It was expressed overtly through pronouncements like that of Senate Leader McConnell, whose sole ambition was to make President Obama a one-term President. It was expressed covertly, through the growing popularity of racist forums on the internet, where the theory of birtherism was bandied about broadly. It finally resulted in the popularization of its most ardent proponent, and thus Trumpism was born.

The Newtonian response (to every action is an equal reaction) to the emergence of the demographic alliance expressed in Obama’s election, came in the form of the Trump campaign of 2016. In that election, the wave that emerged gathered up the scum from the bottom of the ocean of the population, and the filth that washed up upon the shore stayed in service to the new President. It represented the last, great gasp of the portion of the demographic pie that refuses to accept changes to the nation they apparently believe they, and they alone, own. The trends in the economy that preceded Trump continued during his term, and he was more than happy to accept responsibility for good things. His re-election looked secure, despite the damage he was inflicting to the nation and its reputation.

Then came that once per century occurrence, a pandemic. Much has been written about how this nation squandered the only potential advantage we had – time to respond before we were overwhelmed. The growth of the epidemic became obvious during the months of February and early March. This was truly an exponential growth rate, and strong action was needed to nip this early in the growth phase of the pandemic.

Here is where Trump’s famous gut instinct failed him. He believed that the emotional response of the population to a pandemic would cause the electorate to reject him this fall. Thus he insisted upon proclamations of strong action, and magical disappearances of this contagious virus, and even nonsensical solutions of internal irradiation and chemical cleansing, while simultaneously disavowing any responsibility for the response. The time that could have been used to produce and procure protective equipment fled, and thus we were treated to pictures of nurses wearing garbage bags in a futile effort to keep the virus at bay. As time went on, it was obvious that this President had no answer to an enemy that did not respond to bullying, to name-calling, to blame-transference. As the second peak wave receded this summer, a false sense of security boosted his ratings. But then the third peak began its inexorable rise, and once more the electorate could see that this emperor had no clothes. We will see where this third (hopefully last) wave goes since we have months to go before any effective action can be taken by the new administration.

The reactive wave to Trumpism was already in motion. The coalition of population segments necessary to defeat this President at the polls swung into action. Yet the power of the personality cult of Donald Trump held out strongly. It was only in the last few returns from urban centers in Georgia and Pennsylvania when it became obvious that Biden had an unbeatable lead. Still, those who have clung to Trump for access to power are crying that this election was stolen, and legal action can reverse this trend.

It should be obvious that since 2000, the Electoral College and the popular vote are no longer in synch. This was very nearly the third election out of six this century where the winner of the popular vote did not win the election. That is evidence of the change in the demographics we are witnessing. Though Biden won more counties than Hillary Clinton won, the vast majority of counties, even in states where Biden won, were colored red on the electoral maps of the television networks. We are seeing a schism between Norman Rockwell America, and the new America of the urban centers. The Republicans have held onto power through their machinations with redrawing of legislative and congressional districts. Some of those districts will be redrawn after the current census, but many will still favor the Republicans inside of states.  But by getting rid of the parasite-in-chief, there is an opportunity to revise government policies to be more responsive to the needs of the governed, rather than the needs of the 0.01% of the population at the top of the income and wealth statistics.

The coalition that defeated Trumpism will prove to be ephemeral, and short-lived. Any alliance that contains both Angela Davis and Bill Kristol is bound to come apart once the existential threat that bound them together, is returned into the wild. But the problems we face are truly immense, and the economic damage wrought by the pandemic will take many years to overcome. First, though, deal with the pandemic, since economic healing cannot occur until the physical healing from the covid virus happens.

The End Of The World, As We Know It

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To many, these times we live in are reminiscent of Götterdämmerung, the twilight of the Gods. Certainly that is the image presented at the abomination called the Republican National Convention. They see the changes our society has undergone as being so threatening to their way of life that they cling to a would-be autocrat who has leveraged their fear into a term as President. He now himself clings desperately to the power he has enjoyed, and is pushing all of the levers of that power in order to gum up the normal electoral process. To the group that believes their way of life and unchallenged superiority is indeed challenged, all tactics seem fair to ensure their continued grasp on power.

The 2016 election proved this. While the Democratic candidate won by 2% of the popular vote, due to the small state bias built into the electoral college, the Republicans won the office. They proceeded to rule based as if they had received a massive vote in favor of their policies, though vote really did go against them. Therefore, they knew it was imperative to provide the tools to ensure the changing demographics of this nation did not prevent their takeover of all of the reins of power. In a way, we were fortunate. This President was so ignorant of how government worked, that his first year’s efforts at neutering government were mainly failures. Think of how many different iterations of the Muslim ban came down the pike, only to be swatted away by the judicial branch. But unfortunately, those within the government were able to learn how the levers of power worked. And by the third year, they were capable of implementing the family separation policy. Oh, they didn’t have a way of reuniting families, but who cared?

In a way, it is remarkable that this nation has succeeded in using a single set of founding documents to navigate through the ensuing 2+ centuries. The Constitution has stretched enough to deal with the intervening crises that swirled through this country. But the events of this year have shown that continuing to rely solely upon the document that preceded the technological age, does not always work in the current era of globalized material and people flow, and instantaneous flow of both real and misinformation. When so many people simply refuse to accept what appears to be unambiguous scientific facts, it becomes impossible to conduct a purposeful discussion. This shows itself in so many folks refusing to believe that we are in a pandemic, denying that the outbreak of disease is anything more significant that a variant of the normal flu virus.

Though the current administration insists that the country of origin for the virus was fundamentally negligent in allowing the genii to escape, what happened early this year was what epidemiologists have known and feared would happen in a world interconnected by human and material flow. Before this year, very few people in the US could have identified Wuhan on the map, and even fewer knew that the city and its environs had 11 million residents. But the outbreak of a virus that exhibits high infectivity showed that it could not be contained within a single country. Soon outposts of the virus were set up in Italy, and thence migrated into the US. But of all of the nations hit by the first wave of the virus, it has only been the US that has not brought infections down below a simmering boil. The virus has shown that it is still present, and shows up in all locations where the guard is let down even for a moment.

But in the US, a confluence of events and trends have prevented us from ever bringing the virus under control. The US has never viewed it as necessary to have the Federal government serve as a backstop to private enterprise. So when it was necessary to shut down commercial life in order to reduce the spread of the virus, the mechanisms to provide financial support were creaky at best, balky and unworkable at worst. And now, those mechanisms have been exhausted, and this nation still is operating under the assumption that it is a moral failing that so many people cannot find work, rather than accepting that we are in a fundamentally different era. Then the strain of individual liberty fanatics insisted that any mandated protective acts were an infringement on constitutional rights. Even the simple, though uncomfortable practice, of wearing a face mask has become weaponized, and blood has been spilled in defense of the right to infect others.

Those who were convinced that the blood of Jesus would protect them against any infection were also convinced that the government was infringing against their first amendment rights by preventing them from worshiping in person. You can see time after time where ministers were insistent on holding services in person, even though those services spread disease and death. Indeed, the American desire for a divine miracle to protect the faithful is fully in evidence as a response to this pandemic. The viral particle doesn’t recognize religious denomination, or even if someone is or is not a religious adherent. It recognizes only the opportunity to colonize a new host and spread itself. It is a mindless automaton with only the genetic information inside of it to allow it to propagate.

If there is to be divine intervention, it is because the knowledge of humanity has allowed it to understand the genetic code of the enemy, and to effectively devise biological weaponry to defeat it. That can be manifested through effective treatments for the symptoms of the virus, but all hope is on one or more of the vaccines in clinical trial will be found to be:  1) Effective at preventing infection through activation of the immune system, and 2) Able to provide this immunity without adverse side effects. Indeed, the rapidity at which vaccines have been shepherded into phase 3 trials has been amazing. But due to the same tendency within this nation to reject science and any uncomfortable challenges to beliefs, even when a vaccine is released to the population, a sizable fraction will refuse to take it. Whether it is due to fears unleashed by the anti-vaxxers, or whether it is the belief that the entire virus episode has been a New World Order conspiracy, there will be enough who refuse to take the vaccine that it will still circulate within the population, causing infection, and illness, and preventable death.

The upcoming election does offer the opportunity to return to a semblance of normality. Whether enough of the electorate will recognize that the Federal response to this virus represents a natural outgrowth of the belief system of this administration remains to be seen. The ignorance of the American public can never be overestimated. Let us hope that incompetence can be seen for what it is – a natural consequence of selecting a con man four long years ago.