Two weeks ago, on my travel blog, I explained why fear of coronavirus led to me cancelling a trip to France this summer. France doesn't have a coronavirus problem but I have a feeling it will-- we all will-- by summer. As you can see above, South Korea didn't have problem last week; but they sure do now-- a big surge in identified infections and a death of a man who has been hospitalized for more than 20 year. (In other words, medical professionals are failing to contain this in their own facilities.Want to keep up with the latest coronavirus updates? I'm finding Chris Martenson's YouTube site informative, if a lot more frightening than what Reese Erlich reported last week. And speaking of last week, I want to add to the post from last Monday on how the pandemic could impact our political revolution. First, a couple of Chris Martenson updates:This is the updated advice we'd pass along to Bernie's campaign:Health Risk
• This contagion runs far ahead of visible symptoms• It also hits older people much harder than younger people
Health Precautions
• Immediately reroute Bernie’s schedule away from rope lines and other hands, hugs and crowding • Quickly refocus national surrogates’ on-site activities away from locations with highest numbers of travellers from Asia, such as Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego, in favor of campaigning in South Carolina and Super Tuesday states’ rural areas, where the virus is unlikely to spread as quickly.
Political Risk
• Much worse than suspension of March 3 elections would be appearance that: (a) Berners had alleged political motives for suspensions, (b) which are later perceived to have been justified by public health precautions
Contagious new and stealthy viruses remind us that: • "Each one of us is easily infected by anybody in our community who faces financial barriers to getting check-ups and treatment, so Medicare For All is a necessary protection for all of us" • "Each country’s safety now depends on maintaining communication and cooperation with other countries, while minimizing disruption from mutual suspicion and hostility" • "We remember when news of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite suddenly changed our national culture and catalyzed our development of new technologies and industries. In response to today’s sudden viral pandemic threat, and to the slower but surer threat of climate collapse, we need another change of culture, to resist these threats against all of our people, and all peoples."
This morning, a report in Politico indicates that the White House is already thinking about how the coronavirus can be used to win the election. "The Trump administration," wrote Dan Diamond and Adam Cancryn, "is bracing for a possible coronavirus outbreak in the United States that could sicken thousands-- straining the government's public health response and threatening an economic slowdown in the heat of President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign. That stark realization has taken hold in high-level White House meetings, during which some administration officials have voiced concerns the coronavirus is already spreading undetected within U.S. borders... Though Trump in public has downplayed the virus, privately he has voiced his own anxieties, rebuking public health leaders over last week's decision to fly home 14 Americans who tested positive for the virus while aboard a cruise ship off Japan, said three individuals with knowledge of the situation. Trump was worried that transporting the Americans to the United States without adequate precautions could create new risks, the individuals said. 'The biggest current threat to the president’s reelection is this thing getting out of control and creating a health and economic impact,' said Chris Meekins, a Raymond James financial analyst and former Trump administration HHS emergency-preparedness official."