Peak virus approaching

Scarcity in the Time of Coronavirus #2

Apr 06, 2020

New York City is the site of our biggest battle with the Coronavirus armies. Here, again, the issue of scarcity is decisive. There are not enough hospitals, not enough doctors, nurses and other professionals, not enough beds, not enough ventilators, not enough masks, and other PPEs (personal protective equipment), and not enough time to fix these problems.

Peak infestation of the virus in NYC is now. Our time will come next week or the one after. What happens now in New York depends on our doctors and nurses. There are two divergent scenarios. Our invisible enemy could be turned back with less human deaths that predicted. Or, like an army when it is overwhelmed, a full-scale retreat, even rout, could ensue as the staff makes the best of having too many patients and no way to help them.

The pandemic has often been compared to a war. It is not that. It is an occupation. We are the ones being occupied.

Zombies: The virus should have been called the zombie virus, since that is what it is, and it has more cachet. Anyone we pass on the street could be infected by unseen zombies. That’s why we need to stay home. The zombie virus seems to be everywhere. It’s mindless and disregards its own survival in its consuming quest to invade our bodies and kill us.

There is one item for which there is no scarcity. It is the malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine. President Trump ordered twenty-nine million hits! That’s good if it works against this virus. A pipe dream if it doesn’t. Without testing, the only way to find out is to call for volunteers. Sure, I’d like to try it if doctors told me there was nothing more they could do to save my life. So maybe it will work out fine, in which case we’ll get rid of all the zombies, save one.

Flash: Vitamin D may save us all. This household vitamin shuts down ACE2 receptor sites into the cells (the medical parlance is “down-regulation”). The virus needs the ACE2 receptor sites to get into a cell and make it produce thousands of little viruses that will inflame the lungs and cause severe illness, such as pneumonia, or possibly death. But, if you are taking enough Vitamin D, when the virus arrives in your body, it finds the door shut. Ask your doctor how much Vitamin D you should be taking. Since Vitamin D is a common drug, it shouldn’t need a long period of testing before it is recommended. This information is from Prof. Karl Abrams’ research. He is currently consulting with other doctors and bio-chemists.

Surprise, masks do help: At last, the feds are calling for the use of masks for everyone. Other countries around the world have been cultivated, and even required, the use of masks in public. Why not the U.S.? The most likely answer was that there weren’t enough masks. Another example of the lack of preparedness that afflicts every aspect of the government’s bungled effort to protect it’s population. So they lied. Are you shocked the government would lie to you. Actually, we should be shocked when it tells the truth.

Now, the government is hijacking masks from European countries (where the manufacturer 3M has plants), at the height of their fight against Coronavirus.

Corporate bail out authorized: Congress has voted 98-0 in the Senate, and by voice, in the House to approve the corporate bailout which will be under the sole discretion of Sec’y of the Treasury, Steve Mnuchin. The bill is supposedly for 2.2 trillion, but the bailout (handout) can be leveraged for several more trillion with creative financing. It amounts to the largest single income shift in history. Working people will end up paying for it.

Under-consumption crisis looms: As the economy enters an under-consumption crisis on the scale of the 1929 Great Depression, the income shift should have gone the other way, so that working people had at least the same buying power they had in the mid-20th century.

This time, the economic chaos may be even greater than in 1929. When Franklin Roosevelt entered the White House in 1932, he pitched economic recovery as a struggle to put more people back to work. The various programs of the New Deal were successful in alleviating the worse aspects of the Depression. Today, it is not possible to put people back to work because the virus will get them. Chaos continues.

Universal Basic Income now: If we are unable to eradicate the virus quickly, the economy will sink deeper and deeper into disarray. We will become a nation of stay-at-homes. We thought that might happen in a few years as robots became more ubiquitous. That’s why many of us have been advocating a universal basic income (UBI) before millions are left jobless and penniless. Since armageddon came a few years early, we need a UBI right now. A one-time cash payment of $1200 won’t do the job. Checks should be going out once a month to all Americans. Remember, working people, not the 1 percenters, are responsible for building this country. In other words, we’ve earned a monthly payment many times over. Meanwhile, fully-paid medical should mean that everyone gets tested and gets hospital care as needed. Health care is a human right.

No end in sight: It’s obvious now that Trump’s desire to call an arbitrary end to defensive measures against the virus by Easter was foolhardy. Most estimates says that we can greatly reduce the number of infections with isolation and lockdowns by August. They add that we cannot fully defeat the virus until we have an effective vaccination, which may be another year. We may get a brief respite in the summer, then another onslaught in the fall, that may be worse than the current one. One concern I have is that it will be more difficult to persuade people, young people in particular, to again isolate themselves. People do get bored. If we cannot maintain the stay-at-home rule, the infection rate and death toll will go sky high.

OUR LEADERSHIP HAS FAILED US:

What is wrong with politicians? Do only the dumbest of us get into the political arena? It’s time we organize ourselves in such numbers that they will be forced to do the right thing. Let’s make them get enough of everything we need to fight this pandemic. Despite what Jared Kushner thinks, this is not a profit making opportunity. Universal Basic Income now! Medicare for All now! Not temporary measures but the “new normal” from now on. And take over the damn hospitals.

We need people, lots of people, if this is going to have a happy ending. We need the immediate formation of Labor’s Emergency Committee; Veterans Emergency Committee; Seniors Emergency Committee; Women’s Emergency Committee; Atlanta’s Emergency Committee. You get the idea? Everyone and anyone can play a role in saving lives and rebuilding our country. There’s not a moment to lose.

Our survival will be our victory!

The Left Coast

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