General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWith great certainty, we are going to have a huge second wave
Whichnobody could possibly have seen coming.
Idiots like Chuckie Todd will be on the air asking rhetorical questions and doing the what-if schtick and thousands more will be terribly sick with many dying. But it will be dismissed as necessary losses in the same fashion that a military commander makes battlefield decisions.
You see, the powers that be DO NOT CARE ONE WHIT WHETHER YOU LIVE OR DIE. They will never say this but Trump has demonstrated exactly how much they do not care: not a word of grief or sorrow or pity or empathy for the sick or the survivors. The mechanistic approach to humanity may sicken some but I always knew this is how they felt. Why would anyone be surprised? Look at the nature of the lives of the underprivileged in the richest country in the world.
They will not shut the country down again unless there are millions dying in the street. Think Pearl Harbor: we memorialize the sneak attack and the thousands of dead but who mentions the ensuing battles and horrors which occurred? My father was a four year combat veteran in the Pacific Theater: All around him there was death and destruction but no one spoke of it afterward. There is almost no mention of the 1918 pandemic in the popular literature of the day or thereafter. It is as though it never happened from a literary perspective. This is what theyre counting on here. The Venetian blinds are going to come down, we are going to accept widespread death and permanent damage to vital organ systems in many millions, And the business of business will continue. Because in the eyes of a sufficient number, it is within bounds for millions to suffer. As long, of course, as its not they themselves. There will of course be a few pieces in newspapers and magazines who will be profiled upon their illness or demise as non-believers, we will read about them and dutifully shake our heads and move on to our business. For in the end, what counts for the vast number is they themselves alone. Trump and his immediate minions are simply representative of these individuals.
One thing, the Deus ex machina, can save us: the infiltration of the virus into the Halls of Power. The last plague of the Egyptians: the slaying of the First Born. As they say: history does not repeat itself but it does rhyme. This Pharaoh is challenging God Himself (Im being allegorical, stay calm you non-believers) and May well lose. We shall see, wont we?
In_The_Wind
(72,300 posts)Social distancing is important.
empedocles
(15,751 posts)Changed UK political course on Covid - better late than never.
Russia is spiking as we speak.
PCIntern
(25,541 posts)Pricks.
No empathy.
NRaleighLiberal
(60,014 posts)the wingnuts on the right. Only a very few exceptions.
exboyfil
(17,862 posts)That pretty much summarizes it.
bullimiami
(13,086 posts)can start letting them know they will be denied coverage for Covid.
Due to their reckless behavior.
Free market.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)Most Americans are sane and are staying home. Social distancing appears to be working. Politicians can open up states and municipalities all they want, and very little will change. People are staying home. They dont want to die.
Our economy, on the other hand, is toast. We have already lost 30+ million jobs, and its going to take a long time to get them back. Were in for a bumpy ride.
-Laelth
PCIntern
(25,541 posts)And they dont have the infrastructure to handle it imo
Laelth
(32,017 posts)We shall see what we see.
-Laelth
So far I have Unfortunately been exactly correct from the first moment I heard about this in China.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
NickB79
(19,236 posts)And thousands are going to beaches and the National Mall.
We're repeating 1918.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)The 1918 pandemic was very different for one key reason. It appears that we actively selected transmission of more virulent strains in 1918. WWI was raging. The Spanish Flu was all throughout the trenches on both sides. A soldier who was just a little sick (carrying a less-virulent strain) was ordered to stay at the front. Soldiers who were very sick (carrying a more-virulent strain) were packed into crowded trains and shipped to hospitals far and wide, thereby infecting a large number of people over a wide geographical area with the most virulent strains of the virus.
There is no similar mechanism at work right now. People are staying home. Social distancing appears to be working. We are not actively spreading more virulent strains of this virus. As such, I do not foresee the appearance of a second wave that is worse than the first wave.
-Laelth
Voltaire2
(13,023 posts)those workers will no longer be eligible for unemployment compensation. They will have to go back to work. The free dumb campaign will convince many to ignore social distancing and mask requirements. Lawsuits will cripple mandates.
We are all set up for a 2nd wave disaster.
Some states that are trying to limit their unemployment insurance exposure are enacting rules that say, If you get called back to work, and if you dont go, you will lose your unemployment insurance. Thats true for a few states, afaik.
But very few businesses are reopening. Thats because they dont have enough customers to justify reopening. Generally speaking, people are staying home. They dont want to die, and no politician can change this fact by reopening their local economies. Its not stay-at-home orders that are strangling our economy. Its reasonable fear of illness and death.
-Laelth
Hugin
(33,135 posts)hidden by complicit reporting of the mass media and manipulated data provided by corrupt governance. It's truly, "The Big Lie". Straight out of 1984. Honest people will be pilloried for saying what they see right before everyone's very eyes. This is straight up, Biblical.
All bow to a High Dow!
dalton99a
(81,475 posts)Hugin
(33,135 posts)Privatize the profits, socialize the risk.
Don't let a good crisis go unexploited.
SNAFU.
Right from the authoritarian play-book.