Elections 2024... Risk averse Democrats vs. risk tolerant Republicans ... Part 1 (Governor DeSantis)

Last update: Tuesday 5/31/22 

This blog note assumes that the pandemic will still be raging during the peak campaign months in 2024. It also assumes that the nation's management of the pandemic will be a critical election issue, right up there with abortion rights, immigration, voting rights, the Big Lie, and all of the other domestic controversies swirling in the stews of our hotter-than-ever political pots. It assumes that votes related to the pandemic will be strongly influenced by each voter's attitude towards pandemic risk, i.e., tolerance vs. aversion. From this limited perspective the election will be a contest between risk averse Democrats vs. risk tolerant Republicans, more specifically, between Democrats who give credence to the CDC's cautious guidance vs. Republicans who are inspired by the anti-mandate postures of Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis, a Yale undergrad. Harvard Law grad, and U.S. Navy veteran. And yes, this note assumes that the governor is preparing to run atop the GOP ticket in 2024 ... if Trump should falter.

Long COVID -- The "last" challenge to a new normal

Last update: Tuesday 6/7/22 

The bad news is that the CDC will soon certify that our COVID death toll has reached one million, a truly catastrophic outcome. The good news is that we are on the verge of a "new normal", but we are not quite there yet. As per Dr. Fauci's recent comments, the next phase will be about control. Our primary tools for controlling COVID will be (a) vaccines that greatly reduce the severity of infections and (b) antiviral medications that enable people to recover from severe infections. Unfortunately, there are millions of people for whom these tools will provide inadequate protection. 

Here's how we went from zero to "there"

Last update: Thursday 5/26/22 

One million deaths. How did we get there? Here's the best but far too painful answer:  one victim at a time plus the relatives and friends who loved them. But that would require one million obituaries with photos and loving commentaries ... way too long for a blog note. So let's just do some high speed skipping by 100,000s, OK? 

One million dead, but how many lives might have been saved by vaccines???

Last update: Wednesday 5/18/22 

This blog note calls our readers' attention to a new free online dashboard developed by Brown University's School of Public Health in partnership with Microsoft and others. The dashboard estimates answers to the question: How many lives might have been saved had more people been vaccinated?

National trust was NOT our key to more successful management of the pandemic

Last update: Monday 5/16/22 

Why did other wealthy nations, like Japan and Australia, suffer much lower COVID deaths per hundred thousand population than we did? Studies done with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight have repeatedly identified trust as a key contributing factor to more successful management of the pandemic, i.e., the greater trust the people had in their governments, and the greater trust the people had in each other.

One million dead, but the CDC is "Still the Same"

Last update: Saturday 5/14/22 

The editor of this blog never liked Bob Seger's classic, "Still the Same", perhaps because, like other earwigs, whenever this song popped into his head he couldn't make it stop. Our imminent tragic achievement of one million deaths from COVID has triggered unwelcome memories of the many blunders committed by the CDC under both presidents, Trump and Biden, blunders that have surely been responsible for hundreds of thousands of those one million lost lives. So it's not surprising that the editor found himself humming Seger's catchy little tune many times in the last few weeks.

What if nothing happened? Would you believe it?

Last update: Thursday 5/12/22 

Would you believe it if someone told you that the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) threw a big dinner gala in a cavernous hotel dining hall that was attended by over one thousand reporters and V.I.P'S, most not wearing masks, notably President Biden, 79, but was not attended by Dr. Fauci, 81, because of his concern for his "personal risk" ... The good news is that nobody got infected with COVID? Would you believe that story?

One million COVID Deaths

Last update: Wednesday 5/25/22 

On Thursday 5/12/22, President Biden announced that flags on all federal buildings would be lowered as a highly visible marker of our nation's achievement of a horrendous milestone -- one million deaths from COVID since the beginning of the pandemic in the  U.S. back in early 2020. This is indeed a horrific milestone that should be observed with the utmost reverence. Unfortunately, there is a nagging quibble associated with the president's announcement: Are we there yet? Are we really, really there yet?

Here's another question that won't be sent to Dr. Fauci: Booster shots or N95 masks for older folks? -- DRAFT

Last update: Wednesday 5/11/22 

As quoted in a previous note on this blog ("Why are we wasting most of our vaccines?"), those 85 and older suffered more than 26 percent of all of the deaths from COVID in the U.S. since the pandemic began, 13 times the deaths expected given their 2 percent share of the U.S. population.

The same table showed that persons who were 65 to 74, suffered 22.7 percent of COVID deaths, which was less than three times their 9.6 percent share of the population. The oldest were therefore more than four times as vulnerable as those who were only ten years younger. The CDC's COVID Data Tracker page reports that almost 91 percent of the overarching 65 and over age group are vaccinated and that 69 percent the vaccinated are also boosted. Moreover this group is the most highly vaccinated and boosted age group in the country. 

Dear Dr. Fauci, Please provide me with a candid response to a personal COVID question

Last update: Monday 5/9/22 

Why did you decide not to attend the recent White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner last week? You have been quoted as saying that you did not attend "because of my individual assessment of my personal risk". Beyond this, you were recently cited as being "miffed" by the message sent by the WHCA dinner. 

Why are we wasting most of our vaccines?

Last update: Sunday 5/15/22

One million deaths from COVID is a national shame and an ongoing horror. How did a great nation with the most impressive biomedical research facilities in the world allow so many people to die? The endless answers to this question will be laden with accusations and finger pointing for decades to come. The question is equivalent to another mind boggler: Will the gains that we attain when we win our total war against lethal tribes of coronaviruses be worth the losses we sustain? If the answer to this question isn't a resounding "YES!!!", then we will have suffered one of the most bitter Pyrrhic victories in history.

One million U.S. COVID deaths ... so far

Last update: Saturday 5/25/22 

The epigram in the image for this blog note provides cruel commentary on the absurd sensibility of our our modern Age of Data Science. We are told that "You can't improve what you don't measure" -- as if knowing that we have attained a horrific national benchmark will somehow enable us to reduce the pain of this catastrophic human loss in the months and years to come. "The plural of anecdote is not data." Yes, the death of one person, one man, one woman, one child is an anecdote. We are supposed to believe that policies are changed by data, by statistics. Nevertheless our individual behaviors, the fundamental stuff that sums up to national statistics, are rarely changed by statistics, but are often changed by anecdotes, as in: a friend died, or a friend of a friend, or even a friend of a friend of a friend. For most of us it isn't real until it becomes personal, until it becomes the stuff of tragic anecdotes. Obituaries are real. National statistics are just bureaucratic blather.

CDC Death Count = 1,000,254 on 5/25/22

Waiting for a COVID shoe to drop ... in the Oval Office ... with a P.S. 5/5/22

Last update: Saturday 5/7/22 

Hopefully, the editor of this blog will delete this note in a few days because the dreaded possibility that it anticipates will not have occurred, that possibility being that President Biden catches COVID as a result of his attending the White House correspondents’ gala two nights ago without wearing an N95 mask. The gala was a potential super spreader that Dr. Fauci declined to attend.