No Light At the End of the Tunnel. Yet.
A record 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment last week, and economists are warning of 40 million people losing their jobs during the current crisis.
The Senate has passed, by a vote of 96-0, a $2 trillion salve for the economy. The president has said he’ll sign the bill. Now we’re just waiting to see if some nutball like Texas Rep. Louie Gomert can be persuaded to take off his tinfoil hat long enough to get this legislation passed by unanimous consent in the House. If not, maybe they’ll get to it next week.
This bill won’t be the last pile of money coming out of the Treasury. There's talk of two, perhaps three more, bills in the coming months. The Senate is in a hurry to start a three week vacation, so don’t get your hopes up about more bailouts anytime soon.
As Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, in response to speculation that the worst is over, “The light at the end of the tunnel may be a train coming at us.”
Projections by the County Health department indicate the area has not seen the worst of COVID-19 yet, according to reporting by Will Huntsberry at Voice of San Diego.
Meanwhile, a local scientist says this is a critical week in San Diego for fighting the spread of coronavirus.
“If we don’t want to let this balloon out of control, we need to stop it literally right now,” said Forest Rohwer, a biology professor who studies viruses at San Diego State University.
Rohwer said this week is especially important because models suggest that cases could overwhelm hospitals two weeks from now under some scenarios. It typically takes that amount of time for patients to need to be hospitalized after they’re infected, he said, so this week is what he calls the “inflection point” that will decide whether we go down a road toward extreme sickness and death.
Lest you think this is an old people disease:
NBC San Diego examined the numbers and found men between the ages of 20 and 39 have the highest COVID-19 infection rates in San Diego County.
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Jaw dropping statements and actions by Trumpanistas continue unabated.
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1243004099206893583?s=20
Psst-- In states that voted for Clinton in 2016, which make up three-quarters of known cases, the number of new confirmed cases from March 17 to March 24 increased by an average of 530 percent. In red states, the average increase was 860 percent.
https://twitter.com/WSJopinion/status/1243176989290385409?s=20
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Canadians are also going to get government help during the economic crisis.
According to Politico:
The aid package includes C$52 billion in direct financial support for individuals and businesses and C$55 billion in tax deferrals. Individual measures include a boost to the Canada Child Benefit, money for those who are out of work and a six-month freeze on student loan repayments.
Canadians have the benefits of a national health system, which means testing and supplies are coordinated rather than piecemeal.
Meanwhile, in Washington:
American government officials inside Donald Trump’s White House are actively discussing putting troops near the Canadian borders in light of U.S. border security concerns around the coronavirus pandemic, sources tell Global News.
Few people cross from Canada into the United States at an unofficial point each year but the goal of the policy would be to help border guards detect irregular crossers, the sources said.
While the White House is pushing for this, no decision has been made.
https://twitter.com/dadoffourskids/status/1243205736487886852?s=20
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The whole world would be laughing at the United States, were it not for the seriousness of the situation.
From the Washington Post:
Foreign ministers representing seven major industrialized nations failed to agree on a joint statement Wednesday after the Trump administration insisted on referring to the coronavirus outbreak as the “Wuhan virus,” three officials from G-7 countries told The Washington Post.
Other nations in the group of world powers rejected the term because they viewed it as needlessly divisive at a time when international cooperation is required to slow the global pandemic and deal with the scarcity of medical supplies, officials said.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has brushed off criticism of his use of the term, saying it’s important to point out that the virus came from the Chinese city of Wuhan and that China’s government had a special responsibility to warn the world about its dangers.
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While there is a lot of excellent reporting being done on the Coronavirus crisis, there are two stories with insights you may have missed that go beyond the death toll and lockdowns.
An article in Foreign Policy by Micah Zenko makes the case for the coronavirus crisis in the US as being the worst intelligence failure in US history.
The White House detachment and nonchalance during the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak will be among the most costly decisions of any modern presidency.
These officials were presented with a clear progression of warnings and crucial decision points far enough in advance that the country could have been far better prepared. But the way that they squandered the gifts of foresight and time should never be forgotten, nor should the reason they were squandered: Trump was initially wrong, so his inner circle promoted that wrongness rhetorically and with inadequate policies for far too long, and even today. Americans will now pay the price for decades.
The Atlantic features Ed Yong’s cogent analysis on where the country could be headed after the current crisis peaks.
The lessons that America draws from this experience are hard to predict, especially at a time when online algorithms and partisan broadcasters only serve news that aligns with their audience’s preconceptions. Such dynamics will be pivotal in the coming months, says Ilan Goldenberg, a foreign-policy expert at the Center for a New American Security. “The transitions after World War II or 9/11 were not about a bunch of new ideas,” he says. “The ideas are out there, but the debates will be more acute over the next few months because of the fluidity of the moment and willingness of the American public to accept big, massive changes.”
One could easily conceive of a world in which most of the nation believes that America defeated COVID-19. Despite his many lapses, Trump’s approval rating has surged. Imagine that he succeeds in diverting blame for the crisis to China, casting it as the villain and America as the resilient hero. During the second term of his presidency, the U.S. turns further inward and pulls out of NATO and other international alliances, builds actual and figurative walls, and disinvests in other nations. As Gen C grows up, foreign plagues replace communists and terrorists as the new generational threat.
One could also envisage a future in which America learns a different lesson. A communal spirit, ironically born through social distancing, causes people to turn outward, to neighbors both foreign and domestic. The election of November 2020 becomes a repudiation of “America first” politics. The nation pivots, as it did after World War II, from isolationism to international cooperation. Buoyed by steady investments and an influx of the brightest minds, the health-care workforce surges. Gen C kids write school essays about growing up to be epidemiologists. Public health becomes the centerpiece of foreign policy. The U.S. leads a new global partnership focused on solving challenges like pandemics and climate change.
In 2030, SARS-CoV-3 emerges from nowhere, and is brought to heel within a month.
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Lead image via Gerd Altman/Pixabay