An On-Line Publication of
The Anonymous Anything Society
THE CHINA VIRUS
Readers of this blog should know that that this writer
opposes most every notion that might support the continued presidency of
Donald J. Trump.
I accuse him of delaying far too long before
finally...FINALLY identifying the worst disaster ever to kill as many
Americans: 180,000 thus far.
Why that doesn't sufficiently scare you bar patrons, you gym
rats or those with students attending "live teacher" classes, is beyond me.
I fear there will be many many more deaths if subsequent waves
erupt. And I predict it will be many months before you and I are
inoculated.
It was only recently that Trump condescendingly began to call
it "The China Virus" and would don a mask from time to time – something no
more serious than teenage acne. He predicted it would just "magically
disappear".
This could be worse than the Bubonic Plague. In the
Middle Ages it threatened to kill every human. Only the lack of
communication then saved humanity. Also keep in mind that
smallpox, another viral disease, came close to wiping out the entire race of
Native Americans. And that thousands were crippled by Polio in the
1920s and 1930s, including a man who was to become President - Franklin D.
Roosevelt.
Why didn't the USA treat Covid-19 with the same urgency as we
did with Ebola? We dispatched teams of health officials, physicians, even
the U.S. military, to Africa and Latin America. We either closed our doors
or quarantined all entrants.
Wuhan, long identified as the location of the initial cases, is
not some back-country village. It is known to our embassy as the
"Chicago of China" or the “Second City” - as populous as the City on the
banks of Lake Michigan. We welcomed airline passengers from there
weeks after the outbreak of the corona virus outbreak was known to health
officials here. Trump could have ordered the shutdown of all
arrivals by air or ship from there or quarantined them pending
examination. But he did not act with the needed haste or
effectiveness.
We do not know as yet if this pandemic may be repeated in
subsequent waves this winter. There is no reason to disbelieve one theory
that we may need an annual inoculation. It may be months before the first
round of effective vaccine is available. We are far from being out of the
woods.
Phil Richardson, Storyteller and Observer of the Human Condition.