Total Recall

Seems to me that about half the population has no memory of life four years ago.  I certainly remember it.  I made a point of documenting events on the ground in real time because I had a hunch that there would be revisionist history afoot before too long.    

Are you better off today than you were four years ago?

Consider this.

Four years ago the stock market had collapsed - hitting the worst weeks since the Great Recession of 2008 - as the country spiraled into a years-long pandemic that claimed more that 1 million American lives, cratered the economy, upended our daily lives and arguably costing Trump the election.

I don't believe for a moment that voters blame Trump for the pandemic - a once-in-a-lifetime calamity thrust upon the entire world.  But they did fault his response to it.  The pandemic showcased a leader who exhibited the full panoply of characteristics that his supporters love and his detractors revile.

Excess Deaths - New York Times

Don't take my word for this as you can readily navigate this blog for a post history.  Simply use the TAGS feature in the left margin and click on key words like: COVID, Doing the Right Thing, Donald Trump, Healthcare, Liars or Quarantine Living.  Or use the search function in the upper left corner and search under Willful Blindness or any other discrete subject you think might be relevant.

A year ago the President was talking about shining ultraviolet light inside our bodies and injecting ourselves with disinfectant.  That's nuts.

 

So to answer the question of whether you or I were better off four years ago I would say, nope.  Six seven or eight years ago are debatable.  Four years ago was an absolute shit show.  Donald Trump struggled mightily during the pandemic and he failed to protect us.

Four Short Years Ago

One of the interesting benefits of Face Book is the Face Book Memories feature.  The Face Book algorithm will "nudge" you with a post or status from the past.  It is actually a reasonably useful feature inasmuch as it captures an actual day in history, a photo, a trip, a status or seemingly mundane post.  Did I really say that?  Yeah, that was a really great trip!  Or, I forgot about that.

This is one from April 4, 2020.  Four short years ago.  It seems like a million years ago.  I chose not to re-post it on FB - choosing to do so here instead.  You see, coming here to read something is voluntary.  If I were to re-post this on FB it might find its way by means of the algorithm to just about anyone's feed.  And as a consequence, it might inflame certain individuals who have seemingly fond memories of April 4, 2020.  Sometimes discretion and not agitating certain individuals is the better part of valor.  

Here it is:

Gas price a mile from home was $1.19.  School cancelled - yes cancelled.  Self-distancing measures on the rise.  Tape on the floors at grocery stores and others to help distance shoppers (6ft) from each other.  Limited number of people inside stores, therefore, lineups outside the store doors.  Non-essential stores and businesses mandated closed.

Parks, trails, entire cities locked up.  Entire sports seasons cancelled.  Concerts, tours, festivals, entertainment events - cancelled.  Weddings, family celebrations, holiday gatherings - cancelled.  No masses, churches are closed.  No gatherings of 50 or more, then 20 or more, now 5 or more.  Don't socialize with anyone outside of your home. Children's outdoor play parks are closed.  We are to distance from each other.

Shortages of masks, gowns, gloves for our front-line workers.  Shortages of ventilators for the critically ill.  Panic buying sets in and there is no toilet paper, no disinfecting supplies, no paper towels, no laundry soap, no hand sanitizer.  Shelves are bare. Manufacturers, distilleries and other businesses switch their lines to help make visors, masks, hand sanitizer and PPE.

Government closes the border to all non-essential travel.  Supply lines begin to unravel.  Fines are established for breaking the rules.  Stadiums and recreation facilities open up for the overflow of Covid-19 patients.  With morgues full, refrigerated trailers begin overflowing with growing numbers of dead.

Press conferences daily from the President.  Daily updates on new cases, recoveries, and deaths.  Government incentives to stay home.  Barely anyone on the roads.  People wearing masks and gloves outside.  Essential service workers are terrified to go to work.  Medical field workers are afraid to go home to their families.

This is the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic, declared March 11th, 2020.

Why, you ask, do I write this status?

One day it will show up in my Face Book Memory feed, and it will be a yearly reminder that life is precious and not to take the things we dearly love for granted.

 

This was a total, absolute, cluster f**k.  Nothing to be fond about.

Source of Origin

It seems like a million years ago yet back in the very earliest of days as the pandemic was unfolding the term Kung Flu was bandied-about as a pejorative name for Covid-19.  There were some in the intelligence community that harbored suspicions that China wasn't coming clean with us and the rest of the world about Covid.  Ostensibly, coronavirus sample were destroyed in the name of public health.  Or was it a cover-up of a lab leak?

Last year polio virus was found in wastewater in the Netherlands.  Anthrax was leaked from Fort Detrick in 2001.  Foot-and-mouth disease escaped at Plum Island in 2004  The influenza outbreak of 1977 likely was the result of a leak from a Soviet laboratory.  It's been known to happen and the list of biosecurity incidents is quite extensive.

Both the Department of Energy and the FBI have concluded that sloppy safety practices at the Wuhan lab was the most plausible explanation for the origin of Covid.

Sure, I know that in the beginning of the pandemic there were divisions in our intelligence community about the origins of the disease.  Partisan politics complicated it further.  And no small amount of social media speculation and fixation over bizarre conspiracies from the Face Book cesspool of public health contributed to the mess.

Nevertheless, the lab leak theory got a toe-hold in the Trump administration and got a foot-hold under the Biden administration.

There is a declassified report that has deflected evidence to support the hypothesis of a lab leak; therefore, advancing the notion of natural transmission of the disease.

Regrettably, the Chinese have destroyed the evidence so there is no way to definitively prove that the virus came from the Wuhan lab.  Which could explain why a bunch of intelligence departments and the scientific community lean in the direction of a natural transmission theory. 

Lab leaks are bad for a county's reputation so I figure the Chinese are never going to come clean.  And if the spooks in our intelligence community have notice and knowledge of the source I figure they're not interested in revealing sources and methods.

So I suppose you can believe whatever you want and even embrace the most recent conspiracy theory du jour.