Covid-19 continued

I am continuing to write to FindaTopDoc and forwarding to Octogenarians. Those of you who have been following my posts have read about the vulnerability of our fee for service medical care system to being taken down by emergency care overload due to natural causes or internal or foreign attack. You have also read about the need for an overarching Federal authority to commandeer resources and effect triage. You have also read of the probability of USPHS ceding authority and instrumentality to the military under disaster circumstances. I have tried to show how anxiety and panic disorder can accelerate this undesirable outcome.

Covid-19 now represents the clear and present danger feared. It is not at all likely that this is an engineered weapon that eluded control but it is true that it is sweeping the world and killing approximately two people per minute. It is a world problem and requires world cooperation in assessment and confinement. The treatment has to depend on knowledge exchange with implementation left to the individual countries because the world government doesn't exist. The situation in the USA between the Federal government and the states parallels the situation between the nations and the UN. There is a clear need for orderly cooperation and central leadership with the rules of the game defined by the U.S. Constitution. The political exploitation and redefining as communism or socialism the measures needed for survival are criminal.

There has been an emergence of "experts who lack medical, epidemiologic, or public health credentials. There are things that are undeniable like close to 900,000 cases in the US with close to 50,000 deaths. These are things I consider likely, the resurgence of the virus because of the premature opening of beaches, restaurants, public events, etc. Court cases proliferating about individual and group rights while deaths resurge. I anticipate a reversion to dormancy after the vicious upsurge and another major upsurge next summer, after which we will be dealing with an endemic visitor occurring annually or biennially. The vicious upsurge that follows the premature opening of the economy can but will not be avoided. 1918 shows many restarts that weakened the economy unnecessarily. As I have indicated previously, there is a great likelihood that Covid-19 will coinfect with another infectious agent, ordinary flu, Ebola, pneumococcus, tuberculosis, are nasty candidates.

In examining the contributions to octogenarians of two opposing thinkers I am taking the advice of another reader, Walt K, and looking into clues as to survival meaning. In one the humanistic "ask not for whom the bell tolls" rings loud and clear. In the other "master of my fate" theme rings clear. The Nietzchean assumption of survival because of superior objectivity as a ship captain only brings to mind The Wreck of the Hesperus. Yes we rely on our sources but Fox News recommendations to open things up contain survival assumptions that are Niettzchean at best and d**n dumb at worst. There is implicit the assumption that the usual discardable will be the ones to fall and the future that is invoked will belong to the superior who pretend to sacrifice for it. Thanks, Walt.

Ventura county is opening up beaches, golf courses, public events, restaurants, etc. I anticipate spiking of the disease and reclosing with spread to contiguous California.