Hindsight 2020: COVID-19 Edition

I use humor as a defense mechanism. I can't remember any tragedy that I haven't used it to get me through the experience so this tragedy is no different. It is just how I deal. Not all appreciate this so I have been trying my best to control myself on social media. Humor on social media is difficult as well. Not everyone recognizes a joke as a joke. These are also touchy times. I sent an email to a neighborhood forum recently about a postponed event and I referred to COVID-19 as "this tiny virus."  I received an email stating what a poor choice of words this was in light of the "weak and frail dying." I found this to be nonsense since this virus is actually quite tiny and is referred to as being such on the CDC web site, but nonetheless, this was a good reminder to choose my words carefully ... not just for the sensitive but the clueless.

I have to remind myself that regardless of how miserable I am, there are many people who have it much worse. I find myself refraining from complaining about lack of baseball, cancellation of Summer festivals and how much I miss going out to eat. I have a co-worker that had to watch her father die of COVID-19 on-line over Zoom. I have another whose entire family was sick while they share a very small urban apartment. Even though I work remotely, I am fairly close with my co-workers. I won't catch any virus they have contracted but this doesn't stop me from feeling compassion and feeling sad. I generally don't promote the concept of luck, but in this case, the feeling of being lucky has occurred to me. It is just my wife, the kid and I in a relatively large Vermont house. Now that the weather is nice, we have five acres to just stretch out and play around with and a short drive to tons of hiking. I am okay and feeling quite good physically, but I am more disgusted than ever at our president and what he's done with our federal government. So I have set aside some time today to rant.

As a society we are in awful situation, we are amid a pandemic and we have the worst possible leadership. In general, it is difficult to see how truly bad a leader is until a major crisis occurs and then it is too late. Those of us who noticed it early were thought by some to be complainers or exaggerating, are now feeling vindicated. This is cold comfort. It is frightening that his approval rating has risen during this disaster. This too shall pass, I hope and believe. The pandemic has affected mostly large urban areas, so far, full of people who already hated him. Once it spreads around the Midwest and everywhere else, one would hope people will smarten up and actually blame him. Eventually everyone will be affected by this thing, either directly or indirectly, then they will take a closer look.

Of course, Trump couldn't have prevented this disaster but he could have gotten us through it with less death and less of an impact to our lives and economy. This is the least that we should expect from our government. The one shining light is that many governors are showing some real signs of leadership, on both sides of the aisle. You wouldn't know this listening to Trump. He blames everyone but himself. The mark of a good leader is someone that takes responsibility of failures and gives others, his teammates, credit for successes. Trump does the opposite. Harry Truman's "The buck stops here" can be inverted for Trump ... "The buck stops there ... and there ... and there ... but definitely not here." He will point the finger everywhere but take no ownership. Sure there is a lot of blame to go around. The World Health Organization (WHO) placated China for fear that the authoritarian regime would push them out altogether. I am sure in hindsight they regret it. They do not deserve the blame that Trump pushes their way.  He wants the illusion of being in charge without the accountability that goes along with it.

May 2018: You could say that Trump's pathetic leadership in this matter started way back in May 2018 when his administration disbanded the pandemic response team of the CDC. One of the places in the world the CDC cut their presence was in China. If you disband the fire department and a fire in one house spreads throughout a neighborhood and scorches everything. You don't get blamed for the fire, but you get blamed for the response or lack thereof. He also tried to cut the CDC by over $100 million to save money only to be stopped by congress.  From an economic standpoint, how does that decision look now?

December 31 2019: China informs WHO of a "mysterious pneumonia outbreak" in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people. A large portion of the world's intelligence agency already knew about it, possibly as early as November.

Early January 2020: The National Security Council received intelligence about the spread of the virus and they suggested that large cities should be shut down. Trump didn't respond until March.

January 11 2020: China shares the virus's genetic sequence.

January 21 2020: First confirmed American with COVID-19.

January 22 2020: Trump states "we have it totally under control" at the Davos conference in Switzerland.

January 30 2020: Alex Azar, Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary warns him about the threat of COVID-19. Trump writes him off as being "alarmist."

January 31 2020: Trump announces his travel restrictions which he calls his biggest step yet, but they are a joke. As of this week in mid-April, since these "restrictions", over 40,000 people have traveled to the US from China.

February 10 2020: Trump tells a crowd at a rally, "by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away" and the crowd roared. There is no proof of this. It could be true but most likely it is not.

Third Week of February 2020: Trump's top health advisers urge him to promote social distancing to prevent the spread of the virus. He doesn't do this until almost a month later. In the period between 2/26 and 3/16, the number of cases in America increased from 15 to over 4,000.

February 25 2020: CDC releases a public notice without the president's approval. The president flips out and reduces Azar's role and puts Mike Pence, a guy who rejects evolution, to be in charge of the crisis.

Late February 2020: The CDC still hadn't delivered their own reliable test so doctors were developing their own. The test kits that are finally shipped were faulty. Trump can't be blamed for this but the fact that he procrastinated so much, makes this disastrous. In this period, only five states could test reliably. New York and Washington state, the two states with the most cases, were not among them.

March 12 2020: Trump decided to ad-lib an address to the nation in order to calm the stock market, but he makes so many mistakes that he has the opposite effect. He made six major mistakes in ten minutes. Do you remember when Bill Clinton used to talk off-script and talk, eloquently, directly to the nation off the top of his head?  I do. I miss those days.

March 16 2020: Trump tells a group of governors that they are on their own when purchasing respirators. So instead of purchasing them as a huge block, the states should compete with each other and drive up the price etc. This is stupid on so many levels.

March 19 2020: Trump continually urges people to use malaria drug chloroquin even though there is no proof that it works. This doesn't stop shit media companies like Fox News and Breitbart from reporting it as a potential cure. Many people who actually need this drug, for lupus and other conditions, are having difficulty in getting it.

Obama managed the Ebola crisis, Eisenhower polio, Ford over managed swine flu and Reagan ignored AIDS. Trump will go down in history as the president who inherited a pandemic and made it worse every time he opened his mouth.

Who will remember this in November?  In the 2000, George W. Bush spent a good part of the year traveling around the world promoting his "space shield" and obsessing over Iraq. When an intelligence report landed on his desk stating "Al Qaeda expected to attack America," he didn't even read it. Then the towers came down in 2001 and in 2004  we re-elected the fuck. You ask people about his performance, they don't talk about what he could have done to prevent the disaster. They talk about the nice things he said and how he made them feel. It is so maddening, it makes you lose all faith in democracy. Please don't let it happen again.

Love In the Time of COVID-19

Social Distancing is nothing new to me. I am by nature anti-social and I work alone in my home at the keyboard. Even when I have downtime, I am usually at the computer for some reason or other.  Now that everything is closed, I actually have more human interaction than normal. My wife is home all day now and our five year old foster child is as well. If I had known this was coming, I probably would not have step forward to be a foster parent. He moved in the week before Thanksgiving. We are making do the best we can.

I remember when I was a kid, I used to love it when we lost electricity. We'd light candles and sit closely around a table to play cards in the darkness. The change of routine was fun. I doubt that if it continued for a week or months, I would have still enjoyed it. Our kid is still in the enjoying-it phase. Our challenge now is trying to maintain the attention of a five year old, educate him and be nurturing, while continuing to do our jobs. Both of us are still employed so we hand him off to each other and do what we can. My employer is a health care provider in New York City so I don't think I will be losing my job anytime soon. My work day isn't very different for me than other times since I started telecommuting 13 years ago. The big difference is that I now, occasionally, have to type with a five year old climbing on my arm. This is a new talent, I am developing. Poor guy. He is getting a little stir crazy.

We have two things really helping us now.  The internet is truly awesome and the weather is starting to get good here in northern Vermont.

The Scholastic Corporation's educational web site has been an awesome tool. They have educational games that keep him occupied learning. His teachers are keeping in touch and giving assignments via SeeSaw. When all else fails and we are both too busy to do anything with him, Hulu, Netflix, PBS and Disney Plus have all come in handy.  He learned quickly how to use the remote control. I've also been teaching him how to use a PC so I pulled out an old laptop from the closet. He is using Microsoft Word to type words he knows. Each day I teach him something new like fonts, colors, wingdings, bold and type size etc. It is amazing how much fun he has with this. He is also staying in touch with friends via Marco Polo which is a lot of fun.

We are finally having mostly good weather days now in Vermont. We expect snow this week, but it should be light and it is supposed to heat right back up afterwards.  On our neighborhood email forum, my wife posted a request for a kid's bike. Within a few hours, we had two free kids bikes for him to use. We have been teaching him to ride on the nice days. Today has been in the 50's (F) so we went for a short walk / ride with the two dogs, two adults and the kid on his bike. Each day we see the same people. Vermonters are coming out of hibernation.  We maintain our distance. On cold days we have the Wii Fit to do yoga and balance games.

This is definitely not what we planned when we took on a foster child. We are learning as we go.Deep breaths and taking some moments for yourself is essential. Each day we make him take 30 minutes as quiet time in the afternoon where he has to play quietly in him room. During quiet time today, I decided to write in my Blog. Times up ...I hear his door opening.  Have a good day.