I'll post some more COVID-19 thoughts, but you should read a post by Juan Cole of Informed Comment here. It's about when to re-open the country, about how earlier social-distancing/stay-at-home orders could have saved lives and how Dr. Fauci might be fired soon.
1. Blaming China for COVID-19 and Racism
Although I get the impression that China DID do some bad things in respect to their response to COVID-19, a focus on China could just encourage hostility towards Asian and Asian-American people here. There WERE attacks on Asian people wearing masks a month ago and Trump was persuaded to stop referring to its as “the Chinese virus” because of this. But just about 15 days ago Secretary of State Pompeo was insisting to the Group of 7 industrialized nations that COVID-19 be officially labelled the “Wuhan Virus.”
UPDATE 10/24/20 An article about an increase in anti-Asian-American racism in connection with COVID-19 is here. Also, Trump has been saying that Biden called Trump's partial China travel ban xenophobic. Apparently, within an hour or so of Trump announcing the ban Biden called him xenophobic but Biden wasn't aware of the travel ban at the time- he hadn't heard of it yet when he called Trump xenophobic. There's plenty of things Trump has done that were xenophobic but the travel ban was not one of them.
UPDATE 2/16/21 A CNN video story about anti-Asian-American racism is here.
2. In response to an article here, I wrote the following:
"I think a big part of this is that we have a health-care system set up for a lot less than the entire population. If we had something resembling what they have in other countries (like Canada) and properly funded it, our hospitals wouldn't be as overwhlemed as they are. We should have done social distancing earlier. I don't think this is said with hind-sight- I think if in some alternate reality, we had social-distanced starting in early March and after a week or two it was SORT of a fale alarm, people would have been okay with that. At the very least, WITH hind-sight it makes sense. I mean, if history is a guide, something that could become a pandemic will happen maybe once every 4-5 years or something. We can live a little differently for 1-2 weeks. At the first sign of a pandemic, Trump should have used the Defense Production Act to make more medical supplies like masks and whatever would be likely needed for testing. Our economy would survive if, in a similarly alternate reality, we produced a bunch of stuff for a week and then it turned out okay and we had to wait as production was switched back. And if we taxed the rich (not neccessarily corporations) more, A) they would survive and B) we could afford compensating corporations for making a bunch of medical supplies we end up not needing right away (we could use them and briefly cut back on production so overall supplies can go back down to normal).
We also need to stick with past plans and stuff as the article says. As far as when the alarm should have been raised, 4 days after Trump called it a hoax, his buddy Netanyahu called it a Pandemic."
3. After reading an article here, I wrote the following comment:
"I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, but I could swear (and the article kind of says this) that one of the things the Dems want is for Affirmative Action to be a factor in support to small businesses. I generally support AA and think this is a good idea. in about a week there will be a post on my blog supporting AA."
That post is here.
4. I read an article here. There is valid concern that people of color are dying disproportionately from COVID-19. That’s partly just the correlation between race and class and also capitalist healthcare. Trump is also a racist. There's Charlottesville, and there's this, and this, and this. UPDATE 4/23/20 Bearing in mind that criminal "justice" reform is a issue of racism, see this.
5. I read a an article here and left the following comment:
"This thing where you have to say nice things about Trump to get supplies is horrible. I was hoping that this would end months before the election and those governors who, rightfully, want to criticize Trump could do so and he woud lose the election, but he is messing up so bad, who knows when this will end, and governors will have to keep saying nice stuff about him to get supplies. They might take a chance shortly before the election and try to get him kicked out of the White House, but if they try that and he wins (probably in an unfair election), they're in trouble. Liberal and progressive media and activists unconnected to governors need to spread the word about what a bad job Trump is doing. GREAT JOB POLITICO!!"
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