The Corona Virus

Word on the Streetby BILL MCCLELLAN

For Syracuse Community Health Center Coronavirus testing call Upstate first: Upstate Hospital COVID-19 Hot Line: 315-464-3979 – The State Hot Line is: 1-888-364-2065. You can reach the Feds at CDC: 1-800-232-4636 (www,cdc.gov/cdc-info) Walmart and Walgreens are expected to open test sites as soon as logistics allow. Be alert for other locations.

Researching this article was difficult. It was a venture of weaving through truth and lies. With complete objectivity I can tell you that somewhere around 80% of everything Trump has said regarding the virus is either a lie or a grave distortion. Trump also has a propensity to ruin careers and cruelly punish those that offend or disagree with his thinking. He has surrounded himself with, and has inundated the Federal Government with unqualified sycophantic unpatriotic leadership. The result is that you cannot trust him and you cannot trust anyone he has authority over, as they tailor their words to suit acceptability by him, not the truth or the people. He is the price for sacrificing principles, quality and morality for whatever reason.

A good analogy is a recent TV add. It shows a picture of an apple. Someone may try and tell you it is a banana over and over. It is a banana, banana, banana they may say. They may raise their voice to influence you, they may write it in CAPS “IT IS A BANANA”. But it is not. It is an apple. That is a fact. Trump has a severe emotional issue that demands he tells you an apple is banana. Trump has compulsive mythomania. He is compelled to lie, not to please, but to appease narcissism. Trump has convinced his followers that an apple is a banana on issue after issue after issue. The problem is his lies force incompetency and they are killing many of us. He is at a loss this time, as the Corona Virus does not give a damn if he belittles it on twitter. I found that researching Governors and the actions of other countries is the best way to measure what we are up against. The results are extremely alarming. Making things far worse is that America, once a great leader in response to any severe difficulty, today, cannot get out of its’ own way. Trump literally disbanded the White House Pandemic Response Team which was created understanding that pandemics are always on the horizon.

It should be noted that all information regarding this disease is fluid and that much of current horrid speculation will be mitigated by the people and the States which have realized the Federal Government is not responsive. For example, Governor Cuomo has expressed Presidentially what should be done. Not Political. Just fact. He is on top of this. He had to secure dispensation from the Fed so that New York State can independently manufacture and test. He has called and written the President trying to get some sense past his self-serving thinking. The Governor actually had one of the first mobile testing units up and running in New Rochelle (units which should be in every community in the country - One opened March 16th at the Syracuse Community Health Center at 819 S. Salina St.) and is implementing massive preventative steps throughout the State. Governors and Mayors are issuing shelter in place orders. All gatherings of over 10 people should not take place. The more of us that stay home and maintain a distance of 6 feet from others when we shop or must go out, the sooner this will be under control. With 247 known cases and 3 dead, Governor Dewine of Ohio estimates that over 100,000 are currently infected in Ohio and is expected to double every 6 days. And yet, incredibly there is barely any testing available.

As of March 22, 2020, there has been 303,000 Coronavirus cases worldwide. 12,944 deaths. In the U.S. there has been 24,000 infected and 285 dead. (Note: when reading stats about the virus you are furnished totals. Bear in mind that about 60% have recovered.) New York State has 11,178 infected with 56 deaths. Most of these are in New York City with 5151 infected and 45 deaths. Take a look at the current stats as you read and you will get a feel for progression and severity. The numbers increase every day. The disease easily transmits. I am following all the guidelines and checking with family daily. This is no longer about trusting leadership. The best of us, the real America is still intact and is in each of our hearts. We will get thru.

That half of the country is currently in danger and that one to two million may die is breathtaking and warrants a wartime effort. Testing is the vital urgent heartbeat of the recovery pursuit. Action is extremely late and killing people. It is clear that America outside of the Federal Government must step up. Testing must be made easily available countrywide. Or Americans will die in droves that could have been saved.

This once great and united land manufactured battleships and tanks and trucks and jeeps and bazookas and machine guns faster than German U-Boats and Japanese Planes could sink the transporting ships. Fighter Jets rolled off assembly lines every day. Today we are unable to supply leadership, assurance, testing, mobile test units, ventilators and The Corona Virus cannot even manufacture enough face masks or aprons or paper products for cleaning to meet the need. Our nurses and doctors are getting sick because the once greatest land on earth cannot manufacture simple vital items. As our people sicken and our people, mostly our Moms and Dads, die.

We have washed ashore and we are flopping on the beach. No one on the Federal level is planning with sophistication, intelligence and ability. It is beyond belief that leadership is so poor that simple lifesaving testing still has no timely fruition, resulting in the rampant spread of the disease and no control of it. The potential for what lies ahead is grave, far beyond anything we ever imagined. We are talking about a potential American death toll that far exceeds WWI and WWII together. This calls for massive wartime like mobilization of every resource you can imagine.

According to the New York Times one CDC (Centers for Disease Control) scenario recently divulged that without rigid inhibitive measures, between 160 million and 214 million people in the United States could be infected over the course of the epidemic. The projection is that the epidemic could last months to a year or more. The death toll may well be 2 to 4 million. This figure can be lowered with extreme logistical improvements and public guidance and public understand and cooperation. CA and IL have issued shelter in place orders. NY issued a “Pause” plan. Residents must stay home with no non-essential gatherings. NJ, CT, OR have all issued stay at home orders. The entire Country is getting on board without the Feds.

The calculations based on the C.D.C.’s scenarios suggested, upwards of 2.4 million people in the United States could require hospitalization, potentially crushing the nation’s medical system, which has only about 925,000 staffed hospital beds. Fewer than a tenth of those are for people who are critically ill. Much of this will take place within a few months. The time is now for war-time logistical manufacturing and distribution efficiency.

Our people are on the battlefield, waiting and dying. We must re-open closed hospitals and repurpose empty structures. We must ensure critical medical logistics along with training and staffing and efficient testing. It is likely we could save a million lives if we start today and perform as Americans.

Even with these mitigating preventive measures, real disaster looms and will be a reality. The C.D.C. led effort is developing more sophisticated models showing how interventions might decrease the worst-case numbers, but the behavior of our government and business leadership is not yet adequately on board.

Why did Korea, Germany and Japan test far sooner with less warning and hundreds of times more than the U.S? They are saving their people as we flounder, not far from helplessness. Hundreds of thousands within the U.S. death toll will be a result of incompetence and inaction and people dying that easily could live with testing. This is criminal leadership negligence of the most reckless and inefficient kind and I pray that for starters we eliminate Trump and his obsequious un-patriotic Cabinet and Senate members, as we bury our dead.

Perhaps our government is not part of it but we do have E-pluribus-Unum. (All for one – One for all) We are Americans. You can see it in the empty streets and stores, in the deeds and the hearts of our Doctors and Nurses, in the eyes of grocery cashiers, in the camaraderie and friendship you feel when you must go out, and you can see it when you look in the mirror. The American people are one. We the people have caught on. That is truth. We will be fine.