Sunny and chilly this mid-day Wednesday here in California’s Central Valley, and once again some shitty virus numbers nationwide as of this morning — 17,278,276 COVID-19 cases, with now 313,467 deaths.
And as Dr. Anthony Fauci warned last month, the holiday period coming up could bring on “a surge upon a surge” of COVID cases, which begins just next week.
The vaccine roll-out won’t play much of a part to halt the ‘surges.’
In California, also as of this morning, 1,648,430 cases (31,901 just yesterday, 878 so far today), with 21,500 deaths (295 yesterday, ‘just‘ five today). We’re hurting.
Even with the ugly numbers, assholes are going political with what should be a singular health issue — front-line health care workers threatened (h/t Susie):
What Trump has wrought: Tisha Coleman, a local public health administrator in Kansas, couldn't even get her husband to wear a mask. She caught Covid, maybe from him. So did her mom, who died from it. She’s been harassed, sued, vilified and called a Democrat. Great story. https://t.co/lVg3nXdC4B
— Dan Froomkin/PressWatchers.org (@froomkin) December 15, 2020
The situation is a national nightmare at the worse posible time:
For some, the constant pressure and pushback has become too much.
An investigation by The Associated Press and KHN found that at least 181 state and local public health leaders in 38 states have resigned, retired or been fired since the beginning of the pandemic, the largest exodus of public health leaders in U.S. history.
In addition, there are now efforts to strip their governmental health powers, both in state legislatures and the courts.
One example (beyond the one mentioned in the tweet above):
Linda Vail, 59, health officer for the Ingham County Health Department in Michigan, said the support from elected officials and the community makes it possible to stay in her job despite death threats.
“I get hate emails. They say, ‘We’re going to take you down like the governor,’ and you know what that means, with the kidnapping threat. But among the most concerning, I received an envelope at my home. Typed. My name and my home address. And I opened it up and inside it is an 8.5-by-11 piece of paper that has a Nazi soldier wearing a Nazi swastika, and a Democratic donkey. It said: ‘It’s not fascism when we do it.’ …”
“I could retire any time. I’m going to do the right thing.”
Although I appreciate Time magazine naming Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as ‘Persons of the Year,’ the real heroes of this whole-entire-long-ass year has been health-care workers, no doubt about it. And most have put in long hours, and have the terror of watching hundreds of thiusands die, working in a system that’s been fucked up a long time — ‘The US healthcare system is a monument to perverse incentives, unintended consequences and political inertia. It is astonishingly bad — indeed, it’s so astonishingly bad that even people who believe it’s bad don’t appreciate quite how bad it is.‘
And that report was from July 2019, Before Time, before COVID-19.
Yet there’s a smile on the faces of health-care workers — the vaccine for the virus is rolling-out this week and a sense of joy — via NPR yesterday and a view from a Boston hospital:
Masked employees in scrubs, medical gowns, office attire, and what’s proving to be very popular camel-colored coat, performed a choreographed dance routine outside of the Boston Medical Center as inside, health care workers prepared to begin delivering injections to some of those most exposed to the virus — health care workers.
“Why I love my job [at the BMC},” President and CEO Kate Walsh jubilantly posted on Twitter on Monday afternoon.
Why I love my job ?@The_BMC? ! Teams of people working to safely and equitably distribute vaccines to their front line colleagues getting cheered on by their friends celebrating the arrival of the vaccines! A great day, a great place. ?? pic.twitter.com/XfrIthFIY5
— Kate Walsh (@KateWalshCEO) December 14, 2020
“Teams of people working to safely and equitably distribute vaccines to their front line colleagues getting cheered on by their friends celebrating the arrival of the vaccines!”
“A great day, a great place,” Walsh added above the video showing nearly a dozen people hair-tossing to Lizzo’s joyful anthem, “Good As Hell.”
Of course, the rejoicing is short lived. The vast mass of Americans won’t be able to get the vaccine until supposedly the second/third quarter of next year — summer or the fall. And of course, the logistics of the roll out will be initially handled by the T-Rump’s operation, which will most-likely be fucked from the get-go.
The pandemic has revealed the trouble for a shitload of Americans:
There is no reason to be patient with the G.O.P.’s adoption of Trump’s denialism, or with the failure of Senate Republicans to support covid relief.
Richard Besser, a former acting director of the C.D.C., who now heads the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said that “the ability to do the right thing in America, to protect yourself and your family, depends in large part on how much money you make and the color of your skin, and that’s just wrong.”
And here we are:
(Illustration: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Seated Pierrot,’ found here).
