I mentioned earlier that I work for a financial company. The financiers were in agreement that they had never seen anything like it. These are people who lived through the crisis of 2008.
(I think our company is better placed than many. We have always been cautious and have a lot of cash.)
I mentioned earlier that I work for a financial company. The financiers were in agreement that they had never seen anything like it. These are people who lived through the crisis of 2008.
(I think our company is better placed than many. We have always been cautious and have a lot of cash.)
2008? Do you want to consider how many recessions some of us have gone through in our lifetimes? On average about every eight years.
It does say something about how hallow our financial system seems.
I mentioned earlier that I work for a financial company. The financiers were in agreement that they had never seen anything like it. These are people who lived through the crisis of 2008.
(I think our company is better placed than many. We have always been cautious and have a lot of cash.)
2008? Do you want to consider how many recessions some of us have gone through in our lifetimes? On average about every eight years.
There is a reason, however, the 2008 recession is called the "Great Recession".
It does say something about how hallow our financial system seems.
The Great Recession was a blip for us. Australia's economy just didn't grow as much. We were very fortunate to be operating a surplus at the time, to be economically sheltered by trade with China and to have a Government that was prepared to splash the cash around, particularly sheltering the building industry.
I sometimes forget that it just wasn't like that in other countries.
They're already calling today "Black Thursday" on Wall Street... There's a certain inherent optimism in that name since it assumes tomorrow won't be worse.
After Trump's election, I went to the bank to rebalance my (extremely modest) portfolio. I told the broker I wanted to ditch all my USA holdings. He said, "Are you sure? Everyone thinks there's going to be great opportunities in the USA markets."
Trump wants to be business-friendly but he's a chaotic evil thief and while that might have sort of worked for him, it sucks for everybody else.
The timeline of Trump's response to the Coronavirus:
This is a timeline of the national embarrassment/ endangerment, 45's response to the coronavirus epidemic:
January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”
February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”
February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
February 25: “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”
February 25: “I think that's a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”
February 26: “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”
February 26: “We're going very substantially down, not up.”
February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
February 28: “We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”
March 2: “You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?”
March 2: “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.”
March 4: “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.”
March 5: “I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work.”
March 5: “The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!”
March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.”
March 6: “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that
needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”
March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”
March 6: “I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault.”
March 8: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine-tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus.”
March 9: “This blindsided the world.”
We now know he was standing right next to a Brazilian official a few days before the official came back positive for Coronavirus. Do you think he will self-quarantine or get tested? No. And he is still shaking hands.
Thank you Gramps 49. Helpful to see it all together. Trump fan and my neighbor just said, " Why is everyone picking on him, he is only reporting what the experts are telling him to say."
Thank you Gramps 49. Helpful to see it all together. Trump fan and my neighbor just said, " Why is everyone picking on him, he is only reporting what the experts are telling him to say."
If I were your neighbour I'd get one of these before further conversation
Thinking about such loyalty reminds me of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in. "Verry interresssting - and also stoopid!"
At his news conference this evening, Trump was asked if he was going to take responsibility for the lack of test kits. His, response? "No, I do not take responsibility." Who did he blame?
A friend is very concerned about the way Biden looks set to be the Democratic candidate. He reckons Biden is senile, and can't get to the end of sentences. Is this correct?
Being from Delaware, I have known Biden through his whole political career. I can confirm that I have detected no decline in his mental faculties. He has always been like that.
A friend is very concerned about the way Biden looks set to be the Democratic candidate. He reckons Biden is senile, and can't get to the end of sentences. Is this correct?
Here's Biden's recent speech on the COVID-19 outbreak so you can judge for yourself. There's a little problem with the sound system for the first half minute or so, but you can see for yourself that he seems quite lucid, able to stay on topic for ~20 minutes in a hastily prepared speech on a subject on which he's probably not an expert.
The comparison with Trump's Oval Office address on the same subject, which was half as long and had to be corrected on several points by White House staff minutes after the fact, is stark.
There are several media reports out there that Trump was offering a German Company that is close to developing a Covid vaccine huge sums of money to move to the United States so the United States can get the vaccine all for themselves. That is right. No one else can have it. The same reports are saying Germany is using huge sums of money to keep it in German.
I would just hope the German owners will pass on the Trump offer out of a sense of humanism.
As I told my son, if such a thing ever came to pass (as if!) Americans would simply revolt. The first boxes we got of a vaccine would be split by doctors, planes commandeered by flight crew and air traffic control, and the world would get it ASAP. You can already see local governments and organizations saying "screw you" to Washington on every hand, as they figure out locally what needs to be done. Washington has become largely a sideshow, important mainly for whatever dollars we can pry out of them for those without a financial safety net right now. Other than that, we're looking locally for decision making.
There are several media reports out there that Trump was offering a German Company that is close to developing a Covid vaccine huge sums of money to move to the United States so the United States can get the vaccine all for themselves. That is right. No one else can have it. The same reports are saying Germany is using huge sums of money to keep it in German.
I would just hope the German owners will pass on the Trump offer out of a sense of humanism.
German government sources told Reuters on Sunday that the U.S. administration was looking into how it could gain access to a potential vaccine being developed by a German firm, CureVac.
Earlier, the Welt am Sonntag German newspaper reported that U.S. President Donald Trump had offered funds to lure CureVac to the United States, and the German government was making counter-offers to tempt it to stay.
<snip>
A German Health Ministry spokeswoman, confirming a quote in the newspaper, said: “The German government is very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe.”
“In this regard, the government is in intensive exchange with the company CureVac,” she added.
Welt am Sonntag quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.”
The bit in bold is what's got everyone so excited/incensed. It would be nice to think that "an unidentified German government source" is just making stuff up, but it fits perfectly with what we know of Trump's vindictive and proto-fascist personality.
As I told my son, if such a thing ever came to pass (as if!) Americans would simply revolt. The first boxes we got of a vaccine would be split by doctors, planes commandeered by flight crew and air traffic control, and the world would get it ASAP.
I wish I had your faith, but it stretches the imagination that American doctors would divert a vaccine, of which there would be limited quantities, away from their own patients to foreigners.
Just knowing there WAS a vaccine would be infinitely cheering and so much easier to hang on a few more weeks. We're really not all assholes, Trump's example notwithstanding. Come on--in that theoretical circumstance, wouldn't you do it yourself? And your countrypeeps?
I think one would fly a sample asap to China. As well as being in a position of some need, which might guarantee an enthusiastic welcome, the Chinese are pretty good at reverse-engineering and ignoring IPR conventions
Any national leader who tried to prevent the technology for a coronavirus vaccine being shared as widely as possible:
(a) Is really stupid, because the risk of the emergence of mutating strains that aren’t affected would be increased through delay. So it will hurt their own country too, most likely.
(b) Should probably be shot and peed upon. Metaphorically speaking.
We're really not all assholes, Trump's example notwithstanding. Come on--in that theoretical circumstance, wouldn't you do it yourself? And your countrypeeps?
I might, which is probably why no one would trust me with such authority.
A lot depends on whether you're talking about the technical details of how to make this hypothetical vaccine or diverting actual doses of the (still hypothetical) vaccine. I took you to mean the latter, where problem isn't the 'sending a vaccine to foreigners . . . ' bit, it's the ' . . . by deciding which Americans don't get the vaccine' part that's going to give a lot of folks pause. I can't think of many people who would be willing to give up their own dose, or their kids' dose, to give to an anonymous stranger in another country.
We're really not all assholes, Trump's example notwithstanding. Come on--in that theoretical circumstance, wouldn't you do it yourself? And your countrypeeps?
I might, which is probably why no one would trust me with such authority.
A lot depends on whether you're talking about the technical details of how to make this hypothetical vaccine or diverting actual doses of the (still hypothetical) vaccine. I took you to mean the latter, where problem isn't the 'sending a vaccine to foreigners . . . ' bit, it's the ' . . . by deciding which Americans don't get the vaccine' part that's going to give a lot of folks pause. I can't think of many people who would be willing to give up their own dose, or their kids' dose, to give to an anonymous stranger in another country.
That supposes that the manufacturer has only a finite number of doses that could be produced. I don't think there has ever been a vaccine for which that is the case.
We're really not all assholes, Trump's example notwithstanding. Come on--in that theoretical circumstance, wouldn't you do it yourself? And your countrypeeps?
I might, which is probably why no one would trust me with such authority.
A lot depends on whether you're talking about the technical details of how to make this hypothetical vaccine or diverting actual doses of the (still hypothetical) vaccine. I took you to mean the latter, where problem isn't the 'sending a vaccine to foreigners . . . ' bit, it's the ' . . . by deciding which Americans don't get the vaccine' part that's going to give a lot of folks pause. I can't think of many people who would be willing to give up their own dose, or their kids' dose, to give to an anonymous stranger in another country.
We're not talking about something that will treat an existing case, which is where people get freaky and tend to lose their heads. We're talking about something which will (please God) ward off possible cases, and since in the best case we will have been hanging about for months already, a little extra time is emotionally not so horrible. In fact, anybody who hasn't had it by then is likely to be having passing thoughts about whether they might not be naturally immune, as opposed to just lucky....
Which is why I say I think you'd find decent human beings. The cost is not "my baby's/ mother's/grandmother's life." The cost is "fuck this, another few weeks or months of isolation."
As for what exactly I was referring to, I was thinking "anything we can obtain legally or steal the fuck out of"--whether that's actual doses or something, anything, that would allow the rest of the world to retro-engineer/clone/take bits of and get in on it.
Seriously. You'd do it. I'd do it. People who went into the medical field to help people would do it.
On a unrelated tangent...
Has Trump considered how much this sort of behavior, er, makes his Secret Service agents' lives that much harder?
See, now, if I were the company developing a vaccine, why the heck would I limit it to sale to only one country when I could sell it to, oh, a dozen countries? I don't think even the US has so much free cash hanging around to make it more worth my while to limit the sales that badly.
Any cash hanging around is going to build the wall to keep out virus-infested bad hombres. (Except for the money being put aside to purchase Greenland.)
Wow, that book review is scary stuff. It does sound like the psychology of fascism, my own life is less important than the Fuhrer/white rule/black subjugation. It reminds me of the Falange slogan, "down with intelligence, long live death". It also makes Freud's death instinct more credible.
Seven days before Donald Trump took office, his aides faced a major test: the rapid, global spread of a dangerous virus in cities like London and Seoul, one serious enough that some countries were imposing travel bans.
In a sober briefing, Trump’s incoming team learned that the disease was an emerging pandemic — a strain of novel influenza known as H9N2 — and that health systems were crashing in Asia, overwhelmed by the demand.
“Health officials warn that this could become the worst influenza pandemic since 1918,” Trump’s aides were told. Soon, they heard cases were popping up in California and Texas.
The briefing was intended to hammer home a new, terrifying reality facing the Trump administration, and the incoming president’s responsibility to protect Americans amid a crisis. But unlike the coronavirus pandemic currently ravaging the globe, this 2017 crisis didn’t really happen — it was among a handful of scenarios presented to Trump’s top aides as part of a legally required transition exercise with members of the outgoing administration of Barack Obama.
And in the words of several attendees, the atmosphere was “weird” at best, chilly at worst.
POLITICO obtained documents from the meeting and spoke with more than a dozen attendees to help provide the most detailed reconstruction of the closed-door session yet. It was perhaps the most concrete and visible transition exercise that dealt with the possibility of pandemics, and top officials from both sides — whether they wanted to be there or not — were forced to confront a whole-of-government response to a crisis. The Trump team was told it could face specific challenges, such as shortages of ventilators, anti-viral drugs and other medical essentials, and that having a coordinated, unified national response was “paramount” — warnings that seem eerily prescient given the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
Of course, this preparation ran into one of the big hurdles of the Trump administration*:
But roughly two-thirds of the Trump representatives in that room are no longer serving in the administration. That extraordinary turnover in the months and years that followed is likely one reason his administration has struggled to handle the very real pandemic it faces now, former Obama administration officials said.
“The advantage we had under Obama was that during the first four years we had the same White House staff, the same Cabinet,” said former deputy labor secretary Chris Lu, who attended the gathering. “Just having the continuity makes all the difference in the world.”
And here's one of those Trump rejects completely missing the point:
Sean Spicer, Trump’s first White House press secretary, was among those who participated in the meeting. He said he understood the reasons such exercises could be useful, but described the encounter as a massive transfer of information that ultimately felt very theoretical. In real life, things are never as simple as what’s presented in a table-top exercise, he said.
“There’s no briefing that can prepare you for a worldwide pandemic,” added Spicer, who left the administration in mid-2017.
This is true as far as it goes, but it misses the bigger point. An emergency is, by definition, an unexpected event. It's never going to exactly match your simulation (though this one is pretty damn close). The point isn't to have a plan, it's to go through the planning so you know what resources are available, how they interact with other resources, and what outcomes of any general approach are likely to be.
Vaccines are not like a medication. For a virus it will be a piece of RNA or DNA, enough to get the immune system to create antibodies. As far as I know, there are 3 or 4 centres which are already testing in animals.
trumpy called it the "Chinese virus", and then doubled down on it when asked because he's a racist and wants to keep racism at the centre of everything.
I'm slightly puzzled when people *automatically* assume that "Chinese virus" is racist. The flu in a horrible epidemic about 100 years ago was dubbed "Spanish flu". Maybe that was meant as racist, but I've never heard so. Also "German measles" (rubella).
I don't use the term T used. And he says/does all sorts of horrible, racist things. But naming a disease after the place where it's thought to have started is pretty normal, AIUI.
I'm slightly puzzled when people *automatically* assume that "Chinese virus" is racist. The flu in a horrible epidemic about 100 years ago was dubbed "Spanish flu". Maybe that was meant as racist, but I've never heard so. Also "German measles" (rubella).
Leaving aside whether ascribing a disease a nationality and/or ethnicity is racist and plays into well-know tropes of disliked ethnic groups as disease-ridden vermin, such names are counterproductive on a practical level. Dubbing a disease "the Spanish flu" actually misdirected a lot of effort and vigilance based on the false assumption that Spain was the center of contagion. (I don't know if the same is true of the "German measles", but it wouldn't surprise me.)
Why doesn't Trump use the normal description like everyone else? Whenever Trump uses language different to any other leader, he's playing politics. And normally pandering to racists. Why should this be any different?
I'm slightly puzzled when people *automatically* assume that "Chinese virus" is racist. The flu in a horrible epidemic about 100 years ago was dubbed "Spanish flu". Maybe that was meant as racist, but I've never heard so. Also "German measles" (rubella).
I don't use the term T used. And he says/does all sorts of horrible, racist things. But naming a disease after the place where it's thought to have started is pretty normal, AIUI.
Point of fact, the influenza of 1918 started at Ft Dix, Kansas when a cook first came down with it. Yes, we know who started it. It spread from American to Europe when the troops at Ft Dix were shipped to Europe during WWI. Allied censors, though, sought to keep it quiet because of the war effort. Spain, though, was neutral and not subject to censorship. Their reporters were free to report on this new flu that was impacting their country.
Likewise, with German measles. It got that name because of three German physicians were the first ones to describe the disease. Another thought is the original name for rubella (which means little red), was germane (ie, little) measles.
Are you aware that Chinese and Asian people in general were subjected to abuse before he called it this. Are you also aware that Asian people have distinct physical appearance features which can result in them being specifically targetted? And that the WHO has previously come out with advice to not label it such because of the inevitable discrimination and stigmatization.
I understand your argument, but if you look at German person or a Spanish person - well go ahead and tell me how you'd know who was who. What are the markers which would allow for group targetting? We don't call Down's Syndrome mongolism anymore do we?
This man knows exactly what he's doing and he chose his words deliberately. He's appealing to his base. Do a search for Chinese discrimination covid or similar and see what you find. And you'll also find that the articles of racist abuse against Chinese people started by at least January 2020.
I'm slightly puzzled when people *automatically* assume that "Chinese virus" is racist. The flu in a horrible epidemic about 100 years ago was dubbed "Spanish flu". Maybe that was meant as racist, but I've never heard so. Also "German measles" (rubella).
I don't use the term T used. And he says/does all sorts of horrible, racist things. But naming a disease after the place where it's thought to have started is pretty normal, AIUI.
My concern is not about blaming T. It's people *automatically* assuming that the term is racist, when other diseases have been similarly named. (Not particularly here, but in general.) When I was a kid, the term "German measles" was still in use, and it didn't seem to be racist. As I wrote that post, though, it did occur me that it might be called that because of resentment against the Germany re wars.
I'm aware of anti-Chinese and anti-Asian discrimination, both historic and current. It was and is horrible.
I haven't personally used the term "Chinese virus" at all. It didn't occur to me. But I could have casually used it, due to the examples I mentioned. (IIRC, there are many others.)
I said I am "slightly puzzled", and that's what I meant. I also said "Maybe that was meant as racist, but I've never heard so." re Spanish flu and German measles, and that's what I meant. I was just trying to figure that out.
Trump's not naming the virus. He's re-naming it after the entire world medical community has named it. Why would he do such a thing? One reason stands out as probable.
German = white people.
Chinese = not white people.
German is a nationality.
Chinese, and other Asian is defined as race.
Consider if we called HIV - AIDS the "gay disease". Which of course we kind of did. And how'd that go?
We haven't gotten around to evangelical TV people calling this virus judgement on ther Chinese for being atheist most probably because the infection rate there is in control, unlike, particularly the UK. Which the CBC discussed today as ideological, not data-driven and responsible for the acceleration of cases there.
Comments
(I think our company is better placed than many. We have always been cautious and have a lot of cash.)
2008? Do you want to consider how many recessions some of us have gone through in our lifetimes? On average about every eight years.
It does say something about how hallow our financial system seems.
There is a reason, however, the 2008 recession is called the "Great Recession".
It's not sacred. It's hollow.
I sometimes forget that it just wasn't like that in other countries.
Trump wants to be business-friendly but he's a chaotic evil thief and while that might have sort of worked for him, it sucks for everybody else.
This is a timeline of the national embarrassment/ endangerment, 45's response to the coronavirus epidemic:
January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”
February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”
February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
February 25: “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”
February 25: “I think that's a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”
February 26: “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”
February 26: “We're going very substantially down, not up.”
February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
February 28: “We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”
March 2: “You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?”
March 2: “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.”
March 4: “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.”
March 5: “I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work.”
March 5: “The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!”
March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.”
March 6: “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that
needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”
March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”
March 6: “I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault.”
March 8: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine-tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus.”
March 9: “This blindsided the world.”
We now know he was standing right next to a Brazilian official a few days before the official came back positive for Coronavirus. Do you think he will self-quarantine or get tested? No. And he is still shaking hands.
Thinking about such loyalty reminds me of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in. "Verry interresssting - and also stoopid!"
You guessed it. Obama.
PWB. Presidenting While Black.
Here's Biden's recent speech on the COVID-19 outbreak so you can judge for yourself. There's a little problem with the sound system for the first half minute or so, but you can see for yourself that he seems quite lucid, able to stay on topic for ~20 minutes in a hastily prepared speech on a subject on which he's probably not an expert.
The comparison with Trump's Oval Office address on the same subject, which was half as long and had to be corrected on several points by White House staff minutes after the fact, is stark.
I would just hope the German owners will pass on the Trump offer out of a sense of humanism.
Here's the account from Reuters that every other news source seems to be using.
The bit in bold is what's got everyone so excited/incensed. It would be nice to think that "an unidentified German government source" is just making stuff up, but it fits perfectly with what we know of Trump's vindictive and proto-fascist personality.
I wish I had your faith, but it stretches the imagination that American doctors would divert a vaccine, of which there would be limited quantities, away from their own patients to foreigners.
(a) Is really stupid, because the risk of the emergence of mutating strains that aren’t affected would be increased through delay. So it will hurt their own country too, most likely.
(b) Should probably be shot and peed upon. Metaphorically speaking.
I might, which is probably why no one would trust me with such authority.
A lot depends on whether you're talking about the technical details of how to make this hypothetical vaccine or diverting actual doses of the (still hypothetical) vaccine. I took you to mean the latter, where problem isn't the 'sending a vaccine to foreigners . . . ' bit, it's the ' . . . by deciding which Americans don't get the vaccine' part that's going to give a lot of folks pause. I can't think of many people who would be willing to give up their own dose, or their kids' dose, to give to an anonymous stranger in another country.
That supposes that the manufacturer has only a finite number of doses that could be produced. I don't think there has ever been a vaccine for which that is the case.
We're not talking about something that will treat an existing case, which is where people get freaky and tend to lose their heads. We're talking about something which will (please God) ward off possible cases, and since in the best case we will have been hanging about for months already, a little extra time is emotionally not so horrible. In fact, anybody who hasn't had it by then is likely to be having passing thoughts about whether they might not be naturally immune, as opposed to just lucky....
Which is why I say I think you'd find decent human beings. The cost is not "my baby's/ mother's/grandmother's life." The cost is "fuck this, another few weeks or months of isolation."
As for what exactly I was referring to, I was thinking "anything we can obtain legally or steal the fuck out of"--whether that's actual doses or something, anything, that would allow the rest of the world to retro-engineer/clone/take bits of and get in on it.
Seriously. You'd do it. I'd do it. People who went into the medical field to help people would do it.
On a unrelated tangent...
Has Trump considered how much this sort of behavior, er, makes his Secret Service agents' lives that much harder?
I rather doubt it.
Sounds like Jihadi thinking.
From Politico two days later:
Of course, this preparation ran into one of the big hurdles of the Trump administration*:
And here's one of those Trump rejects completely missing the point:
This is true as far as it goes, but it misses the bigger point. An emergency is, by definition, an unexpected event. It's never going to exactly match your simulation (though this one is pretty damn close). The point isn't to have a plan, it's to go through the planning so you know what resources are available, how they interact with other resources, and what outcomes of any general approach are likely to be.
[ also posted at the Hell Trump thread since this seems like it's pretty rantworthy ]
trumpy called it the "Chinese virus", and then doubled down on it when asked because he's a racist and wants to keep racism at the centre of everything.
I don't use the term T used. And he says/does all sorts of horrible, racist things. But naming a disease after the place where it's thought to have started is pretty normal, AIUI.
Leaving aside whether ascribing a disease a nationality and/or ethnicity is racist and plays into well-know tropes of disliked ethnic groups as disease-ridden vermin, such names are counterproductive on a practical level. Dubbing a disease "the Spanish flu" actually misdirected a lot of effort and vigilance based on the false assumption that Spain was the center of contagion. (I don't know if the same is true of the "German measles", but it wouldn't surprise me.)
Why doesn't Trump use the normal description like everyone else? Whenever Trump uses language different to any other leader, he's playing politics. And normally pandering to racists. Why should this be any different?
Because he's as far from normal as the devil is from the heavenly banquet.
Thx for the link. Interesting. There's a related article on the same site:
"China Epicenter of 1918 Flu Pandemic, Historian Says
According to new research by a Canadian historian, the 1918 flu outbreak that killed 50 million people originated in China." (History.com)
And there are logical reasons for how it spread.
Point of fact, the influenza of 1918 started at Ft Dix, Kansas when a cook first came down with it. Yes, we know who started it. It spread from American to Europe when the troops at Ft Dix were shipped to Europe during WWI. Allied censors, though, sought to keep it quiet because of the war effort. Spain, though, was neutral and not subject to censorship. Their reporters were free to report on this new flu that was impacting their country.
Likewise, with German measles. It got that name because of three German physicians were the first ones to describe the disease. Another thought is the original name for rubella (which means little red), was germane (ie, little) measles.
Are you aware that Chinese and Asian people in general were subjected to abuse before he called it this. Are you also aware that Asian people have distinct physical appearance features which can result in them being specifically targetted? And that the WHO has previously come out with advice to not label it such because of the inevitable discrimination and stigmatization.
I understand your argument, but if you look at German person or a Spanish person - well go ahead and tell me how you'd know who was who. What are the markers which would allow for group targetting? We don't call Down's Syndrome mongolism anymore do we?
This man knows exactly what he's doing and he chose his words deliberately. He's appealing to his base. Do a search for Chinese discrimination covid or similar and see what you find. And you'll also find that the articles of racist abuse against Chinese people started by at least January 2020.
Here's my original post from page 108:
My concern is not about blaming T. It's people *automatically* assuming that the term is racist, when other diseases have been similarly named. (Not particularly here, but in general.) When I was a kid, the term "German measles" was still in use, and it didn't seem to be racist. As I wrote that post, though, it did occur me that it might be called that because of resentment against the Germany re wars.
I'm aware of anti-Chinese and anti-Asian discrimination, both historic and current. It was and is horrible.
I haven't personally used the term "Chinese virus" at all. It didn't occur to me. But I could have casually used it, due to the examples I mentioned. (IIRC, there are many others.)
I said I am "slightly puzzled", and that's what I meant. I also said "Maybe that was meant as racist, but I've never heard so." re Spanish flu and German measles, and that's what I meant. I was just trying to figure that out.
Chinese = not white people.
German is a nationality.
Chinese, and other Asian is defined as race.
Consider if we called HIV - AIDS the "gay disease". Which of course we kind of did. And how'd that go?
We haven't gotten around to evangelical TV people calling this virus judgement on ther Chinese for being atheist most probably because the infection rate there is in control, unlike, particularly the UK. Which the CBC discussed today as ideological, not data-driven and responsible for the acceleration of cases there.