An acquaintance of Charlie’s came to the house a couple of days ago to pick up her tax documents. We offered her a Margarita and chatted for awhile.
Her name is Tina, and she’s a local aesthetician. She is in a “hands on” business, doing massages, facials, and such. In the past week, virtually every appointment she had on her calendar for the next month has been canceled in the past week. She has no foreseeable work for the next month or so. (And, just today, the State ordered that all salons be shuttered.)
You know things are bad in Nevada when all of the casinos turn off the lights, which they did this week, per orders of the Governor.
Tina is, of course, pissed and scared. She’s 64, single, and makes ends meet through her aesthetician work ($12,000 income in 2019) and Social Security. Now, the former is gone because, she believes, people are panicking over nothing. “It’s a flu, dammit. People die every year from it!”
Then, she callously added, “Old people die all the time from the flu. We should just go on with our business and let the virus “thin the herd” a bit.” She didn’t laugh.
That’s a pretty interesting comment from a lady who is on Social Security and whose customers, in this community, probably average 70 years of age. If the Covid-19 virus were to get a foothold here in Mesquite, Tina could lose, permanently, a large portion of her customer base. And, as a hands-on, personal services provider, she could play a significant role in the herd-thinning that she seems to support…by being a “super spreader” of the virus.
Lots of macho men and partisan politicos seemed to share Tina’s attitude, at least until the past week.
Most people have a sense of fondness and attachment to their parents and grandparents. That latter cohort happens to be the highest at-risk target of the coronavirus. It is a pretty easy thing to toss off a line like “thin the herd”, but those would-be victims are the patriarchs and matriarchs of the family unit. My parents happen to be deceased, but, if they weren’t, I sure as Hell would want them “thinned”.
When this whole pandemic was in its infancy, our political leaders said, “Don’t worry, it’s only the flu!”. When there were only 15 reported cases in the United States, our medical experts were warning of dire things to come.
But, our President said, “We’re going to pretty soon be at only five people. And, we could be at one or two people!”
When the shit started hitting the fan, Mr. Trump announced that our handling of the crisis was “perfect”, adding, “Relax, we have tremendous control” over the situation.
This week, there are 6,100 confirmed cases, but very few sick people have been tested for the virus, so the number of infected citizens is probably many-fold that number.
Italy started slowly, too, but now has 35,000 confirmed cases and 3,000 deaths. The country only recently went all-out to combat the epidemic, with quarantines and “shelter in place” policies. Even so, 475 people died from the virus yesterday.
Three weeks ago, the President assured the Nation, “Anyone who wants to get tested can do so.” That was a lie, of course.
The truth of the matter is that our Nation was not ready to handle anything like this; testing kits are not available, ventilator equipment is scarce, surgical masks are out of stock, etc. Health care professionals are scared for their patients and themselves.
The President didn’t seem to care that much, week after week, because the other shoe hadn’t fallen yet. But, when Wall Street acknowledged that the country’s economy was circling the drain, all of the sudden Donald Trump became interested.
Why?
It probably dawned on him (or his advisors) that the high-risk population in America, the folks he’d assured “The coronavirus is a hoax!”, and the ones who are getting sickest, are the portion of eligible voters who almost always show up at the polling places. (As a matter of fact, they’re the volunteers who run the polling places.)
Now that the economy’s slide jeopardizes his re-election, our President has dropped his cavalier attitude about the “Chinese flu” and is, belatedly, rolling up his sleeves. “We’ve got this!”, he assures us.
I hope so, although epidemiologists interviewed on TV this morning appear to be scared shitless. That would match the mood here in Mesquite, where most of us are senior citizens, that segment of society that some folks, like Tina, want to cull out of the population.
Make no mistake about this: the crisis that President Trump and his cronies are resolute in resolving is not the medical one, it’s the economic one. The measuring stick of his Presidency is the economy, as he has been fond of bragging.
Last week, he told some Governors who begged for Federal assistance to cope with shortage of medical equipment and supplies, “You’re on your own!”.
Meanwhile, he and his operatives are busy conjuring up a huge giveaway of Federal money to workers and businesses affected by the rapidly deteriorating economy. The number being thrown around this morning is $1 trillion. For starters.
(BTW, where does that kind of money come from? Just sayin’…)
That’s great, but what are you doing, Mr. President, to get more facemasks, respirators, Purell, and ICU beds online…ASAP…to keep the rate of infection from going ballistic? Our health professionals are dyin’ out there.
And, so, you send every man, woman, and child $1,000 to help out. That’s a nice gesture. What do you do next month, the following month, and next year, as unemployment skyrockets? How many trillions of dollars do we have laying around for that scenario? If we have that many spare dollars, why can’t we afford universal health care?
“Sir, we’re gonna need a bigger printing press!”
It is obvious that, in this election year, President Trump is going to focus on giving money away to make people like him, crow about his “perfect” response to the medical crisis, and blame anyone and everyone for his failures, like he always does.
The fact that our President and his Administration frittered away about six weeks while the coronavirus was gaining steam doesn’t seem to faze the Boss. In response to a question this week as to the Administration’s slow response in getting virus testing available, Trump said, “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
Real he-men take responsibility for their actions. President Harry Truman, had a sign on his Oval Office desk that attested to that.
I think that what I’d like to hear from President Trump’s lips right about now is, “We can do better, and I promise we will.”