I am now a Nevadan.
I live in Mesquite, which is 70 miles north of Las Vegas on Interstate 15. There are about 2.7 million people who live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, while there are only about 21,000 residents of Mesquite. In between, along those 70 miles of Interstate, there are maybe 100 people and a whole lot of sagebrush, cactus, rocks, and dirt.
We like it that way, particularly in this Covid-19 world.
We also like the Governor of Nevada, Steve Sisolak. He does a weekly televised press conference and seems to be on top of the coronavirus situation. The Governor has had the state shut down for a month now, and the infection and death rates are very low. Sisolak appears to be staying the course, i.e. the guidance provided by the Trump Administration.
Economically, the State of Nevada is taking a fearsome beating. A great deal of the economy of the State is generated by hotels, casinos, entertainment venues, restaurants, and the like. All of them are empty right now, as they require crowds of people to function.
The Mayor of Las Vegas is Carolyn Goodman.
She is in her third tour as Mayor, and she succeeded her husband, Oscar Goodman, who was Mayor from 1999 to 2011.
Oscar was a slimy defense attorney in Las Vegas before his political career, helping legendary organized crime figures like Meyer Lansky, Nicky Scarfo, and Tony “The Ant” Spilotro stay out of jail when the Mob ran Vegas.
Needless to say, the Goodmans are Las Vegas diehards who helped build the city into the spectacle that it is today.
Yesterday, Mayor Carolyn Goodman volunteered her city to be a petri dish for Covid-19. She suggested on a CNN interview with Anderson Cooper that the city should re-open and “see what happens”. Her proposal, which Governor Sisolak would have to approve, is based upon the low infection and death rates that Las Vegas has experienced during the past month.
Of course, as Anderson Cooper noted, those low infection/death rates were achieved with all non-essential businesses shuttered and 2.7 million citizens were under a “stay at home” lockdown. Had the city gone about its business in the normal fashion, who knows what would have happened?
That’s exactly what Mayor Goodman wants to know. She said that she wants her city to be a “control group” that could test the effectiveness of preventative restrictions. In a gambling city, she wants to throw the dice with the city’s workforce and visitors in the hotels, casinos, restaurants, night clubs, bars, and entertainment venues.
Of all the reckless proposals that have surfaced in the past month, this one takes the cake.
Las Vegas is no normal city: it’s a 24/7/365 version of Florida’s Spring Break, New Orleans’s Mardi Gras, and Times Square’s New Years Eve celebration. People come from all over the world to crowd together in hotels, casinos, nightclubs, bars, entertainment venues, convention facilities, restaurants, and the like. And, then, return home.
Covid-19 loves crowds, and it also likes to be disseminated.
The Mayor’s proposal is so outlandishly reckless because the tens of thousands of potentially infected patrons will return to their homes in other states and countries after their fun-filled visit to Sin City. If infected, they will then re-start the pandemic all over again in cities, towns, states, and countries that thought they’d beaten the plague.
Needless to say, Mayor Goodman’s proposal went over like a fart in church. Anderson Cooper said, “Wow, that’s really ignorant.” Governor Sisolak wasn’t amused at all: “We’re clearly not ready to re-open.”
Mayor Carolyn Goodman isn’t the only elected official who’s reckless.
Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia is loosening restrictions on businesses in his state this week, even as the infection and death rates in Atlanta and nearby cities are spiking. The Governor’s “plan”, if one could call it that, is to allow the re-opening of nail salons, bowling alleys, gyms, and restaurants. Health officials are aghast.
Kemp is the imbecile who realized that there were asymptomatic cases of Covid-19…two months after everyone else in America. What do you expect from Georgia?
President Trump originally egged Governor Kemp into “liberating” his State.Then, when epidemiologists and the Mayor of Atlanta rained scorn on the idea, Trump reversed course, claiming that he told Kemp, in a phone call, that it was a “horrible idea”.
Of course, who knows what was said, and who knows if there was even a phone call. Sounds like the old “wink and nod” game to me.
Not to be one-upped by Governor Kemp, at his televised press conference yesterday President Trump mused about the possible efficacy of injecting household disinfectant to kill coronavirus in the lungs.
“Doctor” Trump seemed to be advancing fake science that for decades has been peddled as a cure for autism and HIV. Actual medical professionals immediately responded to the quack proposals: “It’s demoralizing”, “It’s irresponsible and dangerous”, “it’s a common method that people use when they want to kill themselves”, and, “It’s exceptionally dangerous…because there’s people who hang on to every word spoken by the President.” After the press conference, the maker of Lysol issued a statement warning against any internal use of the cleaning product.
“Doctor” Trump also advanced his old theory that the warming weather would knock out the virus, despite the fact that it has flourished in warm climates such as in Indonesia and Singapore.
The next day, after virtually everyone panned the President’s dumb ideas, he stated at his press conference that he was only being “sarcastic” and that he was misquoted, etc. That’s news to the millions of viewers who saw him utter the inane medical proposals, and news to Dr. Birx, who visibly cringed when he threw out his preposterous ideas.
In other scientific (or, pseudo-scientific) news, it was learned that one of the nation’s top-ranked virologists, Rick Bright, was demoted for his refusal to validate the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment. This drug has been repeatedly championed by President Trump and Fox News talking heads as a potential “game changer”, despite limited clinical trials, most of which (to this point) do not validate any beneficial effect of the drug on Covid-19.
The daily televised press conferences of Trump and his Coronavirus Task Force members have become fact-less pep talks by the President and a means for Trump to disseminate goofy ideas about medicines, potential treatments, “breakthroughs”, optimistic hypotheses, and such. The medical experts like Drs. Fauci, Birx, and Surgeon General Adams are basically stage props who are, by now, gun-shy about giving any legitimate medical opinions lest the President admonish them for contradicting him.
I am surprised that Fauci, Birx, and Adams haven’t had the professionalism and courage to publicly denounce the President’s lame and, in some cases, dangerous “scientific” pronouncements based on his natural genius. At least Rick Bright had the guts to “out” the politicization of his agency by the Trump Administration. I’m hoping that one day, at the press conference, one of the humiliated task force members will take the mike and say, “Mr. President, you lying sack of shit…you can take this job and shove it!”
Given that the American public is daily served a baloney sandwich at the official Covid-19 pep talk, it is not surprising that many citizens don’t take the pandemic seriously. I was at Costco last week in St. George, Utah where there were maybe 500 customers in the warehouse, with only perhaps 100 wearing face masks. Here in Mesquite, Nevada, at the local supermarket, I would estimate that maybe half the customers wear masks.
This compares to virtually 100 percent mask utilization in China, South Korea, and Japan, where they’ve successfully “flattened the curve” of infection in a few months. America might be the “greatest Nation on earth”, but it is undoubtedly one of the dumbest.
More and more, as the economic impact of the pandemic worsens, people are voicing the concept that, perhaps, the “cure is worse than the problem”. Of course, these folks ignore the fact that the problem would have been significantly more acute had the curatives of “stay at home” and “social distancing” not been in place.
Would they be anxious to re-open the economy if 150,000 Americans had died in two months instead of 50,000?
Protests have erupted in a number of states, as unemployment has risen to historic levels. Approximately one-sixth of American workers have lost their jobs in the past month. Businesses are failing right and left. Mental depression is setting in. It’s a tough, unprecedented blow to the Nation’s psyche.
As this pandemic drags on, utilitarian ideas keep being referenced by activist politicians. Utilitarianism is a doctrine that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of the majority. For the utilitarian, all that matters is the net gain of happiness.
The idea that we should simply let the coronavirus run its course, unhindered, because “only” the elderly, the infirm, the poor, and minorities would die while the majority of the population would live…is a utilitarian position. “Thinning the herd”, “There are more important things than living”, and “The cure is worse than the problem” are logical extensions of this philosophy.
Many younger Americans seem to have adopted this idea, which is a take on “what have you done for me lately?” In other words, telling the old folks they need to take one on the chin for the youngsters so that the “economy” survives. That begs the question, though, “Whose economy?” It’s those old codgers who created the economy that they and the young folks are enjoying. What have the young folks contributed lately?
Just sayin’.
Despite the pain we’re going through, polling suggests that most people believe that we must “stand our ground” against the coronavirus. I think that says a lot about the value that humans place on other humans, particularly their loved ones. Family is important, and, maybe, the most important thing. Recent polling suggests that Americans think, by a 70 to 30 margin, that fighting the coronavirus is more important than the state of the economy.
We are, eventually, going to beat back Covid-19. It may be this year or the next. A drug will be developed to treat the virus or a vaccine will be invented. But, what will society look like when that happens? The “new” normal could be very different from what we’ve grown accustomed to.
For quite awhile, I think, people are going to be wary of crowding. Traveling by airplane, where the fat guy next you “flops” some of his blubber onto your 18-inch seat was already creepy and abhorrent; now, with people feeling unsafe is someone is within six feet, how many folks are going to want to get packed like sardines in an airplane? Or, an elevator? Or, attend a concert or a Las Vegas show?
I am thinking that, even if Mayor Goodman of Las Vegas got her wish and the city was re-opened for “business as usual”, a good portion of the regular Sin City customers will not return. The same goes for professional sports held in ball parks, stadiums, and arenas. There’s going to be drop-off in attendance, for sure. For some, the idea of tens of thousands of people, sandwiched together, will not be that appealing anymore…in any venue.
Of course, reckless individuals won’t care about potential health risks. Young people are reckless by nature, gamblers don’t worry about bad odds, and many Americans are filled with “machismo”, seemingly unafraid in the face of danger. And, there are a lot of just plain stupid folks who assume that bad things like Covid-19 only happen to “the other guy”.
It will be interesting to see if stupid, reckless people have their way when the college football season arrives in the Fall.
There is going to be intense political pressure put on elected officials in the South and Midwest where college football is part of the fabric of life. Pre-game bonfires, “tailgate parties”, and stadiums filled with 50,000 to 100,000 fans are the norm in those locales. It will be very difficult, politically, to modify an important way of life in these, mostly, rural communities.
Unfortunately for public health officials, those rural areas where college football is King are also hotbeds of Trump support. It will be interesting to see what position the Administration’s Coronavirus Task Force takes on college football.
If those games are allowed to proceed, a second wave of Covid-19 spreading is virtually guaranteed…
…unless we all adhere to a strict regimen of chlorox injections and warm weather.
