Doing the Math: Covid 19, the Power of One Transmission

(courtesy of the CDC)

Donald Trump is anxious to get the country up and running. He has created a task force to do this.Together this group is being guided by business leaders. And then there is Dr. Fauci somewhere in the mix.

In the past month when questioned, Donald Trump has stated that "we have done the most testing than any other country in the world." He has also stated in press briefings over the course of the Covid 19 pandemic that in the US anyone who wants a test can get a test." Both of those statements have been false from the time Trump uttered them until today. I have asked those on the front line (friends and relatives) about testing and who gets the tests. They tell me you have to manifest 4 symptoms and be in a high risk category for age or co-morbidities. New York has conducted the most tests anywhere in the world. Tests are very hard to come by.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump, does little to scale up testing in the billions to test 1) for Covid 19 positives, 2)for antibodies of the recovered 3)for asyomptomatics. There is no contact tracing to speak of. And reports are coming out on MSNBC that less than 1% of the population has been tested and in fact the testing is decreasing. There isn't even an accurate number of test results in many states like Florida because there is a backlog for results to be given. (see article-click here) And Governor Ron De Santis knows how the death and Covid 19 numbers upset Trump. After all, this virus is supposed to be done, by God. Fewer numbers mean we can re-open the economy.

(L to R): DOJ William Barr, Donald Trump

Trump doesn't get the math. He failed school after school a function of his ADHD or learning disabilities. In those days, no help was given. It explains his insistence on his being a "stable genius," or saying he gets the science of the virus. No he doesn't. If he did, he would have shut down the country in January, geared up the testing in every state and did contact tracing. Math and Covid 19s structure, function and hunger to replicate in a host to the point where it will morph to continue to replicate? Nah. It will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for Trump to understand the math of Covid's communicability.

Thank God Governor Cuomo and now the other governors in the surrounding states with the help of experts get the mathematics of Covid. One infected person with the severest strain infects 3 people who each infect 3 people: that total is nine. Those 9 people each infect 3 people which is 27 people. Those 27 people infect 3 people each, which is 81 people on a bad day. Thus, with 4 transmissions 81 people are infected and the multiplication continues if these individuals are asymptomatics. Soon the numbers even if the transmissions are not three but two are in the millions. Such is the power of one transmission.

Crowds are the heaven of Covid 19. Cities are more problematic with the density; perhaps. The disease is telling us it isn't city vs. rural area; it is more complex. Even in a rural area for example, a church which has 100 parishioners the disease is a problem when one person has it and transmits. Those folks who get it go home to infect their families and friends. So the lie that Fox and the president would spread that only cities have the problem is criminal and negligent.

(courtesy of Fox)

The problem is the human being. You want to stop Covid 19?  Eliminate humanity's liability to become infected. That means strengthen one's immune system or effect substances that nullify its replication, reducing human liability to catch it. Short of a vaccine there is only one way to stop the death and limit the spread.

Just on the math alone, quarantine is an imperative. We cannot afford people dying in the streets unable to get into packed hospitals for help. If and when we return to work, there must be a way to reduce transmissions to zero; that means temperature taking, three types of testing, contact tracing, masks, gloves, etc. at the work place and getting to and from the workplace. Governor Cuomo has laid out the ground rules to which types of work might open: essential work, guarantees there is no spread. Governor Cuomo and the governor consortium get the math.

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo (courtesy of the website)

We have a registered 320,000,000 Americans who are potential carrier terrorists or victims. We have tested over 3 million Americans. By the numbers which are imperfect to interpretation a supposed 80 percent have recovered. The rest have died. But because we are so behind the 8 ball, these numbers are probably inaccurate and are just approximations. We just don't know who had it and what happened. The only ones we know of went to the hospital or were tested positive or negative.

 Problems arise with more questions. What about the rest of the untested population, the other 99%? If they are tested one day and then get it three weeks later, what then? Can the ones who have "recovered" get it again as the disease morphs and changes to adapt to survive in its hosts? We don't understand the disease, its spread, its MO. We don't understand completely who gets it or how they spread it. The uncertainties are as exponential as the disease spread.

CDC molecular view of Covid 19

Getting an economy up and running so billionaires can make money is lovely. If they want to be on the front lines to do this, then they need to put up billions in investments and not expect handouts from poor Americans. Trickle down does not work. Besides, they already got millions in tax breaks with Trump's tax reform. What did they do with that money? AND THEY WANT MORE????

 They need to press Trump to operationalize the DPA on a massive scale. He must produce manufacturers in this nation who can produce massive equipment for the battle this is going to take to get workers in places free from Covid 19 with the right supplies.

(courtesy of the website)

Trump, you are the president of job creation and returning manufacturing to Americans? Well, Trump DO IT. HERE'S YOUR CHANCE WITH THE DPA. Produce supplies, tests, chemicals-reagents for the tests, masks, gloves, etc to help workers feel safe returning to work. Have the billionaire corporations guarantee healthcare for their workers... if their employees do get it, they will be covered and taken care of for risking their lives.

Business people like Trump must be generous in this time. They must not expect to just have the American taxpayers throw money into the abyss of their companies. We need guarantees to make a percentage of the profit the companies make with this "bail out." We don't want to "bail out" businesses when they mishandle or ill use what we have given them. Better to let them go bankrupt. They can afford it. Small businesses can't. Save the small businesses and give the states money to save AMERICAN WORKERS SO THEY CAN WORK FOR THESE CORPORATIONS.

There must be accountability and guarantees and the corporations must kick in billions to get billions. There is no free ride for the dead. There is no free ride for small businesses. There is no trickle down anymore when death is standing behind the worker who the corporation intends to shove out onto the floor of their business to do the work for an ill paying job with no benefits. It will get to a point if they have to choose getting this horrible disease and starving, they will eat less and less. Corporations and the wealthy have to do much more or their own lifestyles and lives will be at stake. It will be interesting to see if they value their lives beyond their material wealth, after all. The poor are used to being poor. The wealthy are not. When they lose their material wealth, will they have the strength to face it? See the quote about the rich man and the camel.

Crimes Against Humanity: Fox Disinformation, Unsocial Irresponsibility and Trump

Coronavirus cell (courtesy of the website)

When does a lie matter? Why should the truth and the facts be told? How about when you are up against a pandemic, a global plague like Covid 19?

China lied about their number of dead revealed through cancelled cell phone accounts that American Intel discovered recently and are currently attempting to verify without much help from China. Does it make a difference if over 1 million Chinese have died from Covid 19 as opposed to 4000 Chinese? Does it make a difference if the facts about how the virus spreads are ignored and the severity of its communicability and virulence are downplayed?

Ask the hundreds of families across the United States that are behind the 23,370 death toll for April 13, 2020. What if one of the dead, just one believed President Trump's message repeated on Fox News that the coronavirus was a "Democratic hoax?" What if they didn't take precautions to avoid transmission, didn't take the virus seriously, didn't wash their hands? What if they touched a droplet loaded with the virus, touched their face and unwittingly inhaled it, and ended up in the ICU because of pre-existing conditions where they took a turn for the worse, ended up on a ventilator and never came off it? Can that possibility NOT be taken into consideration when delivering false facts, on fake Fox news segments, for example when Trump stated that the coronavirus was under control and cases would go to zero?

Trish Regan at Fox who was fired (courtesy of the website)

It wasn't under control; nor was it going to zero! Covid 19 was engaging in massive community spread at that point in time. How many believed Fox, went out into crowds or went on Spring Break vacations, flew to Florida or went on cruises, free from fear? Out of those unalerted, how many did the virus secretly, silently, invisibly latch onto, shed by an asymptomatic who stood next to them? And when these unwitting took it home to infect others, how many of those infections were asymptomatic? How many of those infected ended up drowning in their own liquids on a respirator, dying of organ failure?

Here we are. Every state in the US has Covid 19 cases and their numbers, despite folks on Fox implying it is a NYC disease, a metropolitan disease, are spreading in rural areas. These rural areas are ill equipped. They do not have high tech hospitals to handle the complexities of treatment, let alone ventilators.

Willful negligence to make a profit and to provide support for candidate/president Trump are not a justification for wrongful death, and criminal, negligent homicide. Out of the 23,370 dead across the nation, tell me that not one of them believed Fox News disinformation. If even one died because they listened to Fox News' misinformation, believing Donald Trump's persistent, demeaning commentary about the virus being less dangerous than the flu, that is one death too many. If the one who died was confused about who gets it and why, and just threw their hands up in the air reassuring themselves mainstream media was overreacting about Covid 19, that is one too many deaths.

Covid 19 molecule (courtesy of the CDC)

That one death is cause for a wrongful death lawsuit. If you multiply the number of deaths and parallel them with the NYT chronicle about Trump's dilatory actions waiting until March 15 to suggest mitigation in the country, which his own health officials have said was delinquent, then you are looking at a runaway train called crimes against humanity. Add to this the slow closings of Fox News watching red states around the country, and the exponentially increasing number of deaths which will surely follow in the South and Midwest as a result of dilatory actions, this is "megadeath." Indeed, Covid 19 is a bullet train of negligent criminal homicides leaving megadeath in its slipstream wake of contagion.

Experts have warned the time to attack such communicability of a novel virus is the first two weeks. Without due diligence, the virus will gain community spread and then it becomes very difficult to contain. Check out both Sweden's and the UK's reaction/response to Covid 19. Both miscalculated with slow closures. They are now paying for their negligence with high death rates. Also check out what the city of Vo, Italy did (see previous posts on The Fat and the Skinny).

Most probably governors in red states based their policies on Trump/Fox news disinformation to please Trump and to remain loyal to the GOP. How many in that number 23,000 + have died because they based their lifestyle information on Fox? How many died because they based their lifestyle on their red state governor's policies and Trump's initially cavalier, craven and unscientific assessment of Covid 19 as a flu; this, after he was forced to acknowledge it might be a world-wide pandemic?

Tragically, these deaths were unnecessary. The pandemic would have been preventable if someone else were in office. Obama faced three potential pandemics: we didn't even realize it because his presidency was prepared. Even George Bush was apprised of the terrible nature of pandemics and was prepared, though not as much as he should have been. Instead, Hurricane Katrina happened on his watch and that debacle closed down the GOP for the next 8 years.

Worse, this world-wide disaster threatens to close down the US as we knew it. Already, we are realizing that the old US is disappearing into a mirror of the recent past suggesting a new normal of masks, gloves and antibody testing. Unless immediate expansive action to fight this war using the powers of the DPA to assist in overcoming this national security threat of Covid 19, Trump's catastrophic failures to act and his missteps when he did act will never get the nation back to a shadow of its former self. Trump's unction to stop the mitigation and follow billionaires advisement to re-open the country without consideration of the health and protection of all who brave the pandemic is magical thinking.

Would the billionaires, Trump's cronies, kill all who would be killed and allow others to recover following the 80/20 ratio of  typical viruses (without accepting that this is NOVEL)? Good idea if that is what will happen. We don't know. Covid 19 is a radically new virus that is able to morph, seemingly at will. It clocks in with various symptoms that suggest it cannot be pinned down to "one size fits all." Immune today? Dead tomorrow. For how long is one immune and at what strength of antibodies?

Herd immunity may be another branch of magical thinking. There is not enough information from data to reveal that it deals with every person the same way. Only until recently, did doctors begin to accept that people shed it without symptoms as it cleverly sounds no alarm bells. This becomes tragic when attempting to protect the most vulnerable which too, has become an uncertainty. Just who are the vulnerable? Only the elderly? Young people are dying, not just the old and infirm, not just the fifty-somethings with co-morbidities. What is the relationship? Scientists don't know.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Does Trump, does Fox News care to get these facts out to the public repeatedly and accurately? Apparently not. Look at his behavior six months ago. First, Trump refused to acknowledge President Obama's efforts toward the national security threat of bio-terrorism. Even today during his Covid 19 campaign rallies, he continually shoots the former president with claims that Obama handled the swine flu badly. Lies! Meanwhile, Trump ignored Obama's January 2017 briefings on pandemics during his transition into the presidency. He closed the pandemic office and threw away the pandemic guidebook in 2018. He removed personnel from that office who could have helped identify that Covid 19 was a disaster to prepare for. Instead of focusing on the growing threat in China of the virus spread in December 2019, he ignored that and ignored US intel in January 2020, pushing off Secretary of HHS Azar's warnings.

However, according to Trump he banned China flights, though 40,000 Chinese came back into the country in the first three months of the year after enjoying family celebrations for the Chinese New Year. No efforts were made to stop them. Instead, Trump played golf over the holidays and enjoyed himself, something he has repeatedly done throughout his presidency, charging US taxpayers the high bills at his resorts for secret service rooms and meals. Fox does not hold him to account on any of this. Investigative journalism? No. Magical "news," the unfree press, the unsocial, irresponsible network.

Fox News logo (courtesy of the Fox News)

Trump lies about his own performance responding to Covid 19 which he repeats is "great." Unfortunately, we are stuck with a liar. And Trump's behavior starting from when he took over the office of the presidency was negligent and incompetent. Rather than to admit fault, he has gotten away with his behavior by finding an appropriate scapegoat to blame, firing them. However, when one is incompetent and negligent about a pandemic that has a direct cost in American lives and those deaths correlate to the Stock Market and impact the economy, one cannot ignore the financial fallout or shift the blame that easily.

There is blood on Trump's hands the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe stated. And the negligent, incompetent behavior which Trump covers up with self-praise that Fox News parrots continues to this day. Why hasn't he taken charge of the full force and power of the federal government in this time of war by using the DPA (Defense Production Act) to scale up supplies, equipment, tests in the billions? If you listen to Trump's self-aggrandizement, he has done it. That is a lie; he has not when the governors across the nation and FEMA (the government) are all bidding against each other for supplies. Indeed, if he had ramped up production, FEMA wouldn't have to steal supplies from state governor's orders to fill its stockpile to say it is giving supplies to various states. (as reported on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, April 13th)

Trump is continuing his misinformation campaign about his Covid 19 response using the mainstream media to spread more lies, a further irony. He has proclaimed mainstream media the fake media. If it's so fake, then why have briefings television by all the media? Caught in his own spin, Trump makes the truth dance to his own fantasies. This is not credibility in the making; it is further proof of his gyrating unfitness to handle this plague. Indeed, with his lengthy Covid rallies, he is convincing the taxpayers he is more obsessed about his and his friends' bank accounts than bringing the nation back to health and wholeness. No wonder why he is concerned about the economy and the stock market which has been trailing the number of Covid deaths in a weird, phantasmagorical irony.

Always, Trump and Fox defend and justify their mendacity by projecting their lies on the media instead of attempting to DISPROVE that their lies are not lies. Disproving Trump's lies is impossible, because video tape doesn't lie. News organizations now fact check Trump and toadying Fox. They play videos of his falsehoods with his back pedaling contradictory statements. They chronicle what Trump says and when he says it and he often has to pile fabrication upon illusion to justify or change what he said.  Fox News then must provide cover and sort out the deceit with distracting palaver by Hannity and other dim minds.

Sean Hannity of Fox News (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Importantly, it is what Trump's lies tell us about Trump and what Fox News' lies tell us about Fox and its supporters: the Federalist Society, the GOP and bottom feeder pilot fish. Lies are guilty coverups for 1)wrongdoing, 2)powerlessness 3)fear 4)cowardice. From such a muddled position, one cannot build a strong foundation of governance. From such confusion how is one able to make decisions? From such changeable, shifting falsehoods how is one to be believed as credible in a time of crisis like a pandemic? Ultimately, upon such mendacity, one cannot lead or feel competent to lead. One cannot take responsibility for one's lies, nor be accountable for one's actions.

Is it any wonder that Trump refuses to take responsibility for his decisions made during this terrible Covid 19 pandemic? He is insecure; his leadership is grounded on shifting sands as he looks for someone else to blame for what he's done. And Fox is his second on the way downhill into the abyss of destruction, financial debacle and death. They are supporting him to his demise so that recovery seems a quaint, fanciful notion.

(courtesy of the Fox News website)

Lars are all about saving face, not about helping the ones they lie to. Trump must save face or die. Fox must support Trump or perish. The Covid 19 virus is the petard that they have hoisted themselves upon, the sword that is slicing through their prevarications to reveal their naked, exposed, wicked amorality, for enabling Covid 19's death-trap on a scale that is augmenting as each tragic day passes. And these liars have so believed their own lies, they refuse to acknowledge they are naked and debilitated. As they continue to stand exposed before the public, the falsehoods dissolve their power and presence. Sadly, all who follow dissolve into a black hole of invisibility with them.

How do we now confront this national security threat, Covid 19, that we and our neighbors perpetuate like terrorists when the federal government has become an absence of superficiality? How do we regain our peace of mind, our regularity of rhythms stolen by a disease enabled by federal, presidential negligence? How do we fight the uncertainty, of an ill-defined, shifting monster bringing illness and misery that stymies caregivers and researchers with its simple structure and complex function and operation?

How do we get out of quarantine, where we are fearful for our lives, suspicious that our neighbors are asymptomatic, deadly carriers?

We stop lying to ourselves and stop accepting lies from Fox and from Trump. We recognize his failed leadership and demand that he turn it around. He must earn our respect as Governor Andrew Cuomo has earned our respect and love managing our health system to save our lives. We think, read, research, examine, question media, both conservative and liberal, then we conclude if we want to continue on the road to death for four more years.

Fox doesn't care about decency, ethics or morality. It prevaricates for money and ratings in a self-made hell of viral greed. Murdock and sons with the aid of now deceased head of Fox, rapist and sexual predator Roger Ailes, spread conservative disinformation. They muscled their way to the top of cable new ratings with supportive propaganda for the Federalist Society conservatives and GOP agenda. Theirs is a totally partisan, anti-journalistic spin. For decades they increasingly have twisted the generosity of liberals to make them appear sick, elitist and evil. Continuous smears sullied trust in Obama's excellence, the ACA and the Democratic Party. Fox never left off defaming Obama's presidency. Just a presentation of his face on "defiled mainstream media" is enough to set them like rabid, starving, deranged dogs after Obama as if he were raw meat.

To assist Trump's campaign, the excoriations, smears, zombie-like character assassinations against Hillary ramped up 24/7 live on Fox and on Social Media with the help of Putin's military intel (FSB, SVR, GRU). Read the Mueller Report to discover how Trump/Federalist Society/Uber Right Wing journals like Breitbart and now defunct Cambridge Analytica with Fox assistance warred against her campaign and candidacy. After Hillary lost, to deflect from Trump's incredible mismanagement-style, they led the charge calling for her arrest. Even today they manage to ridicule Hillary Clinton. .

The Pentagon (courtesy of the website)

When Trump took office, the groveling loyalty of lies and alternate "facts" became Fox's fog machine of mammoth, propagandistic proportions. The uber right wing media (Breitbart, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, RT, Sputnik, etc.) led by Fox became a de facto arm of Trump's corrupt administration.

For its money making motives alone, sacrificing the truth for fraud, the antithesis of investigative journalism, Fox must not be listened to. For its genuflecting, slavish support of Trump and GOP partisanship refusing to cover any negative news about him, Fox should be ignored.

Before Covid 19, here are a few examples out of the thousands that have occurred showing how Fox dealt with negative news about Trump over a three year period. They ignored reporting lawsuits by women stating in interviews that he raped them or sexually preyed upon them. They refused to fact check Trump's 17,000 + lies. They didn't cover Trump's continuous nullification of the rule of law and obviation of the constitution. Nor did they examine his unreasonable explanations for firing anyone who countermanded his "judgment" (the various whistleblowers in non-partisan career positions). The non -existent coverage of the Parkland shooting and march in protest by millions afterward Fox ignored; it didn't exist in their AR-15 toting universe. Their non- coverage of Women's Marches around the world in direct protest of Trump's presidency the day after his inauguration, was woefully missing as was the in-depth, cogent, reasoned analysis of his impeachment and the Mueller Investigation.

All the president's men (courtesy of the website)

Like robots Fox News hosts with the exception of the glorious Shep Smith (until he left) clicked in to support everything the president said and did. With regard to the pandemic, Fox News was in lockstep with Trump exposing themselves to the liability of spreading false information that was the proximate cause of not taking precautions to avoid transmission. They supported him about Covid 19 throughout this period of it's "being less dangerous than the flu," a position he's recently reversed (perhaps) with the death of a friend. And they support him with the push to open the government to stop the financial debacle sure to happen with a lengthy closing down of the country's cities (except for essential workers) especially the economic engine of the country, New York City.

Trump wants to open the nation for his billionaire friends and to save his hotel and resort business. Great. But who is going to go to his hotels if his workers or guests catch the virus or die there? Who is going to go to work on a packed subway, albeit disinfected against Covid 19, not knowing who is asymptomatic and who isn't. If a twenty-something Wall Street broker is asymptomatic, goes into the office and infects the other brokers, is the company ready  to pay for sick leave and costly healthcare? The discussion about only letting the young people go to work is unsound. They also catch the disease and die.

We don't know the triggers; we don't understand the blood types or genetic underpinnings of vulnerability. We don't know why the 100 year-old woman survived, why the 95 year old nonna in Italy made it and why the 21 year old my friend saw carried out in a body bag didn't.

2017 Women's March in NYC, a crowd that today would spread Covid 19 like gasoline on fire (Carole Di Tosti

But by all means, Trump, open up the country by the end of April.

Logically, this involves perspicacity and planning. Who is going to reopen up their sit-in restaurant without testing the entire staff for antibodies, a test which is in scarce supply? And how are you going to figure out if patrons of restaurants, theater, movies, sports events are Covid 19 free and for how long? What if the weeks prior to attending an event they are negative and the day they attend, unbeknownst to them they are positive asymptomatic? An antibody test is inconclusive and complex. How long will the antibodies last to give immunity: for a month, 6 months, a year? The questions are innumerable at this point.

The key one is, if you want to get the economy going, can you do it by forcing people to go in to work? Or will you just have to shut it down again because even more people get sick as the virus morphs into more virulent strains to save itself? We don't even know why it morphs. Is it because it adapts to kill regardless of the genetic fingerprint of the individual? Is it geographically motivated or is this a feature of its unique MO as a killer?

So many questions, so little time before people start to starve. The money given in checks by the federal government simply isn't enough. Google the amounts given by European countries and Canada, including the payment of their medical bills. There is surely a way, but Trump and the GOP are incompetent to find it and those who have secured a place around him to give him advice are more incompetent than he.

Maybe the billionaires like Robert Mercer who Trump and the GOP gave tax breaks to in the millions can donate that money back? Well, those liars supported Trump knowing full well his corruptibility. Did they understand the power of his incompetence and negligent unfitness to commit genocide against American citizens and to destroy the financial fabric of the nation upon which billionaires depend? Perhaps they did. Trump, like the virus, is a perfect destroyer.

(courtesy of the website)

Opening up before the right time will be a disaster. This is a war. The Defense Production Act must be employed to create massive testing and supply capacity with effective distribution centers set up so that all Americans can be tested and given protective gear to wear. US industry must be set up in networks around the nation with adequate, timely supply chains to produce: supplies, reagents, chemicals for the tests, etc. Ramping up production and putting people to work in essential industries to fight this pandemic to produce the supplies needed to function and stay safe is an imperative. The military must be involved, and wise counsel listened to.

Such counsel resides in the governors who closed their states down to only allow essential workers to move in their cities. These decisions were based on logic, statistics, data charting the disease path. Is Trump going to open the country because he feels it is a good time to do so? It's not happening. Even the upper crust exotics will not want to venture into NYC, the city they fled to go to the Hamptons. Unless there are guarantees, these elites will not be infected and end up on a respirator by risking a return to NYC.

So here's a Fox News type lie. We need to open up the nation to save the economy. This lie is courtesy of Fox mantras and Breitbart mantras and right-wing mantras. And then there are the uber liars like Covid 19 Truthers who say the bodies are not piling up at hospitals. And here's another: Trump is doing a fabulous job.

Easter Services Packing Churches in Florida: in Praise of God or Trump?

In defiance of humanity, decency, love, God's commandments, the social contract and the constitution, Governor Ron De Santis is encouraging large worshipful services for Easter by saying he will not "force" or "command" or "order" autocratically, the banning of large crowds in churches. He is not alone in this.

So much for God is love. So much for humility. So much for being as the scripture says, "wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove." So much for "love your neighbor as yourself." So much for "love the Lord your God with all your mind, heart and strength." So much for "God is a spirit; worship Him in Spirit and in Truth."

De Santis has been dilatory, following the lead of Trump and Fox News spreading misinformation CLICK HERE. Like Trump, he lacks the will to take a leadership position to protect the people of the state of Florida. I have elderly cousins who live there. I have friends who live there. I have family who life there. He is jeopardizing all of their lives, by being willfully, criminally negligent.

Republican Governor of Florida Ron De Santis (courtesy of CNN)

First, he has been criminally negligent by not closing down the state to prevent spring breakers and Disney World visitors congregating in mammoth crowds, sweating their asymptomatic Covid 19 molecules all over each other. These same Covid 19 infected then flew back to parts unknown all over the US to shed the disease to families and friends in their communities. Perhaps, they themselves came down with it. This is negligence on a mass scale of the type that Trump and his GOP Death Party are noted for. Shame on all of them!

The folks who congregated during spring break believed the convenient Fox "hoax" lie. Then they believed that Covid 19 was like the flu which killed more Americans, though Dr. Fauci warned hundreds of times that it was NOVEL, we didn't understand it, and that it was 10 X deadlier. The demeaning of the lethality of Covid 19 then morphed to deriding Dr. Fauci when Trump wanted to open by Easter in an Easter miracle. When Trump back tracked realizing the number of deaths that would be effected, he changed his tune and stated that unless we socially distanced, the death toll would be a minimum of 100,000. Still, he kept the sheltering in place voluntary and refused to close down the entire country of 330,000,000.

DOJ Barr and Donald Trump (media website)

That Easter sheltering and the 100,000 death number was a problem for the controversy addicts and liars on Fox and the alternate Federalist Society conservatives. The spin had to change; they pulled in QAnon to create a new meme. The disease morphed on Fox promulgated by Covid 19 Truthers @QAnon. They are spreading the disinformation that the numbers are blown up beyond proportion, as an extension of the "hoax" conspiracy theory. Therefore, the opening of the country should happen sooner than Dr. Fauci and others might suggest.

Meanwhile, genocide in Wisconsin perpetuated by Republicans in concert with the Supreme Court allowed the primary to go on in the pandemic. Wisconsinites had to decide to exercise their constitutional right or allow a conservative judge to win: select sickness and death or stay home. Clever Death Party Republicans had gerrymandered to making Wisconsinites to vote only at a very few select sites. Thus, the lines, populated most probably by some who had Covid 19 curled and lengthened around and around and around as they tried to distance 6 feet, but probably infected each other with aerosol breath. Tell me not one of them spread the disease. 1 X 3 X 9 X 27 X 81 and so on. That is why quarantine is a moral imperative.

The Plague Doctor circa 1650s Edinburgh, UK, the hazmat suit against the Bubonic Plague (Carole Di Tosti)

Back to up is down, right is left conservative news conspiracies and disinformation. According to my relative who tends to embrace conspiracy theories for the thrill of them like an addict hooked on Oxycontin, there were no refrigerator trucks at Elmhurst Hospital, no long lines there, no deaths. He told me it was fake news, the lying media. I invited him to come up and volunteer. Meanwhile, like Trump and all the hypocrites, this relative is scared out of his mind (with the exception of Rand Paul, perhaps). This Florida relative has bought 150 proof alcohol as a disinfectant; he has all sorts of anti-virals he's purchased on homeopathic websites; he has a plentiful supply of masks and gloves to care for his debilited wife, manic that she will become infected and die. The contradictions he is able to live with in a lack of logic is a Trumpy psychosis that Trump and QAnon and alternative media who duns mainstream media as false is their premeditated, murderous, exploitation perpetuating INSANITY. Did you know that INSANITY IS A DRUG AS ADDICTIVE AS HEROIN?

My tool kit against Covid 19 (Carole Di Tosti)

But who am I to judge? I live in the epicenter of the epicenter in Queens. I write reviews for Broadway shows, Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway and New York Botanical Garden and Tribeca Film Festival and SXSW Festival and Edinburgh International Festival all of which are closed down. I do not have the luxury of being blind, deaf and dumb walking on the Florida beaches, swimming in Florida pools and pretending this deadly molecule does not exist. Bully for all those in Florida who ignore the deaths in Miami, the growing number of cases and deaths in Florida nursing homes which are notoriously delinquent with their patients.

(from the church website)

Bully, bully. I am living the sheltering in place to protect all those in the red states from getting this horrific disease. They could care less that their negligent actions supported by their delinquent criminally negligent governors of red states allowed the virus to spread exponentially. (See my previous blog posts on how it spreads unless one isolates.) Well, we in New York are in a PAUSE FOR THEM, FOR THIS COUNTRY, despite every time they defy any shut-down orders or shout MAGA SLOGANS IN THE NAME OF TRUMP. We in New York and in other states who stay at home in quarantine are keeping them safe with good will, despite their believing this is still a hoax, the death numbers are fabricated thanks to @QAnon as they wait for the next pusher drug via Fox News ranting that CNN and MSNBC that try to protect them are FAKE NEWS, FAKE MEDIA, ETC.

The interior of an Episcopal church in the US (courtesy of the website)

Think about it those of you hoaxer drivers and Fox news hypocrites who "pooh pooh" the virulence of Covid 19 while grabbing masks and gloves off camera. Is New York City and NY State acting like this virus does not exist? Go on Google search and see live pictures of the main roads in NYC, 5th Ave. Park Ave. and out on LI, LIE and in Queens, Queens Boulevard, normally traffic filled and bumper to bumper. Why is NY acting in such a way? Is something to wrong, perhaps?

"You can't tell us not to worship!" No one is telling you not to worship. The country, the vulnerable with underlying conditions (50-73 year old men) and the old in nursing homes in your states need you to worship God at home. The young who have underlying congenital conditions they don't know about which a Covid 19 infection exposes because it attacks the immune system, decommissions it then smashes into the lungs needs you to worship God in the way He commands you to worship: IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH. Endangering others' lives with willful, criminal homicidal negligent action is not "loving your neighbor." Do you really think God is a respector of persons or place? He is not! He looks at your heart and your faith and your righteousness. Indeed, your sacrifice not to go to a building and staying at home to pray is a stronger unction than going to a building to be with the sheep and infect one another.

Il Duomo, Milan, Italy which is streaming services (courtesy of the website)

Realistically, congregating and singing hymns so your church and pastor gets on national TV is opening your church to class action lawsuits by the children of parents in nearby nursing homes. Projecting your voices in praise and worship to God causes atmospheric aerosol spread of Covid 19 molecules and will make the church a miasma of Covid 19.  Don't believe me? Google what happened when a choir of 60 held practice though they followed social distancing practices to the max. Two died; 45 came down with Covid 19 people realized later that their praise and singing projection of breath spread the molecules all over the church. There is a reason why crowds are a happy place for this plague.

Churches across the south have found out the danger of congregating for service the hard way. Check the rural areas of Alabama which are woefully underprepared for this disease spread. But it's not supposed to be in RURAL AREAS. Are people living in RURAL AREAS? Yes. Well, Covid 19 goes wherever the people are; people are vectors it loves to inhabit until it destroys them and moves on to another host. That's why one person infects three people. This virus, like people, enjoys society, but as a death-dealer.

(courtesy of the website)

 To governors of red states and Christian churches who are holding Easter services, one question. Are you bowing to Trump when you should be bowing to the Living God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth? Christ expects you to discern after the Spirit of the Living God. Why are pastors holding services, jeopardizing your lives and the lives of your loved ones? Is this not the sin which cannot be forgiven? Is this not Blaspheming the Holy Spirit. HOW? Is this not defying God's commandments with pride and arrogance to not love one's neighbor? How is this defiance of God humble? Isn't this more like Lucifer who questioned God's wisdom and will and placed himself above God then REFUSED TO ADMIT FAULT?

Dr. Fauci has led the country impeccably during this time of coronavirus (courtesy of The Daily Show)

By refusing to care for others in the US, pastors, Fox News, Trump/the WH and the GOP Death Party refuse to apologize for their crimes against humanity in their negligent and dilatory actions. They are not recognizing the lethality of this disease because of its communicability. Indeed, it spreads like wildfire with no one to put it out until it finds a proper host and kills that person by which point in time it has spread exponentially. 

Worship God in your prayer closet at home. Do not continue to be supporting the pharisees and scribes who doubted the Words of Christ. Your prayers in your prayer closet at home will have more effectuality. Read St. James about the "effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous." And have a spiritual resurrection in your Life in Christ at home. Peace Out.

OR STREAM ONE OF THE MANY SERVICES ONLINE ON YOUR PHONE: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2020/04/09/easter-events-stream-andrea-bocelli-kanye-west-joel-osteen-more/2965689001/

https://www.watermark.org/easter?gclid=CjwKCAjwssD0BRBIEiwA-JP5rB-WKaTASPIOIFwuKL9fkro9xSwAPdQdTTPjT9EmSo4DBUYnt6umCxoCBZwQAvD_BwE

https://www.wptv.com/news/region-c-palm-beach-county/south-florida-churches-streaming-easter-sunday-services

Covid 19: Fighting the Terrorist on American Soil and in the World, Opposing Donald Trump

A NYC hospital (courtesy of the website)

I live in the borough of Queens, the epicenter of the epicenter of the COVID 19 Pandemic. Queens and Brooklyn have the highest number of positive cases and the highest number of deaths. Dealing with a gender breakdown of deaths, 44% of women die and 55 % of men die in reporting from NY data. There are so many variables that go into the determination of why more men die than women. These include the severity of underlying conditions, the age and more. But the 11% difference is rather stark. Judging from what I saw this morning when I went to the Post Office, I have a laywoman's opinion, for what it's worth.

Dressed in face mask, gloves and a coat, I drove to my area post office. Walking along the street were men in their 50-60s, some without face-masks, some without gloves. Scientists have identified that men in their 50s with underlying conditions (coronary heart disease, diabetes, asthma, COPD, etc) have among the highest death rates. Every woman I saw with the exception of two overweight women wore a face-mask. Clearly, more women were apprised of the seriousness of the situation and wanted to guard against giving the disease to someone else; a mask protects the other individual and reminds one this pandemic is not a joke. It kills; perhaps not you, but it will kill the older man with the cane who walks into your aerosol breath as you shed the coronavirus all over him.

When I arrived at the Post Office and went in, there were seven people inside a very small area. There were five men and perhaps two women. I left immediately. I waited in my nearby car until a few people came out, but more went in and none of them was upset with the small area that didn't really afford the six foot spacing in the fetid, stale air that perhaps harbored microscopic molecules of the virus. It is thought that the "asymptomatics" most probably convey it through aerosoling and of course, those particles linger in the air for some hours.

Kew Gardens Post Office before Covid 19 (courtesy of the website)

Clearly, the room where the men and women were attempting to "social distance" was a place of infection, an atmospheric miasma. They weren't even making a feeble attempt to be responsible. They were just putting up with the motions.You could see the nostalgia on their faces as they remembered what the old line to wait for service used to be like and were caught in that lovely memory unable to adjust to Trump's reality, the COVID 19 terror. That they were their own national security threat, that the American standing next to them was their potential disease and cause of death was an incredible and ironic shock!

The old days-a rare non busy time (website)

Trump's reality? Say what? Indeed, today, to step outside one's home you are fraught with debilitation and uncertainty. The danger in crowds is enormous. It is anathema: bumping against one another, breathing another's deadly molecules if they are infected, touching them, sweating on them while playing basketball, getting spewed with corona droplets. Professional basketball players infected each other and the popular professional sport and the Final Four games had to be shut down. What is the future for contact sports? Will professional tennis be closed down for the entire year?

Even an exhalation, a song projected with volume or a shout could mean death. What about that choir practice that should have been cancelled where 60 members took precaution with hand sanitizers and didn't touch, hug and kept a 6 foot distance? Forty-five came down with Covid and two died. The volume of their voice projection to sing loudly to God spread the infected molecules in the air.

Today, we look at each other with a proper suspicion; we are each other's potential enemy. Is that person on line a vector of  "it?" The coronavirus is tasteless, odorless, sightless, deaf, dumb, blind, robotic, non-partisan, an equal opportunity death dealer. It is programmed for one mission:, to latch onto lung cells and multiply with luxury, drowning its victims in their own mucus/liquid immune system response.

The invisible terrorist programmed to eliminate unwitting, vulnerable human beings (CDC website)

Back to the Post Office. I waited and checked  the interior through the glass door a few more times. No one came out, more went in. Exasperated, I stood in front of the door outside and waited. It was up to me to declare "ENOUGH!" A sixty-something walked up toward the post office without a mask. He saw me  and took a bandana out of his pocket, stopped and put it on. I eyed him with intent. He placed himself 6 feet behind me. We waited. A younger guy in jeans with a mask walked up excited. "What, it's not open?" I put my hand up and said to him, "Queens has the highest death rate in the city."

A petulant boy (mind you he was around fifty) sporting an accent that sounded Russian, he said at the annoyance like it was a buzzing fly to be swatted away, "I know." I chopped him off where he stood 3 feet away. I said, "Don't speak." You're breathing out particles." He shut up. Then there were three of us waiting. Another man came out. He had a mask and gloves on, thankfully protecting us. We waited.

Diabetes kit: Diabetes is a co-morbidity of the terrorist COVID 19 (courtesy of the website)

A man of about fifty, who looked like a smoker, came from behind and cut in front of me. Again, I put up my hand. He stood two feet away, without benefit of gloves or mask. He opened the door. I pointed to the line behind me. He said, "I know. I just want to see how many people are in there." I told him, "Five." He peeked in and left.

Obviously, TO HIM, this line outside was a MAGA inconvenience. He was living in the past, when one could just walk up to the old, brick building, enter without thought and cue up joining the ten people crammed inside, fifteen in the overflow to wait up to a half an hour. To have to stand outside in a more spacious, safer line didn't cut it for him.

A healthy red lung, a sickly smoker's black lung a co-morbidity of Covid 19 (courtesy of the website)

I could surmise since he wore no mask or gloves, he was nonplussed by the death rates, refrigerator trucks, Elmhurst Hospital's dead, sirens, absence of live late night programming,  absence of live sports, closed shops, etc. How bully for him. He didn't even imagine the virus would infect him. His forty-something bravado served him well to become infected. Unfortunately, my concern for his life and the jeopardy to his family's lives was white noise, my problem, not his. He was privileged in his oblivious contempt and disregard for my life, the lives of those behind me in the growing line and the lives of his family at home. He was like Boris Johnson insisting on shaking hands. He was like Trump oblivious to the inadequate social distancing as he and others crowd next to one another to get the TV shot, standing behind the podium for the press briefing PR moment.

The officials get A PASS; one would think they have tested negative so they might stand next to one another. The guy from Queens does not..

 Didn't he know or care about asymptomatics: the invisible carriers who are immune, who show no symptoms but let the disease fly to others in what is referred to as "shedding" in great abundance? The Georgia governor didn't know about asymptomatics. Why should this Queens guy? Maybe the microbiology of a killer threatening his and his family's lives didn't filter into his imagination. Maybe he was a Fox watcher. Maybe he was a COVID 19 Truther who believes the deaths and positive cases are overblown. Or maybe he's convinced that the flu is worse, accepting Trump's hoax message cheered on in February rallies. Maybe this Queens guy didn't hear Dr. Anthony Fauci's extensive explanation that it is NOT the flu. COVID 19 is 10 X worse.

Healthy lungs help in the fight against COVID19; time to stop smoking (courtesy of the website)

A few more people came out and I peeked through the glass doors, again, not wanting to pollute my gloves with the Queen's guy's happy extrudings on the metal Post Office door. There were only two people. I was the third. At this point we could adequately distance six feet apart, though the air within the space surely was not pure. But everyone inside including the two civil service workers behind the counter wore a mask and gloves. The other two individuals inside were women.

Behind the counter, federal employees who serve the public are guarded by bullet proof plexiglass. However, my mask and the employee's mask was the only thing guarding us from each other and minimally at that. With our luck, we could be carriers, shedding Covid 19 at an incredible rate. Covid 19 molecules are  resilient in the human body, invisible super entities:  faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to scale tall buildings lodged on elevator buttons and in human vectors.

The Post Office employees and we customers are the dangerous unknown, the COVID 19 irradiated. Anyone who walks the streets or enters an establishment wears the letter X. Is he/she or isn't he/she? All of us are disabled by our own humanity. We are liable, accountable to our susceptibility for transmitting this inimitable communicable virus. COVID 19 is only tested for if one has many symptoms and underlying conditions, one of which is age (over 60). Citizens are NOT being tested for being asymptomatic and we are not being tested for antibodies showing that we had it and have some immunity. Only those who have had it can be tested for antibodies. Clearly, this is a mistake because the asymptomatics may have powerful antibodies. More needs to be known about this disease. We are failing at understanding the world of corona.

The Plague Doctor circa Edinburgh, UK. The outfit is the equivalent of our hazmat suit today (Carole Di Tosti)

Tests aren't widely, massively being administered, though they should be. In fact, the entire populace should be tested for all three: 1) a COVID 19 diagnostic, 2) for antibodies, 3) for being asymptomatic. The Defense Production Act isn't being used to scale up production of supplies and vents and tests, antibody tests, COVID 19 tests, asymptomatic tests, plasma therapy, all of it.

Too bad. If the military, the pentagon headed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff appointing generals to take charge in this time of THE PANDEMIC WAR, the production could be ramped up like it was during WWII. Of course that would entail Trump's being presidential, Trump's taking leadership to the place where it belongs, abiding by the rule of law and fulfilling the constitution and his oath of office.

Is Trump aiding and abetting the terrorist's spread with disinformation and negligence?

But his track record, his lies, his dilatory behavior in response to this crisis, his impeachment, the Mueller Report spelling out his conspiracy with Russia to overthrow the electoral process DICTATES he will not involve the military who could and should remove him.Thus, he is incapable of abiding by his oath to adhere to the constitution and protect the people of the United States. Trump would have to take a back seat and give free reign to military advisement. Since he was a thirteen-year-old, he took orders from no one, not even when he was sent to straighten out in a military school. Why should we think he will take instruction, wisdom and direction now?

Trump would have to get out of his own way and let someone actually lead while he agreed to take responsibility for such actions. If this occurred, we could get the culture up and running more quickly. It would all hinge on each citizen sheltering when necessary and meeting their responsibility of adhering to the social contract. Citizens as collaborators in this war would be on the front lines: they would identify their immunity to COVID 19 or susceptibility; they would undergo massive testing taking the three types of tests. Then, the X factor could be filled with information and facts that are worth our economy's weight in gold.

For a war, you have a military response: (courtesy of the website)

The generals would have to set up a three or four prong attack.

• They would have to execute Trump's order for massive production of all the supplies we need including the three types of tests and a sufficient quantity of n95 masks and gloves for the general populace, civil service workers and essential workers to be worn outside the homes and on the job. 

• Hundreds of labs would have to be set up to handle the three tests with rapid turn around time with a database to identify the fingerprint status of Covid 19 in every American. 

• The military would have to be deployed to assist  health care workers on the front lines as they are overworked and need respite. The war front is at home. The military must be massively used to fight it at home. 

• The permanent construction of pandemic units must be built in every hospital to isolate the regular hospital from pandemic patients. Covid 19 will not be the only world wide pandemic coming up on the horizon in the future. We must be prepared. 

• Quarantine spaces must be designated near hospitals to house those coming into and leaving during the period designated to consider whether the person is coming off the disease or going in for treatment.

• The nation must be locked down. Foreign and domestic air traffic must be grounded for a week. Every state impacts every other state. Combating it in one state works for a time, but not forever. Italy tried that. I didn't work. People move around by any means necessary hating isolation and claustrophobia. Either we work together or this doesn't work and we have continuous deadly outbreaks.

• Grounding air traffic must be coupled with stopping for two weeks rail and interstate automobile traffic This must occur with enough advance notice so that only essential interstate travel (trucks carrying food, medical equipment and supplies and household items) would be allowed. 
 

Most Americans trust Dr. Fauci over Trump (courtesy of The Daily Show)

This can be done easily. All it takes is leadership, like that demonstrated by Dr. Fauci, and Governor Cuomo and his team. And it takes the will to do it.

Gov. Cuomo leadership Americans trust

But Trump has no will for others. He is only concerned for himself. He uses the power of the Executive Branch solely to perpetuate and cover up his crimes, as evidenced during the 2016 campaign that conspired with Russian intelligence to overthrow our election processes, a conspiracy that continues today with Russian Intel trolls spreading like COVID 19 to infect/pollute/support Trump on our Social Media platforms, media (Sputnik, Breitbart,, RT, Russian Media, Daily Stormer, etc.) and radio podcasts. Trump does not intend to benefit the American people's health, financial resources and national security. In this he is fulfilling Putin's intent to destroy this nation. He is the perfect tool of Putin's revenge. He autocratically insists that he is the genius leading the charge, though he refuses to take responsibility for his mistakes. He is the opposite of great leaders during WWII (Eisenhower, FDR, Churchill) who admitted fault and stirred the allies with heartfelt encouragement.

The antithesis of the a true leader, he cheer leads with lies and disinformation. In February COVID 19 was a "democratic hoax" the great lie promulgated by Fox News' criminally negligent reporting. In March he demeaned COVID 19's danger relegating it merely to "the flu." He did this, despite Dr. Fauci's warnings it is 10X more lethal.

Daily briefings full of inaccuracy and politics by Trump

Such infirm, cowardly leadership is why Governor Andrew Cuomo is a stand out in this war. He takes responsibility and does everything in his power to marshal the supplies, resources and personnel to deal with the economic fallout and health care debacles as they occur. He has been widely credited and praised for telling New Yorkers honestly what they are up against. Trump merely lies, seeks self-aggrandizement, displays incredible insecurity and fails hourly wracking up deaths as I write this.

Trump and GOP behaviors demonstrate criminal, willful negligence which has continued from early on when Trump first learned of the horrors of the virus in January. And congress has done nothing to stop Trump's dilatory actions because the senate leadership Mitch McConnell has nullified the power and force of censure by refusing to call down the president. McConnell has no power ultimately except what billionaires give him. His influence appears to be crashing on a downhill slide as the pandemic increases and incompetence in the senate and executive ramp up like the virus to eat themselves alive.

Three of these supplies in the COVID 19 weapons kit are unobtainable or price gauged (Carole Di Tosti)

Trump will never forge a full front attack against this domestic terrorist. He has made mistake after mistake and the only functional branches of the democracy to call him down on it are the House and the press both of which he beats down by calling the media fake and the democrats partisan hoax drivers. Only last week did he come out and support Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx by stating a potential number of deaths from the virus (100,000-240,000) unless we practice social distancing and do not reopen for Easter. Even if he ordered opening the country "safely" before Easter, Covid deaths are assured. The governors upholding national security would not obey such a criminal order. With his refusal to man up the federal powers he has for the security of the nation, the states have become their own nations, using states rights to keep their state citizens alive with the knowledge that by doing this, they protect every citizen in the country. The responsible, patriotic governors oppose Trump's terrorist negligence which has surely killed thousands with incompetence and dilatoriness.

Trump refuses to account for his abject failure in handling this pandemic. Fortunately, Governor Cuomo, Dr. Fauci and the collaboration and alliance of responsible governors have managed to negotiate Trump's personality issues for the sake of the country and the sake of the lives to be saved, not only New York lives, but global lives. For at the end of the social responsibility continuum we manifest to each other in the US, we are responsible to the rest of the citizens on our planet.

There must be no confusion. Others who come to our shores must not bring COVID 19 here. Nor must they carry it back to their countries in a senseless replication cycle of infection, sickness, recovery or death. After this is all said and done, shouldn't we examine the crimes against humanity here? And we are not done; the war declared by Trump has not even won its first battle: Trump's humility to order the DPA to scale up testing every American. When will this terrorism end? When will Americans say enough is enough?