CV Pandemic Daily Notes 200428

Updated 220131

CV02. Humor: Reality Jolts, CV03. Information: Obituaries, Keeping Count of CV Deaths, CV04. Politics: Mail in Voting, Geopolitical Trends Remain, CV05. Economics: Gradual and Phases Reopening, Unanswered and Wrong Questions, Risky Decisions, Unclear Choices, CV09. Arts, Creativity: Current Art Market, CV15. Grief: New Orleans Funerals, CV17. Uncertainty, Contradictions: Religions Facility Hospitals and Morgues, CV18. Narrative, Social Reality: Finally a Story, Global Shared Experience, SLAI RIDE, One Event 100s of Interpretations, CV20. Communication: Science Journalism, CV22. Longue Duree: Flu and Suffrage, Jewish Health Defiance, Disinformation Biowarfare, CV23. Polemic, Myphysis: War as Disease, Degrees of Experiencing Pandemic, CV24. Norms: Meat Plant Risks, CV26. Environment, One Health: One Health Parademic, Not Listening that a Pandemic is Coming, CV27. Learning: Pandemic Memories, CV28. Logistics: Diversion of Medical Supplies, Immigration, Using Health to Apply Pressure, CV29. Responsibility, Decision Making: Saving Money by Cutting Health Costs More, Leading is Communicating

PDN Introduction, Glossary

CV02. Humor: Six Daily Newspaper Cartoonists on Giving the Funny Pages a Jolt of Reality. 1) I used to be going to distract folks with gags that don’t have anything to do with the Coronavirus, to present folks an escape. 2) Not what the pandemic was doing worldwide, but the way it affected one household. 3) I wish to play off craziness and I don’t know the way acceptable that’s proper now. 4) I’ve been making jokes about existential dread for a very long time, everybody’s on the lookout for that sort of humor. [Strip =2= =3= =4= Cartoon].

CV03. Information: The Boston Globe Ran 21 Pages of Death Notices in its Sunday Edition. One possible reason for the size of the Sunday death notice section is that with funerals and memorial 201231-CV10 services suspended due to pandemic gathering restrictions, some families who would otherwise run notices on other days might opt for that edition, the Globe’s most well read. This is not necessarily macabre but needed financial information. It is not uncommon for relatives to not inform banks and other financial institutions ^CV05 immediately that someone is deceased.

            -A. Failure to Count Covid-19 Nursing Home Deaths Could Dramatically Skew Us Numbers. And if there is concern that the inclusion of nursing homes may increase numbers to higher and scarier numbers, the same statistical data can be used to demonstrate a select demographic has a higher death rate.

            -B. POST COLLECTIO: It is likely that there will never be an accurate approximation of how many died of CV. Different definition of what makes a death one from CV, those who were not able to get medical care because hospitals were overwhelmed by CV case, flat out manipulation and misreporting the numbers, and simply the rates were so high and rapidly changing that it eventually becomes impossible to keep track.

CV04. Politics: Biden Wins Ohio’s Mail in Primary Delayed by Coronavirus. The primary was the first major test of statewide elections via mail amid an outbreak. There were reports of confusion but no widespread disruption. It wasn’t like Wisconsin earlier this month, when voters were forced to overlook social distancing guidelines to stand in line wearing masks to cast ballots. Few States Are Prepared to Switch to Voting by Mail. That Could Make for a Messy Election.

            -A. Despite Pandemic, Global Geopolitical Currents Stay Strong. Progress on N Korean nuclear issues and lifting sanctions has stagnated. Tensions between Tehran and Washington (with the most virus infections and deaths in the world (not sure which city was being referred to), has returned to threat and counter threat. Israel is making a new push for annexation of the West Bank.

CV05. Economics: New York’s Reopening of Businesses Will Be Gradual and Timing Will Vary Across the State. This is more that the acceptable risk is decreasing with the increasing availability of protective means, and the knowledge (not necessarily practice) of how to be safe. In other words the economic benefits of gradually reopening now outweigh the losses that will be experienced by continued reopening and continued stringent protective measures. This will probably take months and will not signal when CV goes dormant. Unless there is an effective vaccine CV will likely reemerge as an global endemic disease for years, with waves of social distancing. 200426-1.

            -A. The question of when (too soon) will remain unanswered and was in fact always the wrong question. No matter what happens there will be cherry picking to prove the desired interpretation and closing/ reopening too soon, too late. Some will reopen when it is still a high risk, but dodge the bullet – proving they are right. Others will open when the risk is low and have CV cases – proving to be right that it is too soon. Others will delay reopening due to an upward blip in cases and therefore – proving to be right. Last others will delay opening, despite the risk being low while the benefits are high, causing more economic hardship and damage – proving to be right that measures taken were alarmists and too extreme. Proving something is right ^CV18 is a social construct based on chance, not a factual one based on evidence.

            -B. This is an illustration of the risky business of making decisions considering everyone’s bests interests, as opposed to making choices of what will be the least risky to the choice maker. The Americans Who Suffered When the Economy Shut down Are Also in More Danger as it Reopens. Lethargic Global Response to Covid-19: How the Human Brain’s Failure to Assess Abstract Threats Cost Us Dearly, 200909-CV01.

            -C. POST COLLECTIO: One apparent trend in 2022 is redefining endemic to mean that a population has achieved herd immunity, or that CV is no longer as lethal. This endemicity is a slight of hand to claim that morbidity and mortality are now acceptable levels of loss of lives and money.

CV09. Arts, Creativity: What Does the Art World Look Like Now. Until the day before yesterday, the art world was a buzzing hive of global activity, with ever increasing pressure on artists to produce for an insatiable market. Then Covid-19 shut everything down. The future of art and art making is always hard to predict, but we all sense that, post corona, it will not be what it has been. There’s no telling what art will look like after the Coronavirus. We also know that great art has come out of societal catastrophes.

            -A. POST COLLECTIO: If one accepts that art is a form of communication that it is influenced by changes in politics, economics, technology and events, then yes catastrophes are a muse, inspiration and creates new external images and mass emotions.

CV15. Grief: In New Orleans, Friends Respond as Virus Claims a Zulu King. If Larry Arthur Hammond had died in a normal time, he would have had a funeral befitting a Zulu king. The New Orleans man, who died of Covid-19 in March at the age of 70, was Mardi Gras royalty, and would have had more than 1,000 people marching behind his casket in second line parades.

CV17. Uncertainty, Contradictions: From Pews to Patients – Churches Have Long Served as Hospitals, Particularly in Times of Crisis. However, churches can at the same time become epicenters of disease outbreaks. Mosque’s Makeshift Morgue Shows Virus Toll on UK Minorities. POST COLLECTIO: Religious related events proved to be the origin of several outbreaks of CV.

CV18. Narrative, Social Reality: After years of working on the topic of the context of biocrisis I ^CV12 may finally have a narrative, a story ^{CV02 CV08 CV09} to tell (this stub is not a story, it’s research notes). This does not mean that I will ever share my version. More accurately, will I have the time and interest to take the time to share it. The CV story for me is both the mark of when research ^{CV03 CV20 CV27} is done (not completed, just done), and is no longer of value (though it might have value long after the CV event). 200913-CV10. POST COLLECTIO: I did end collection partly because I had already determined that 2020 would be the last year of collection and there were no new patterns, but more because CV was the capping natural experiment that had experienced the biocrisis more directly.

            -A. CV is a shared common experience of uncertainty and disruption ^CV17. For those who could see the logical conclusion of the trends ^{CV31 CV26A}↓ leading to CV there is fulfillment (possibly vindication), and denouements (recognizing that for most people CV is rising action). In their different ways everyone knows – even if they deny it – that the sky was indeed falling [Cartoon], and there really is a wolf [Art, Cartoon]. Now is too late to influence the ongoing current trends toward a more favorable outcome. Lacking a story I personally was never successful as an influencer ^CV29, but others are and now have influence, having some small (but permanent) success at nudging against mass inertia and counteracting movements. What happens next and in the post CV world is up to others ^{CV29 CV31}. 200913-CV10.

            -B. CV may end up on the short list of the few global experiences that all hold in common* ¹, that everyone from that time share. These common denominators may influence the shape and nature of future generations. 200913-CV10. However not all will experience CV the same way, no more than all eyewitnesses report exactly the same event =2= =3=.

            -*1). World wars, global extinctions, international economic recession, environmental changes and urbanization being examples of other shared experiences, albeit much of this may be indirect, via media sources different reporting, and other filtering**².

            -**2). Filtering in this case is SLAI: Sharpening and emphasis of supporting details, Leveling and ignoring contradictory details, Assimilating and fitting to the a priori narrative, with Inventions to fill in gaps. The creation of stories is a RIDE that includes: Recycling of previous story elements and Repurposing an old story to the current new setting. Icons will develop that are associated with the event, with symbolic and/or cultural referent meaning [Cover, Cartoon, Strip]; Dissemination of the story message and the medium used to the target audience, and; Evolution of the waves of variations of the narrative. 200714-CV02B, 200505-04A.

            -C. Shared experience does not mean everyone has the same experience. The event is the same, but like all reports by witnesses and victims of an incident, there will be the same number as observers of contrary of and complimentary versions of what happened. Over time there will be even more versions, and history will construct what the accepted consensus of the event will be. In today’s world there will likely be different accepted reconstructions of what happened, likely associated with what is one’s social group of identification. 200409-CV13.

            -D. The commonly shared event will vary by:

            -1). Idiosyncratic interpretations and reframing, that are likely to include self serving rationalizations for anti-social and unsuccessful (if not exacerbating) behaviors;

            -2). Outlier ^CV13 experiences that are unique to a few, such as those aboard the ISS =2= when CV started, and already were in the ultimate of social distancing ^CV19. Despite reassurances =2= (from a source that is suspect given its longue duree ^CV22 of dezinformatsiya), ISS may be an outlier if CV reaches it, but if so it will also be an experience shared in common by all ^CV26;

            -3). About what it was like to live during (the homefront ^CV23C↓) during CV;

            -4). Internal personal experiences by being infected ^CV23AQuote↓, and experience loss of those who were infected  ^CV15;

            -5). External personal experiences being personally touched by loss and grief, being infected, and/or the responders during CV, likely feeling guilt if they survive, and denial that they did anything ^CV23BQuote↓ ^{CV01 CV15}. Racked with Guilt, Some Covid-19 Survivors Are Asking, Why Me.

CV20. Communication: How We Can Improve Public Health Messaging about Covid-19. Journalist’s Resource is a good source of information for journalists and the improvement of journalism. This item is a useful summary of cumulative knowledge about general crisis communications but is disappointing in that it repeats the two constant mistakes of science journalism, 1) reporting research as the latest, when in fact it had been known for years, and 2) that the research is definitive, when in fact it is preliminary but likely to attract interest. Understand that these misrepresentations are a marketing tool to get people to read what is frankly not that exciting, but this has also damaged the reputation and trust in science =2= =3= =4= =5=, and media. 200728-CV03.

CV22. Longue Duree: How the 1918 Flu Pandemic Played a Role in Women’s Suffrage. In the nineteen teens, when duty called soldiers to war and a flu pandemic was killing entire families, women worldwide stepped up and took on many roles traditionally held by men. However, by the time both of those nightmares began, young American women in the National Women’s Party (NWP) had yanked the helm of the suffrage movement away from their elders who had spent decades trying to bargain with Congress. Then they turned up the heat. Yet they still were not taken seriously a century after the call for women’s suffrage began. It took World War I and nearly 700,000 flu related deaths in the U.S. alone before President Woodrow Wilson offered support for the 19^th Amendment ^CV04.

            -A. Jewish History Explains Why Some Ultra Orthodox Communities Defy Coronavirus Restrictions. Persecution is central to Jewish collective memory. So when armed police entered ultra Orthodox areas of Jerusalem to close synagogues due to Covid-19, some residents reacted with fear and suspicion. Might also explain that the same religious community ^CV10 was astroturfed into antivax which increased death in that community during Measles2019 201219-CV21, by using that cultural referent to craft disinformation campaigns. In a sense biological warfare ^CV23 via information rather than a bioagent. 200927-CV16.

CV23. Polemic, Myphysis: Currently I’m reading The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee. I plan to share more about this book in a future PDWN stub about the aftermath of social collapse. For CV however there is an insightful ^Quote↓ that is analogous to the context of CV. This beauty is not in superficial terms of attractive ^{CV08 CV09}, but beauty in the deeper meanings of ^{CV06 CV10 CV27}. POST COLLECTIO: I never did write more fully on this book as it is not my story to tell, nor is it about social collapse but about social recovery, albeit into a different society.

1. War is arguably a global biocalamity and parademic, and at the very least the rhetoric of war is used. This war without being “normal” war is one reason why the ancient Greek meaning of polemic was adopted for parademic, while the mephetic effects on life and health are the ancient Greek word for not normal life threats and hazards.

            -B. One reason why experiences from war and combat are not shared is that there is very little held in common with those who do not have the experience. These stories violate norms ^CV24 and are ineffable.

            -Quote: A Marine veteran of Vietnam made the distinction clear to me many years later: Combat stories are about fighting, of shooting and getting shot are one thing. War stories are different. I knew a guy who was in Vietnam, and he told me nothing happened to him. He didn’t fight. He wasn’t in country. He said he had nothing to say about the war. I asked him what he did and he said, “I worked for Graves Registration. I got all the bodies ready before they flew them back to the States”. Now that guy, he had a war story*. He saw and touched and moved all those bodies. That was war.

            -*. I suspect the author of Heartbeat may not recognize that they are part of the long bradyoccult of both in the internal and external personal of combat and war of his three (possibly more) heritages.

            -C. The ^Quote↑ misses aspects of combat and war stories. Namely backhome of those with direct experience among people who don’t understand, and the homefront of those who experienced the war indirectly, and faced different challanges. The one off or removed from the events – the before (prior dread or denial), during (the historical period, not the longue duree ^CV22), and aftermath ^CV31 of combat, war, recovery (and forgetting ^CV27). This secondary disaster a&e-ffects come in part from having direct contact with those with direct experience (probably still experiencing), and from mass communication of current news and later entertainment ^{CV03 CV04 CV06 CV09} or learning ^CV27.

CV24. Norms: Coronavirus Impact: Meat Processing Plants Weigh Risks of Prosecution If They’re Blamed for Spreading Infection. Meat Processing Plants Have Become Incubators for Coronavirus. Trump Reportedly Wants to Keep Them Open Anyway.

CV26. Environment, One Health: Narratives of One Health In Action. Since January 2020 this page has been compiling popular media OpEds and Commentaries about the Coronavirus outbreak / pandemic that mention or call for One Health by name or theory. If you know of such articles not yet listed here, please send them to ohc@onehealthcommission.org. This list is more clinical than what PDN focuses on, but there are several applicable to parademic.

            -A. Unpacking Covid-19 and the Connections Between Ecosystem, Animal, and Human Health and Security. Covid-19 has brought into stark reality the deep connections between wildlife, the environment, public health, and human security. And yet, despite the fact that much of the global population has been left stunned by the swift moving and devastating pandemic, to some, what we are experiencing today comes as little surprise ^CV18A↑. In fact, experts have been trying to sound the alarm for decades. As recently as a few years ago, epidemiologists at the World Health Organization coined the term “Disease X” as a descriptor for a Covid-19 like pandemic. In 2008, the National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2025 Report included an eerily similar description of how a pandemic would likely start. Experts in these communities know that the threats posed by animal-borne infectious diseases to global health, security, and economic well-being are accelerating. Approximately 70 percent of these diseases originate with the wildlife trade, but increasingly, these zoonotic diseases are linked to environmental change, human behavior, and demographic changes, like rapid urbanization and population growth (all of these are topics in parademic).

CV27. Learning: Of Grandparents, Memories and the Pandemic. Childhood studies scholars have shown how children are not just a tabula rasa incapable of understanding the uncanniness of the ordinary experiences, even when it radically contests our idyllic notions of childhood socialization. Understanding children opens the door to answering questions about the regime of the social itself. My grandfather died a year back. He was 93. His boyhood (and later adulthood) memories of death, riots 210103-23B -C, travels and resilience lay buried with him.

CV28. Logistics: Are San Francisco and other jurisdictions being targeted by FEMA and other sub agencies of DHS as well as other executive departments. San Francisco Mayor Says City's PPE Orders Have Been Diverted, Confiscated: It 'Blows My Mind' =2=. There have been indications of favoritism and other corruption before these incidents related to medical supplies =2= =3= =4= =5=. There is a range of explanations for this, but the why and motivations are not yet clear. These may be illegal, unethical, necessary extreme measures, flat out exploitation ^CV11 and/or revenge. Trump Wants to Use Coronavirus Aid as Leverage to Force Blue States to Change Immigration Policies ^CV04. Foreign Doctors Want to Help Fight the Coronavirus. But the US Health System Stands in Their Way. Many Failures Combined to Unleash Death on Italy’s Lombardy, there is evidence that demographics and health care deficiencies collided with political and business interests to expose 10 million.

CV29. Responsibility, Decision Making: Have been saying for years that cutting back on education, health and environment protection, economic safety nets and disaster capabilities is not the way to save money. It makes sense if there are not disasters and one is unconcerned about the future, but if there is a disaster and a future this ends up being far more costly that what the original expenditures are. In fact these are good return on investments, but the return is not quarterly. Austerity, Not Covid-19, Strains National Healthcare Systems.

            -A. Leading in a Crisis: How to Successfully Communicate. The current pandemic has provided many examples of effective and not so effective communications strategies. Here are four pitfalls to avoid 1. Silence is golden, 2. Downplaying the threat, 3. Pointing fingers, 4. Thinking the public will panic 201022-CV20), and five proven strategies 1. Crafting the message carefully, 2. Integrate policy, operations and communications, 3. Employ trusted sources, 4. Avoid too many talking heads, 5. Be present, show you care and listen), to keep the public informed and engaged.