Trump is telling us that he has brought about a great success in the fight against Covid-19. If it wasn’t for him – if some other president was in office – we would have over 2 million deaths from Covid-19. That we have only 100,000 – only 100,000 or almost twice as many deaths as happened in the Vietnam War –  Trump considers quite a victory.

Where are the crowds on the streets celebrating this victory?

Yes, Jared Kushner had it right – Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law – said  “the federal government rose to the challenge and this is a great success story and I think that that’s really what needs to be told.”

Where are the crowds on the streets celebrating this great success? Where are the Mission Accomplished signs? Is there any other president who can say he presided over 100,000 deaths of Americans in three months?

Above is a photograph of Times Square on V-E Day when Germany surrendered? People poured out into the streets all over American in celebration of our success on the European theater. There was still a war going on in the Far East with the Japanese Empire. Japan would surrender in August. Again, as shown on the photograph to the left the people jammed Time’s Square in celebration of victory over Japan, V-J Day.  The country had finally stopped fighting since Pearl Harbor was bombed, the day of Infamy, on December 7, 1941.

Mike Pence’s prediction that by Memorial Day we would, “largely have this coronavirus epidemic behind us” is proving wishful thinking.

Had Pence said (and  by the way rumors of him having contracted Covid-19 himself were widespread over the week ) “by Memorial Day any hope that Americans would use their common sense and recognize the dangers from this virus is still extant” then he would have been right on the mark.

The doors and beaches are open; limits are being lifted here and there, the incidences of wearing masks has fallen remarkably, and people are being lured out of their houses to mix and play. Houses of worship are being told to ignore their state rules and open up as if it was the good old days.

We won’t sink as fast as the Titantic I figure. But unless somehow someone made a deal with Covid-19 to go easy on American scofflaws we’ll certainly sink. Most of an ice berg is below the surface; most of the deadly cases of Covid-19 are lurking near by.

You can see the bad trend in the weekly reports of positive cases.  As I said last week I’m not happy following the death rates because I believe they are being monkeyed around with by the states. Several news media reports have clearly shown this.

Every so often I tend to dwell on this great tragedy. I probably should not label it like that for a couple of reasons: first I try not to use the word “great” too often because it has become abused by Trump who has used it so much that it has lost its meaning since he thinks everything he does is great; secondly the fate of one person in a nation seems to have little significance.

I probably thought of this because early on this morning I read an article showing the callousness of our government which sends young kids who cross the border illegally back to their countries without notifying anyone about it. The story is about a 10-year-old boy who crossed the Rio Grande in a small boat with a stranger after saying goodbye to his mother. Any one who harms children has no place in a decent world. I don’t have space to go into it but read the article and think that this is your country doing this to the least of us. Trump’s new policy of hurting children is just another way he thinks he is making America great. That is a real tragedy.

I was at one of those Emergency Care places a few weeks back having taken someone in there for something minor and easily correctable if done by a skilled medical person. Fortunately, the nurse there had the necessary skills, so the problem was quickly resolved but the person I was with got gabbing with the nurse so it took much longer than it should have..

While waiting I was thumbing through a magazine. Two young women, barely out of girlhood, one with long blond hair and the other the shiniest long black hair I had ever seen, came in. The one with the blond hair went to the counter; the other took a seat close to me but with her back towards me. At some point the one who went to the counter came over and sat with her friend. I had become interested in an article I was reading about Carlo Tresca so I didn’t now this until I heard them talking. I overheard some of their conversation because they were not too discreet apparently oblivious to or not caring about my being there.

One, the one with the black hair, I’ll call Jacqui. She said to the other “why didn’t you find out about this before?”

One thing that has rarely changed is the South has always viewed America differently than other parts of the country especially the Northeast and the states bordering the Great Lakes. My good friend E. H. has suggested to me that I read a couple of books – which are not available at the libraries because the libraries are closed – one tells about the different cultural areas of America and the other about a trip through the South prior to the Civil War.  I’ve ordered them and will let you know the highlights.

I laugh when I read that some people suggest the Republican Party today somehow has a connection with Abe Lincoln beyond the name Republican Party. Between 1875 and the election in 1900 of McKinley the South had voted pretty solidly Democratic because, precisely because, they had a great disdain of Lincoln. There was one time in 1872 when one of the old Confederate States of America cast its vote for Ulysses S. Grant – the Union general responsible for their downfall – which seems at first thought a mistake. How would a Confederate State vote for a victorious Union general one would ask? It turned out that the Army was still in that state ensuring all got the franchise – by all I mean men since women were not considered capable of voting – which meant that black citizens could also vote along with the Carpetbaggers and Scallywags who were really Union men.

We have 1 weeks and 2 days and we will, as Mike Pence said, “largely have this coronavirus epidemic behind us.” 

Trump having now gone the herd immunity approach is urging every state to give their people freedom.  Some people in the United States have a warped idea of freedom. They believe it means they can do whatever they want. So they pick up their silly guns and stand in front of state houses asking that they be allowed to wander around freely without masks and without practicing social distancing and to gather wherever they please.

Trump is for this. He presses the people to do this. He though takes precautions that anyone who comes near him must be tested, the people in his office must wear masks, many of them are tested daily. Trump says he must be protected but has no concern for others urging them to do what is dangerous for them.

As for freedom, you don’t see these people protesting speed limits. Isn’t that a government restriction? Nor do they protest other laws governing operation of their vehicles such as not running red lights, wearing helmets on motor cycles, paying insurance and registration fees.  Why shouldn’t I in a free country just be able to take a car and drive it as I see fit.

I noted before that using the number of deaths as a statistic had its problems. That is the states could fool around with classifying the reason the person died. For instance, take Russia which has an abnormally low death rate compared with any other country in the world. We find out that they usually report as the cause of death for a person who dies of Covid-19 the underlying cause such as heart condition, diabetes, or pneumonia. There could easily be the same things happening in some of the states which would give them a lower death rate.

I’ll keep looking at those figures assuming that some states are accurately reporting the death  figures but I will also looking at the number of reported positive cases. Again using Russia as an example, it has shown itself incapable of speaking the truth since the 1917 Revolution, it seems reporting the number of positive cases is something that it appears to be doing properly. I figure that perhaps that give us a better idea of what is actually happening in the states since the incentive to fudge the figures is not there.

Monday evening doing the statistics on the coronavirus I noticed that Italy was no longer among the top four countries for reported cases of Covid-19. The United States was first with 1,346,723 positive cases and 80,352 cases; Spain was in second place with 227,436 positive cases and 26,744 deaths; the UK was in third place with 224,332 positive cases and 32,141 deaths; and Russia was now in 4th place with 221,344 positive cases and — now wait for this — 2,009 deaths.

The way that figures out percentage-wise is the death rate in the United States is 5.97%;  in Spain it is 11.76%; in the UK it is 14.33%; but in Russia it is 0.91%. When I first looked at the Russian death rate being so low I thought the Russians were only counting the people who accidentally fell out of windows, which as we’ve seen is an unfortunate problem the Russians seem to have.

Sweden has reported 26,670 cases and has 3,256  deaths  a 12.21% but it is running with a modified herd immunity approach to its population. Norway, next door, in many respects quite similar to Sweden which did have people quarantine in their homes has had 8,132 cases and 224 deaths or a 2.75% rate bu it had 3,000 less deaths.