This And That: Coronavirus

On January 25 I posted comments on the Wuhan virus and mocked the Chinese for their wet markets, but we must give credit where credit is due: the Chinese have rather remarkably and in relatively short order shut down the virus, while many of the Late Stage Capitalist states have struggled, to put it charitably.  For example, the Chinese built temporary hospitals to accommodate the surge of virus infected (true, one facility did collapse, killing a couple dozen, but overall their temp hospital program was a resounding success), while in America, well, this headline says it all: US Navy hospital ship expected to depart for Seattle next week amid coronavirus pandemic.  Late Stage capitalism moves, compared to China, at a snail's pace.  And we haven't even mentioned the most critical failure: the testing fiasco.  Weeks and weeks drag by, and still people can't get tested in an even remotely timely fashion.

Speaking of testing, a couple days ago the State of Michigan revealed these statisitics:

There have been 2,499 tests conducted, according to the state, including 744 from hospitals and 148 from commercial labs. MDHHS has performed 1,557 tests as of March 19. There were 203 cases identified by hospitals or universities, and 131 found by MDHHS, with two cases coming from commercial labs.

What do these statistics reveal? Roughly 1 out of every 7 tests from the state and the hospitals came back positive, while 1 out of every 74 came back positive from the *commercial* labs.  What does this tell us?  It tells us that the healthy rich are running off to their private VIP labs because they are terrified they will die before Elon Musk patents immortality. . .

Speaking of the fear of death, which we stated on January 25 hangs over this virus crisis, is there any way to measure the level of death anxiety?  Well, in the Late Stage Capitalist countries, fear of Socialism seems to have evaporated, as no state order or handout is protested.  Better Red Than Dead, it appears.  And we can state with a new degree of confidence there are no capitalists in foxholes.

Amid the hurricane of handouts, we can forecast, when the virus storm passes and the full extent of the devastation of the Western economy is revealed, debt cancellation on a Jubilee scale.  It will be the only way out. . .

Everybody loves Dr. Anthony Fauci. . .except me.  Tony *Two Curves* Fauci and his obvious relish of being considered the Virus Sage grates my nerves.  The shine through the television which seems to enamor everybody else is not produced by his empty wisdom (has he told anybody anything they couldn't learn by reading the label on a bottle of NyQuil?), but by his insatiable vanity.  I also got no use for the pompous crone Dr. Deborah Birx, whose head reflexively bobs up and down every time Trump opens his piehole in praise of himself.

And these Senators, such as Burr and Loeffler, who attended briefings which warned of the coming crisis, then rushed to the stock market to cash-in, and then compounded their sin by soft-pedaling the virus to the American people?  C'mon!  Is it really a shock that the political product of Late State Capitalism is usury politicians, whose main motivation is not the public good, but their own private lust to make money out of thin (privileged) air?  

Finally, what's the hold-up with my $1000 check???