Prickly City by Scott Stantis for May 18, 2020

Is Carman looking for the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything"?

It occurred to me the other day that due to the enormous and varied effects of the coronavirus, and the loss of the normality of our lives, especially those who have actually experienced the loss of a loved one, their jobs and fear associated to that, it’s akin to being in grieving. The psychological and emotional effect can be tremendous. For me, it really helps to stay informed, but not to overly focus on it and continue some normality in my life.

As written it is a question. But I don’t know how you say the word “sure” and make it obvious that it is a question.

“Res-istential” Crisis, is more likely: Things seem out to get us.

Existential crisis? I don’t know. I think people are waking up to the reality that they have allowed an uncontrollable government to quietly grow. An unreatrained government that seeks to oppress the natural liberties of the citizens that created that government. Perhaps these citizens no longer give their consent to this runaway train of central planners. This could only create an existential crisis for the arrogant elite who thought we would all be obedient proles.

Worth a repeat, posted late, imo… Covid Polling: https://xkcd.com/2305/

As Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Washington Post, “Our ability to get to the new normal depends to a great extent on our ability to test, isolate, contact trace and quarantine.”

Public health leaders are essentially unanimous: This is, they believe, America’s most viable escape route from the pandemic.

It’s what has largely contained the virus in multiple countries, including Germany, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

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Public health experts should be thinking through what happens when they introduce the programs they’ve devised.

What will we do when millions of Americans flatly refuse to be tested for the virus?

What should we do if those who test positive deny reality and refuse to change their behavior?

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The public health field is underestimating the extent of these challenges.

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By its very definition, public health prioritizes an entire population’s well-being, even in cases where it crimps individual liberty (such as taxing cigarettes or supporting mandatory seat belt and vaccination laws).

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But the virus knows no borders, in a nation this big and this mobile, so you can’t designate a “no peeing” section in the swimming pool.

On balance, we probably will end up something like herd immunity-aspiring, light-touch Sweden, only without the benefit of guaranteed health care.

This won’t be because we universally agreed to choose such a policy, but because we couldn’t universally agree — and never have — about fundamental issues surrounding politics and health.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/widespread-testing-might-not-work-in-america-we-love-our-freedom-too-much/2020/05/14/4904d6a4-9556-11ea-9f5e-56d8239bf9ad_story.html

Turns out that allowing the CDC to atrophy leads to an existential crisis. Who could have imagined? Meanwhile, those like old Puddinghead celebrates tens of thousands of deaths of our fellow citizens as a badge of freedom.

On Tuesday, the U.S. government’s top experts warned that Covid-19 was by no means under control, and that premature easing of social distancing could have disastrous consequences.

As far as I can tell, their view is shared by almost all epidemiologists.

But they were shouting into the wind. Clearly, the Trump administration and its allies have already decided that we’re going to reopen the economy, never mind what the experts say.

And if the experts are right and this leads to a new surge in deaths, the response won’t be to reconsider the policy, it will be to deny the facts.

At one level, this turn of events shouldn’t surprise us. The U.S. right long ago rejected evidence-based policy in favor of policy-based evidence — denying facts that might get in the way of a predetermined agenda.

Fourteen years have passed since Stephen Colbert famously quipped that “reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

At another level, however, the right’s determination to ignore the epidemiologists is politically reckless in a way previous denials of reality weren’t.

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As many people have pointed out, the emerging right-wing strategy for dealing with this pandemic — or, more accurately, not dealing with it — closely follows the Republican Party’s longstanding approach to climate change: It’s not happening, it’s a hoax perpetrated by liberal scientists, and besides, doing anything about it would destroy the economy.

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But the G.O.P. doesn’t like experts, and it doesn’t have policy ideas beyond tax cuts and deregulation.

So it doesn’t know how to respond to crises that don’t fit its usual agenda.

Trump, in particular, can do policy theater — sending Jared Kushner out to make noises about dealing with problems — but has no idea how to do it for real.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/opinion/trump-covid-experts.html

So ends the good and thoughtful part of today’s comments. You don’t believe me? Just read the replies to this.

How can something ‘end’ when it never began in the first place?

What’s ‘good’ for one person, may not be good for another or even many others… So that’s a subjective measurement.

Or is that all too thoughtful?

I graduated from university in 1970 without learning a clear meaning for the concept “existential”. I have tried reading books and watching YouTube. I still have no clear idea what that means.

Per Brain Pudding’s comment above (also considering other TD comments):

Trump Disciples believe that any government response at any level, “seeks to oppress the natural liberties of the citizens”.