Other Countries Are Coping-- Or Not Coping-- With The Pandemic As Well

A couple of weeks ago I visited my doctor at the cancer hospital she works in. The policy there has always been to not admit anyone with infectious diseases. The hospital just cares for cancer patients and is also a major research center for cancer cures. A huge number of patients are immune-compromised and any kind of infection could be a death sentence. During our chat, she told me that doctors there had been asked-- I didn't ask by who but I assumed it was a government entity-- to start wrapping their heads around ceasing to treat elderly cancer patients. I think she said 60 or 65. She was horrified at the prospect.

Soon after someone sent me the video from a doctor in Madrid who was even more distraught than my doctor. Weeping, he said that in Madrid coronavirus patients over the age of 65 were being sedated and allowed to die because there aren't enough respirators in Spain. He mentioned that elderly patients were removed from respirators if they were currently being kept alive by them.

In the past three years, Trump "ignored multiple direct warnings-- briefings, reports, simulations, intelligence assessments-- that a pandemic was likely and that the government didn’t have enough masks, ventilators, or antiviral drugs to deal with it. His administration was told exactly what to do: second-guess case detection rates, prepare rapid production of tests, and line up extra funding and personal protective equipment. He did none of it. He stiffed a budget request for preparedness funds, and he disbanded the National Security Council unit in charge of pandemics... Trump’s administration learned of the outbreak in China around New Year’s Day, but he brushed off briefings about it, figuring it hadn’t spread in the United States. (The CDC offered to send its own experts to China, but China refused, and Trump-- overriding advice and U.S. intelligence-- backed off.) On Jan. 21, the CDC reported the first known American infection. But in an interview on CNBC, Trump scoffed, 'It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.' Data released by the World Health Organization showed the coronavirus was killing victims at a far higher rate than swine flu did. (That remains true, even though calculated mortality rates from the coronavirus have declined.) But the Trump administration didn’t declare a public health emergency until Jan. 31. The president had to be pushed to ban travelers from China, and he did nothing domestically. In late January, the administration rebuffed an HHS request for money to buy masks and other emergency supplies. Throughout February, as U.S. intelligence agencies monitored the spread of the virus in Europe and Asia, Trump insisted the United States was safe. When a CDC official raised concerns in public, Trump rebuked her for scaring the stock market."

"We're told to put on a brave face," said another doctor in Madrid whose audio tape the doctor in the video played, "fill up with courage and go to work knowing that you are going to have to let many people die." He wants to penalize the politicians who-- like Trump-- were too cowardly to act fast and decisively while the pandemic grew; he wants their salaries to be docked and used to buy respirators. The video is heartbreaking.

The fascist-leaning Trumpist president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, sounded like the other side of that coin. People are demanding his resignation because he has been telling Brazilians to stay at work, ignore safety guidelines, "take it like a man" and reminding his countrymen that "we all must die one day." On Sunday, Twitter deleted two of his tweets in which he questioned quarantine measures aimed at containing the coronavirus, on the grounds that they violated the social network's rules.

Typhoid Mary shakes hands with Captain Corona

The far-right leader had posted several videos in which he flouted his government's social distancing guidelines by mixing with supporters on the streets of Brasilia and urging them to keep the economy going.

Two of the posts were removed and replaced with a notice explaining why they had been taken down.

Twitter explained in a statement that it had recently expanded its global rules on managing content that contradicted public health information from official sources and could put people at greater risk of transmitting COVID-19.

In one of the deleted videos, Bolsonaro tells a street vendor, "What I have been hearing from people is that they want to work."

"What I have said from the beginning is that 'we are going to be careful, the over-65s stay at home,'" he said.

"We just can't stand still, there is fear because if you don't die of the disease, you starve," the vendor is seen telling Bolsonaro, who responds: "You're not going to die!"

In another video, the president calls for a "return to normality," questioning quarantine measures imposed by governors and some mayors across the giant South American country as an effective containment measure against the virus.

"If it continues like this, with the amount of unemployment what we will have later is a very serious problem that will take years to be resolved," he said of the isolation measures.

"Brazil cannot stop or we'll turn into Venezuela," Bolsonaro later told reporters outside his official residence.

On Saturday, Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta highlighted the importance of containment as a means of fighting the coronavirus, which has already infected 3,904 people in Brazil, leaving 114 dead, according to the latest official figures.

"Some people want me to shut up, follow the protocols," said Bolsonaro. "How many times does the doctor not follow the protocol?"

"Let's face the virus with reality. It is life, we must all die one day."

In the four videos posted on his Twitter account, Bolsonaro is seen surrounded by small crowds as he walked about the capital.

Bolsonaro has described the coronavirus as "a flu" and advocated the reopening of schools and shops, with self-isolation necessary solely for the over-60s.

It's easy to say, "Brazil elected this psychopath; they deserve what he does to them." Fair enough-- for the 57,797,847 people who voted for him-- but what about the 47,040,906, who voted against him? They don't deserve to die-- not any more than the people -- a majority-- in the U.S. who voted against Trump do.

Tom Phillips, reporting from Rio for The Guardian yesterday, wrote that Brazilians are demanding Bolsonaro resign for "downplaying the virus and willfully undermining efforts to slow its advance with shutdowns and quarantines."

“Brazil and the world are facing an emergency unprecedented in modern history … [and] in our country the emergency is exacerbated by an irresponsible president. Jair Bolsonaro is the greatest obstacle to urgent decisions being taken to reduce the spread of the infection [and] save lives,” said the document, first published in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper.

They added: “Bolsonaro is in no position to keep governing Brazil... He commits crimes… lies and fosters chaos, taking advantage of the despair of our most vulnerable citizens.

“We need unity and understanding to face up to the pandemic, not a president who goes against public health authorities and puts his authoritarian political interests above the lives of everyone else.

“Bolsonaro is more than a political problem-- he has become a public health problem… He should resign,” they concluded.

“He needs to be urgently contained and must answer for the crimes he is committing against our people.”

The declaration, Brazil Cannot Be Destroyed By Bolsonaro, was signed by leading voices from across the Brazilian left including Ciro Gomes, Flávio Dino, Manuela d’Ávila, Fernando Haddad and Guilherme Boulos.

Ciro Gomes said Bolsonaro’s conduct represented “the difference between hundred of thousands of deaths or tens of thousands of deaths in Brazil.”

“I believe he must answer for crimes against humanity at the International Court of Justice in the Hague-- and I will work towards this,” Gomes told The Guardian.

Asked what his message to Bolsonaro was, Gomes said: “Resign, you reckless man.”

Boulos said the irresponsible, erratic and backwards behaviour of Bolsonaro-- who one Brazilian commentator this week nicknamed “Captain Corona”-- meant he had to go.

“More than a political crisis, Bolsonaro now represents a public health problem,” Boulos told The Guardian. “We see no way for Bolsonaro to continue governing the country-- this will cost Brazil a tremendous number of human lives.”

Boulos claimed Bolsonaro’s undermining of quarantine and social distancing measures was partly the result of his being beholden to business owners who opposed a shutdown because it meant they would lose money.

“He represents the most perverse economic interests that couldn’t care less about people’s lives. They’re worried about maintaining their profitability,” Boulos said.

Bolsonaro has rejected criticism of his response, which he claims is designed to protect workers and the economy. “We’re going to tackle the virus but tackle it like fucking men-- not like kids,” Brazil’s president declared on Sunday.

And brief blurbs from around the word:

Phuket is a tropical island developed for tourism off the southwest coast on Thailand. It gets something like 39 million tourists a year. But not this year. Yesterday, the government closed down all points of entry.

Moscow is on lockdown but some people weren't paying any attention to the guidelines yesterday (day 1) and others deny the seriousness of the pandemic and, like Trump and Bolsonaro, dismiss it as a flu.

At least Putin didn't lick Protsenko's hand

Can you imagine someone deciding to go on a cruise now? People do. And, of course, they get coronavirus and some die. There are two Holland America ships that have been stranded in the Pacific and which Panama finally decided to allow to traverse the Panama Canal-- without stopping-- in order to get into the Caribbean. There are dead people and sick people and the ships hope to be allowed to dock in Fort Lauderdale. One ship, the Zaandam has 1,243 guests and 586 crew and 138 suspected cases (and 4 bodies).