Transpartisan Failure

Our political leadership-- and not just Trump-- has failed us... dismally so. Even blue state governors like Andrew Cuomo (New York), Phil Murphy (New Jersey) and Gavin Newsom (California) have been taking ineffective baby steps that have already been proven to only make the pandemic worse. Like Trump, they are more afraid to be blamed for an economic turn-down than to watch thousands and perhaps millions of Americans die. Despite bad examples of behavior with resultant calamity in Italy, Spain and Holland and good examples with quicker resolution in Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, they have all been masters of "too little too late," thereby putting us all at risk-- and showing how utterly worthless they are as political "leaders." The American people are savvier about the pandemic then our political leaders are. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll by Hart Research.

Although most Americans report that they have not changed their behavior in ways that could slow down the pandemic, most still recognize that Trump has failed in protecting the country:

47% of respondents say they have either stopping attending large public gatherings like movies, concerts or sporting events or plan to, while 49% have neither stopped nor intend to stop. It gets worse when asked about canceling travel plans and eating in restaurants. Just 36% have canceled or rescheduled travel plans-- as opposed to 58% who have not or don't plan to-- and just 26% have stopped eating in restaurants, as opposed to 69% who have not stopped eating in restaurants. Americans are worried-- but not worried enough to act on those worries. One of my sisters-- the Trumpier one-- refused to cancel plans for a cruise. The cruise company canceled it. She also planned to see a Michael Bublé concert in Atlantic City last week and much to her chagrin-- she insists this is all "media hype"-- the concert was canceled. Last week I stopped wearing my hospital masks and started wearing a heavy duty N-99 Base Camp mask with exhalation valves whenever I go out. I noticed that when I wore it to the grocery store over tiger weekend, I was the only one in the entire (huge) store with any kind of a mask and that everyone looked at me as though I had the plague and moved quickly away from my vicinity-- a bonus as far as I was concerned.

Excursion to the grocery store for more daikon root

At every step of the way, conservative politicians have prioritized the economy over health. Kara Eastman, the Omaha progressive running against one of those conservative politicians, Donald Bacon (R), told me yesterday that "Our fractured and inefficient collection of private and public health programs leaves millions of Americans out in the cold during a crisis like COVD-19. A well-designed national health program would cover every U.S. resident and would ensure timely care for those who need it most. The fact is that millions of American citizens in our growing gig-economy are at risk and single payer can greatly mitigate that risk." Jim Harper, the progressive candidate for the open blue seat in northwest Indiana. He had a similar perspective. "Every day," he told me, "I meet Hoosiers who are terrified about their ability to access healthcare during this public health crisis. They know that our healthcare system is broken and that the inability of some to access care puts everyone at risk during this public health crisis. Medicare for All would ensure universal healthcare was important before this pandemic. But the current public health crisis shows how serious the issue is and how Medicare for All would protect all Americans."

Trumpist Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was on This Week yesterday when Jonathan Karl asked him if the pandemic would cause a recession, which every credible economist is predicting. Being part of the Trump Regime requires lying... so he did. "I don't think so. The real issue is not the economic situation today… This is a unique situation. We are going to have a slowdown. Later in the year economic activity will pick up as we confront this virus." Except the U.S. isn't even close to adequately confronting the pandemic so it will only get worse and the chances of escaping a humongous recession will diminish. Larry Elliott reported for The Guardian that travel bans, prohibitions on mass gatherings like sporting events and concerts, stock markets in freefall, deserted shopping malls (and the coming closures of restaurants, bars, schools, most service jobs and pretty much anything other than grocery stores and pharmacies), we need to prepare for a global recession.

If history is any guide, the global economy will eventually recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, but the idea that this is going to be a V-shaped recession in the first half of 2020 followed by a recovery in the second half of the year looks absurd after the tumultuous events of the past week.

What’s more, policymakers know as much. The Federal Reserve-- the US central bank-- does not need to be told by Donald Trump that it needs to cut interest rates and resume large-scale asset purchases known as quantitative easing. Wall Street is looking to the Fed to pull out all the stops when it meets on Wednesday and the world’s most powerful central bank cannot afford to disappoint.

In the UK the coordinated response by the Bank of England and the Treasury last week was seen as a textbook example of how policymakers ought to respond to the crisis. It was, though, only the start. Airline companies will quickly go bust unless they receive financial assistance. The same goes for retailers, many of them hanging on by their fingertips even before Covid-19. Britain has a new chancellor of the exchequer in Rishi Sunak and, from Monday, a new governor of the Bank of England in Andrew Bailey, and they will both be aware that the risks of doing too little too late are far greater than those of doing too much too soon.

So, in the coming weeks the Bank can be expected to cut interest rates to 0.1%-- the lowest they have ever been-- and to resume its QE programme. Sunak will have to add to the £12bn he has set aside to deal with Covid-19.

As in 2008-09, the authorities in the eurozone have been slowest to act but there have been welcome signs in recent days-- from Germany, most significantly-- of the need for governments to spend, and spend big.

The perfect time to implement Medicare-for-All.

Mark Levine is a City Councilman and chair of the City Council Health Committee in hard-hit NYC. On Sunday he came clean with his constituents: "Our city is facing a mounting threat in the coronavirus epidemic. We must move aggressively-- now-- to slow the outbreak in New York City. This is going to require extreme measures to ensure that the public avoids crowded places to the maximum extent possible. That is why I support the closure of all non-essential services, including schools, bars, restaurants, gyms, movie theaters, and courthouses."

Moments later it was announced that all NYC schools would close "until April 20," a silly aspirational random date.

New Yorkers shouldn’t wait for such an order to take responsibility for their own actions. I urge everyone to avoid any and all social gatherings if at all possible. We all need to adhere to aggressive social distancing, slow the spread, of the virus to protect the vulnerable, and prevent our health system from becoming overwhelmed.

Those who can work from home should. Families who are able to keep their children home from school should. If you must travel to work and are able to walk or bike you should.

And if you are feeling ill, it is imperative that you stay home. You should not go to work, you should not be in public.

And here’s the hardest part: if you are only mildly ill with COVID-19 symptoms (fever, dry cough) and do not have other health complications, you should not go to the hospital. You should rest at home and have a phone by your side to call for a doctor if your condition worsens. These extraordinary recommendations are necessary because we must preserve every element of our healthcare system for the seriously ill, as the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise.

These coming weeks and months will be a time of unprecedented challenges for our city.

Our world; and, possibly, our species.

It has been clear from the start that Covid-19 affects both sides of the economy: supply and demand. The supply of goods and services is impaired because factories and offices are shut and output falls as a result. But demand also falls because consumers stay at home and stop spending, and businesses mothball investment.

Conventional policy measures-- such as cutting the cost of borrowing or reducing taxes-- tend to work better when there is a demand shock. There is a limit to what they can do in the event of a combined supply and demand shock.

...[T]he economic disruption caused by Covid-19 is enormous. Entire countries-- Italy and Spain-- are in lockdown. The problems facing airline companies are symptomatic of a crisis facing the global travel industry, from cruise companies to hotels that cater for tourists. Discretionary spending by consumers appears to have collapsed in recent days.

Despite globalisation, much economic activity remains local but here, too, there will be an impact as people cancel appointments at the dentist, put off having their hair cut and wait to put their house on the market.

Paul Dales, the chief UK economist at Capital Economics, has estimated that output in Britain will shrink by 2.5% in the second quarter but says a 5% fall is possible. The more pessimistic estimate looks quite plausible.

What’s more, in a service-sector dominated economy much of the lost output is never going to be recovered. If people do not go out to their weekly meal at their favourite local restaurant for the next two months they are not going to eat out four times a week when the fear of infection has been lifted.

It also seems likely that the economic pain will go on for longer than originally estimated. Having imposed bans and restrictions, governments and private-sector bodies will be cautious about removing them. Countries such as Italy will be wary of opening their borders while there is a fear of reinfection. The idea that Premier League football will be back by early April is fanciful.

There is also a question of how long it will take consumer and business confidence to recover. Policy action by central banks and finance ministries can help in this respect but only so much. The chances are that the imminent recession will be U-shaped: a steep decline followed by a period of bumping along the bottom. There will be recovery but it will take time and only after much damage has been caused.

People who tell you schools will reopen later in the month or next month or that "postponed" events will be rescheduled soon are either stupid or deceitful. Our politicians need to do two things immediately:

• remote voting for Congress and state legislatures
• removing voting for primaries and the 2020 general election

Immediately means now. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf did the right thing by ordering a total lockdown for Bucks and Chester counties but the Speaker of the state House, Michael Turzai (R), is refusing to postpone the election, knowing it is the only chance the GOP has to hold onto the seat.

Jay Ponti wrote over the weekend that words like "reckless," "criminal," and "villainous" only begin to describe the Democratic Party’s "willingness to threaten the lives of voters by not postponing voting at the polls" due to the pandemic.

The NHL, NBA and MLS have shut down.

Italy’s government imposed the closure of restaurants, bars and almost all shops except food stores and pharmacies. Three weeks ago Italian citizens were going about their day, business as usual, and today the country is in chaos.

Given the alarming rate of contagion, our country may be on the verge of the worst health catastrophe in modern U.S. history.

World leaders. A-list Hollywood actors. Members of Congress have tested positive for Covid-19. Not even POTUS was able to avoid being exposed to the virus that is ten times deadlier than the flu.

The difference between them and millions of poor people is that they have access to the best health care and will be at low risk to die from exposure.

Major museums, schools, and Universities. All closed.

Fucking Disney World.

Why? Because lives are at stake.

AEG has canceled Coachella and all North American concerted tours, but the democratic party is determined to put thousands of lives at risk just so it can push through their establishment candidate, Joe Biden.

The extent to which the virus is contained depends entirely on how the country responds to the crisis. Singapore and Taiwan are the gold standards in Coronavirus containment.

“While other countries waffled on acknowledging the danger of the outbreak, Taiwan took action immediately under the guidance of its National Health Command Center, which the country established after the deadly SARS outbreak in 2003 that killed 73 people there.”

Anywhere there are crowds of people in public is an unacceptable risk.

It is not overstating to say that holding primaries in the middle of a global pandemic is state-sanctioned genocide. To continue down this path following the fiascos in California and Texas that witnessed voters in line for up to 2–4 hours. Who were these people who stood in line for hours, refusing to be denied their sacred franchise?

Poor and working black and Latino voters.

These will be the ones to suffer the worst impact.

The effects won’t stop there. We need to understand that it is not just those who are infected in public spaces. It will affect the loved ones at home and everyone else that each infected person comes into contact with. Elders are the highest risk. Approximately 70–80% of senior citizens in other countries contracted the virus from a family member.

The only way to “flatten the curve” of Coronavirus is through quarantine. Global supply chains have been disrupted due to Trump’s trade war. Critical supplies for citizens and health workers like n95 respirator masks are all running out. The administration has forced the CDC to cut spending.

We are at a watershed moment.

The shelves of supermarkets are already being stripped bare, but we have not begun to see the worst.

We are in the moment when the shoreline is receding before the tipping point when the tsunami hits. The administration has been aware of this virus since December and has done nothing about it. Are we to believe that no one in the democratic leadership has been aware of this or the decimation of the CDC? Did anyone raise the alarm? Where was our media?

Failed leadership. Our institutions continue to fail us.

Liam O'Mara is the progressive Democrat and history professor running for the Riverside County congressional seat held by corrupt and incompetent Trump stooge Ken Calvert. O'Mara, however, knows that the incompetence isn't partisan and that there are Democrats every bit as bad as Republicans. This morning je told me that "Recently John Delaney tweeted that during a pandemic was a bad time to be discussing Medicare for all. With all due respect, it is the best time to be discussing it, since if we had done it decades ago we would be in far better shape to face a pandemic. Better late than never, though, and we need to be looking at how to prepare America for health care emergencies. Outbreaks like this are as inevitable as the sunrise-- they have recurred throughout history, and the best we can do is to be ready for them. Medicare helps to accomplish that, so here are a few points to consider:

Recently John Delaney tweeted that during a pandemic was a bad time to be discussing Medicare for all. With all due respect, it's a great time, since if we'd done it decades ago we would be in far better shape to face a pandemic. Better late than never-- we need to prepare America for health care emergencies. Outbreaks are as inevitable as the sunrise; they've recurred throughout history, and the best we can do is to be ready. Medicare helps to accomplish that, so here are a few points to consider:

1. 28 million Americans are uninsured, and tens of millions more are under-insured, with large co-pays and deductibles. People cannot afford to seek treatment and have been conditioned by experience not to try. It doesn't matter if the gov. says, "come on and get tested, it's free"-- lots of people won't hear it and a lot more won't believe it. (In fact, they should not, since our leaders have already lied about what they are providing in the way of emergency relief. Consider the sick-pay issue and the exemptions offered to so many businesses.) People who seek treatment for COVID-19 can get stuck with huge bills they cannot afford, raising again the spectre of ruined lives. We are the only rich country in the world where people declare bankruptcy over illnesses.

2. Without actual coverage, many Americans will be forced into emergency rooms when their symptoms get too bad to ignore. This can swiftly overwhelm capacity, since the need for profit slows investment in hospital capacity. We do not have existing capacity to treat a major pandemic regardless-- look back to the Spanish Flu of 1918, and at what China did in Wuhan, for an example of what is needed to manage a large-scale outbreak. But emergency rooms are especially costly and easily overrun by high demand, and the lack of regular coverage makes them the only option for many. This is a problem unique in the rich world, and makes no logical sense.

3. Cost considerations have compromised our readiness in other ways-- health care centres nationwide are short of equipment needed to treat a pandemic, from masks and sterilizing agents on down to beds and staff. As it is, rural America is chronically short of health care providers. The need to make a profit from health care leads to very different calculations than a simple emphasis on the public good.

4. Regular check-ups and preventive care also increase the resilience of a population. We are the 35th healthiest population in the world, despite extraordinary spending on health care, so we are getting poor value for our money. With universal health care, Americans would be healthier overall, and we would not have a large pool of citizens & residents who never see a provider and may be at higher risk due to untreated chronic heart & lung illnesses.

5. And again, lack of coverage means that by the time many seek treatment, their condition will be quite bad, and they'll have exposed more people, both at the medical facility and in their daily lives and workplaces. 44% of Americans report they do not seek treatment when sick due to cost. The outrageous cost of health care in the US puts us all at far greater risk. This is inexcusable. It's time for Medicare for all.

Nabilah Islam doesn't agree with John Delaney's position any more than Liam is. She's running for an open suburban seat north of Atlanta and a few hours ago she told us that "There is nothing I have more confidence in than the American people and our ability to persevere. I know that like we have in the past so many times, we will too overcome the coronavirus. What we CANNOT do is wait for the next pandemic to fight and pass Medicare for All. While the costs of testing are being waived, what about the cost of treatment? Without a centralized system, we will have a hard time streamlining supply orders. By states and hospitals estimating bed counts by the insured instead of populations, we will not have the capacity needed. If the coronavirus has shown us anything, we need Medicare for All Now."

Montana state Rep and congressional candidate Tom Winter reminded us that "It shouldn't have taken a global pandemic for us to finally realize our government and healthcare system does not work for America's working families. I've been working as a state legislator throughout this crisis to connect public health and healthcare professionals with our state and local government to help with triage plans and general preparedness. What immediately jumped out to me was how little capacity our hospitals and healthcare providers have to deal with an influx of patients. If the other wealthy countries of the world that have single payer healthcare systems-- and much greater capacity than us-- are bending to their breaking points as this pandemic reaches new levels, then I worry our system is woefully unprepared for the approaching storm. In the meantime, our politics is finally catching up on certain baseline policies like guaranteeing paid sick leave, waiving out-of-pocket expenses for life-saving testing and care, lowering drug costs, and countless other commonsense things that already exist in single payer systems. When we get through this crisis I think Americans will have a much greater appreciation for the security a single payer healthcare system could provide for their family's health. Not to mention the blowback that will happen when we all realize the ridiculousness that all of these life-saving policies were only temporary. Healthcare is a right for all, whether we are in a pandemic or not."