Holiday Travel

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Holiday travel this year is like holding a hot air balloon Festival during a tornado. This is 2020 so a firenado seemed more appropriate.

There are 37 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The constant refrain of holiday carols and commercialization leads to a desire for human companionship. Millions of Americans ignored warnings from health experts and decided to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday. The CDC has said that small home gatherings are the primary source of spread of the COVID-19 virus.in a recent study it was found that the virus was spread 65% of the time at small gatherings. The coming weeks will be difficult, especially since so many traveled over the holiday and held in-person dinners indoors.

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s foremost authority on infectious diseases, and Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned about the potential for a spike in infections stemming from holiday parties, even if they’re small and only among relatives.

Nearly 3 million air travelers passed through security checkpoints on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday before Thanksgiving. Sunday was the single-busiest day at airport checkpoints since March. The Thanksgiving travel damage is done. It will take 7 to 10 days for people to discover if they have been infected. Dr. Anthony Fauci described what the United States will experience in the first weeks of December as “A surge upon a surge.”

Fauci said the arrival of vaccines offers a “light at the end of the tunnel.”However we all have to stay vigilant to help slow the spread of the virus until that vaccines can be distributed. Health care workers will likely be among the first to get the vaccine, with the first vaccinations happening before the end of December, followed by many more in January, February and March, he said.

In the mean time do not let your guard down leading up to Christmas. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said to think of COVID like the Grinch. If you practice social distancing, wear a mask in public and wash your hands often we can all celebrate the holidays safely. In many places, hospitals are being overwhelmed by rising case loads. More than 20 percent of U.S. hospitals expect critical staff shortages in the coming week, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Beds can be built but you still need enough doctors to handle the rise in cases. we are fast approaching 100,000 people who are hospitalized for COVID-19. Now the Midwest, Great Plains, and Mountain West are the new hot spots, but some former hot spots are warming back up as well, with cases and hospitalizations surging again. Florida which is third in terms of the number of deaths from COVID-19 is again becoming a hot spot. “Thanksgiving may be the beginning of a dark holiday season as the surge in coronavirus cases is likely to persist, or even get worse, through December, January and February.” said Dr. Fauci.

It Is What It Is

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Trump has not been to a Coronavirus Task Force meeting in months. Simply put he doesn’t give a damn how many people die. Scott Atlas, a radiologist with no experience with infectious diseases, has caught the presidents ear and he is a yes man, telling the president what he wants to hear.

Atlas, put out a Tweet that claimed that widespread use of face masks does not help slow the spread of COVID-19. Twitter had to remove the tweet for spreading false and misleading information. Atlas frequently clashes with other members of the White House Coronavirus task force. Last month, an NBC News reporter overheard CDC Director Robert Redfield saying on a phone call: “Everything he says is false.” US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC) recommends people wear masks in public settings and when around people who don’t live in their household, especially when other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain.

Atlas has rejected the need for widespread community testing, arguing that the administration should focus almost exclusively on protecting and testing elderly populations while pushing for the rest of the economy to return to normal, this official said. “Everything he says and does points toward herd immunity,” a senior administration official said. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, have warned that the “herd immunity” approach is dangerous.

The My Pillow Guy caught the presidents ear and was promoting an unproven treatment for COVID-19. He proclaimed the President was “enthusiastic” about the unproven therapeutic. Many reports have focused on its considerable toxicity, which has led to accidental — and sometimes deliberate poisonings, including for suicide. It has also poisoned animals. The US Army Institute of Infectious Diseases conducted tests on the drug’s effect on Covid-19, which were halted due to “inconclusive” results.

The White House has been a hot spot for the virus having more cases than all of New York State. Trump who recovered from COVID-19 has not embraced simple safety measures instead he is holding super spreader rallies all across the country, effectively spreading the disease. Trump believes that if you put your head in the sand it will all go away. His incompetence continues to cause needless deaths, it is what it is.

In White House coronavirus task force reports obtained by CNN this week, officials say there are “early signs of deterioration in the Sun Belt and continued deterioration in the Midwest and across the Northern States.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis got this report just prior to Trump holding a super spreader rally in Sanford Florida but the governor tried to hide the report claim all is well. He also wants to stop sharing the daily numbers from testing just as the worst is about to begin.

The United States just reported its highest spike in new COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began with more than 83,000 new cases on Friday October 23, 2020.  Hospitalizations and daily death tolls are rising across the country, with experts warning that the worst is yet to come. In a few weeks, deaths will start to increase. It is a pattern that repeats itself with each new ave of the virus with no plan to stop the spread. 224,000 Americans have died so far from COVID-19.

Second Wave

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There were 3 different waves of illness during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, starting in March 1918 and subsiding by summer of 1919. The pandemic peaked in the U.S. during the second wave, in the fall of 1918. This highly fatal second wave was responsible for most of the U.S. deaths attributed to the pandemic. The virus infected 500 million people worldwide and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims.

President Donald Trump claimed the danger of a second wave  was “fake news” and said “Covid-19 virus might not come back at all.” CDC Director Robert Redfield told The Washington Post that there could be a second wave of the coronavirus this winter, combined with flu season, ‘will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went
through.’ Trump pulled Redfield up to the podium during a press briefing to dispute the report but after splitting hairs between “worse” and “more difficult or more complicated” he confirmed that he was quoted correctly by the Post. Dr. Anthony Fauci, referenced the possibility of a “second wave” of the Covid-19
pandemic in the fall, following expected slower growth rates of COVID-19 cases during the summer. He said, “By then, the country will be better equipped to fight the illness.

On March 31, 2020 Captain Brett Crozier of the USS Roosevelt Aircraft Carrier, sent an emotional letter, pleading for a more decisive response to his ship’s COVID-19 outbreak. He had asked for permission to let all but 10 percent of crew get off in Guam for their protection.That letter leaked to the news media. 

On April 2, 2020 he was removed as the ship’s skipper by then-acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly. Video of the crew when he had to leave the ship was brimming with the respect they had for their captain. The Navy secretary then flew to Guam where the the war ship was docked in the midst of a pandemic and delivered in person a petty, obscenity-laced speech denigrated the captain and his crew. Modly said, “If he didn’t think the information was going to get out into the public, in this information age, then he was either -A too naive or too stupid to the commander of a ship like this.” The crew could be heard literally shouting “What the F#ck?!” The acting Navy Secretary’s comments were widely criticized. Clearly he was too naive or too stupid to realize that his comments would have consequences.  He resigned.

 At least 840 sailors on the war ship have since tested positive for the virus. The number could climb as a “small number” of results are still pending. The Navy has tested the entire 5,000-member crew of the Nimitz class, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Of the positive cases, 88 sailors have since recovered, the Navy
said. Four sailors remain in the hospital, down from six Wednesday, with
none in intensive care. One sailor from the Roosevelt died last week.

Admiral Michael Gilday, who is the Navy’s highest-ranking officer, is
reported by the Associated Press to have met with Joint Chiefs Chairman
General Mark Milley on Tuesday and with Defense Secretary Mark Esper Friday
to recommend the fired captain’s reinstatement. On April 20, 2020 the recommendation was made that Captain Brett Crozier be put back
in command of the Covid-19 plagued aircraft carrier USS Theodore
Roosevelt. Crozier’s reinstatement is likely to be the first time that a
ship’s commanding officer who had been relieved of command for a loss of
confidence has been restored to command.

The heroes in this crisis are those that seek to protect those around them, while government leadership looks for ways to cover up or ignore the crisis exists. Captain Brett Crozier is one such hero.