I have been thinking a lot about what the future holds for this country in the final days leading up to this election. I find it encouraging that so many Americans have taken it upon themselves to vote early ... 40 million by last count. Pretty impressive! That being said, it kind of feels like my vote, living up here in Seattle area, doesn't really count because everyone I meet up here seems to be on the far Left of the political spectrum, such that my lone voice in a crowd --gone made?-- just gets completely drowned out, but I will cast a ballot nonetheless.
Funny thing is, being an Independent I have voted for many Democrats in other elections/offices. I look at records, policies, platforms, transparency and more importantly ACCOUNTABILITY. To my way of thinking, if you are going to get my VOTE, you will have to have a detailed plan and record of delivering. I have not, however, met many people living up here who express a willingness to likewise vote with THOUGHT; the norm up here seems to be mindless voting for any and everything with a liberal tag on it, across the board. And when I try to engage people in meaningful conversations about the issues facing the state of our local Seattle area/WA State and the nation as whole, I just wind up getting shamed for non-aquiescence or shouted down in a tirade completely absent of any logic, facts or reason. It's truly exhausting!
So I find myself wondering, what if I could say something to a fellow citizen and they would actually listen to what I have to say, expressing for once an uncharacteristic willingness to consider --just for a moment-- another perspective: What would I say to them?
If this election boils down to purely to the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic --which is what I seem to be hearing up here-- then don't you owe it to yourself and to the nation as a whole to actually KNOW THE DETAILS of Biden plan for national recovery from this rather timely Chinese pandemic? What, if any, details has Biden given in this respect? Aside from wrestling control from State and Local authorities to nationalize control by require ongoing lockdowns and a national mask-wearing mandate, I have NOT heard anything meaningful or specific on this front coming from Joe Biden or his running mate, Kamala Harris. Something, "better" and "different" is NOT a meaningful, condfidence-inspiring plan.
o Joe Biden is on record for being against the timely travel ban on travel from China in January 2020. Per "the Science" --Journal of Science, May 2020-- this move alone saved hundred of thousands of United States citizens lives. According to the Democrats and those on the Left, "Travel bans are wholly ineffective, xenophobic and purely punative in nature", right? The evidence here alone would strongly suggest otherwise!
o We are a union of United States, where all powers not exclusively granted to the Federal government are retained by the individual member states --this where a basic working knoweledge of U.S. Civics comes in handy. Big Government, as evidenced by countless examples in our nation's history, seldom does anything in a timely, individualized and cost-effective manner. That's the beauty of our system. States are allowed to enact policies that will best benefit their local constituents in many areas, with the support of the Federal Government (e.g., federal funding and laws, law enforcement, emergency aid, National Guard).
From a Covid-19 perspective, it makes little sense to lockdown cities in remote areas where their is little to no infection outbreak. Same thing goes for mask-mandates. One size doesn't fit all, even in a national pandemic. Decisions are best made, with real-time data on the ground in each locality and bearing in mind the over-arching costs of shut-down (e.g., economic, emotional, social, educational, long-term health consequences, that is to say people not getting the routine medical care and screening they would otherwise be receiving).
Quite frankly, given the suppression of facts and spinning of truth in information that I have wittnessed of late coming from social-media, mainstream media, academia and celebrity pudints/figures with a 'national microphone', the notion of surrendering complete control under to GOVERNMENT under the guise of a pandemic scares the living daylights out of me! But you have to possess a mind capable of thinking in order to fathom the potential longer-term consequences of such a scenario?
o The Obama-Biden Administration did a terrible job in their handling of the Swine-Flu epidemic in January 2009. They got lucky, however, because the virus wound up not being as deadly as was anticipated in the United States. Swine flu is now incorporated into the annual flu vaccine. What this administration did do, however, was to leave the shelves of the National Emergency supply EMPTY! What little supplies were available when the pandemic hit wound up being expired (.e.g, PPE and meals) and fell woefully short on medical equipment/supplies (e.g., ventilators and other vital medical equipment and medications).
President Trump worked with American manufacturers to quickly restock this depleted national supply, turning out hundreds of thousands of N95 masks, face sheilds, gloves, gowns, disinfectants and ventilators. He invoked the "National Defense Clause" in instances where companies fell short in compliance. Trump even came up with the idea of re-using sanitized masks in the short-term while supplies were generated. He then found a company that had been working on a patent for a machine that would do just that --sanitizing 20,000 masks daily for re-use-- and worked with the FDA to get their patent processed in a timely manner.
President Trump mobilized National Guard in cites to assist in cities that needed them (e.g., New York City and Javitz Center Hospital). He sent Navy hospital ships to San Francisco and New York to handle potential hospital overflows. Trump worked with manufacturers to get testing for this novel (meaning NEW!) coronavirus up to speed so as to help curb spread in areas of high outbreak.
o From an information standpoint, President Trum did a rather remarkable job of getting the information as it became available out to the American people (e.g., how long virus remains active on surfaces and in the air, what kills the virus --sunlight in two minutes, alcohol in 30 seconds, Bleach in 5 minutes), with his daily Covid-19 expert-driven briefings. When the experts called for a nation-wide lockdown in order to help curb the spread of the virus, President Trump made the call to temporarily shut-down, even at the risk of jeopardizing the record-breaking economy his Administration had worked so hard to accomplish. He did this, because President Trump truly cares for the American people --ALL the people, even those who happen to disagree with him politically. And the lock-down did help to curb, reducing the projected loss of life from over 2 MILLION DEATHS to just over 200,000 deaths --which was projected level with containment measures taken. This is where we are now, at just over 200,000 deaths. While any loss of life is unfortunate and truly heartfelt, from a numbers perspective alone President Trump working in conjucntion with the various State Governors has indisputably been successful in curbing the rampant spread of the covid-19 virus, despite the mainstream media/pundits counter-spin.
I also keep hearing that "numbers of cases are going up!" This while true needs to be looked at in context. We are now testing over 1 million a week here in the United States. So naturally one would expect that the number of cases we are able to identify would also go UP. What people are missing in all of this is the fact that while the number of cases are going up the corresponding death rate is dropping significantly. That is to say this virus is not as deadly as we initially thought when we did not yet have widespread testing available for everyone. In fact a number of people who test positive for the virus are completely asymptomatic or have little to few symptoms. That's good news. Those at risk still need to take precautions. 10/23/20 No one is discounting that fact, but we should acknowledge an upside when we find one not continue to wallow in alarm and outright fear, "preparing for a dark winter?" Seriously? What a way NOT to lead!
Moreover, President Trump has worked tirelessly --w.r.t. to the FDA, CDC/NIH and funding-- to enable the development of new therapuetics and several vaccines which will be available within a matter of weeks, given a 2nd term for the Trump Administration. In fact, in the aftermath of Trump's own recovery from covid-19 he promised that the monoclonal antibody treatment he received would be made available to senior citizens and others across the nation who are recovering from the virus: And the President delivered! My mother informed me that the Aunt of her cousin, age 95, living in a nursing home came down with Covid-19 a little over a week ago. She was given Regeneron@ and within three days later, this woman/mother/aunt/wife/sister was back up and running again, almost as if she'd never been ill in the first place. Truly remarkable!
o As for wearing masks: 1) CDC and Surgeon General for first several masks of this pandemic said masks were ineffective in stopping spread of the virus. 2) Then in late April/May they changed their tune, indicating that mask-wearing may help to curb spread of the virus. Which is fine, facts as we know them can change? That's part of the scientific process.
Fluid-dynamic studies suggest, however, that while wearing a mask helps to contain the small particle droplet spread from the mask-wearer, it does little --if anything-- to protect the wearer of the mask from inaling these potentially infectious droplets, as evidenced by infection data currently being compiled on mask-wearers contracting the virus. Hence, the need for improved air circulation in indoor spaces and extreme physical distancing.
Bottom-line, while mask-wearing and physical distancing may help curb the spread of this deadly virus, they are NOT A LONG-TERM SOULTION! Science does not operate in a vaccuum and we have to consider the longer-term consequences of ongoing shutdown and social isolation. The WHO organization even came out recently disclaiming the benefits on ongoing lockdowns in combatting this disease. What we need is a vaccine --in addition to the remarkable strides that have already made w.r.t. therapeutics-- in order to re-open our society and to get our economy back-on the record-breaking track it was steaming along before this China-virus hit. Only with a vaccine will their be any return to some form a new normalcy ... For in the absence of the Chinese Government being held accountable for unleashing this virus onto the rest of the world and then to add insult injury, lying about it (!!), life in the age of pandemics may unfortunately become our new normal?
So you have to ask yourself, am I willing to having long-term mask-wearing and going shutdowns be the new normal in our nation at risk of permanently derailing our nation's economy and wreaking havoc on other social/educational institutions and individuals mental-emotional well-being? ["The cure cannot be worse that the disease?!] If not, which candidate's administration is forth-coming in their committment to get a vaccine out to "We the People" in a timely, albeit safe, fashion? Which candidate is committed to holding the Chinese Government accountable for their part in unleashing this pandemic onto the rest of the world, so as to deter China --or any other nation-- from ever letting this sort of thing happen again?
11/28/2020 We NOW have 3 different Covid-19 vaccines, with over a 90% effectivity, ready to roll out in a matter of a few weeks --pending FDA approval. Did we get this information BEFORE the election? Big fat NOPE? We got it days after in the case of Pfiezer and about week after the election in the case of Moderna. Coicindence? Not a chance! The announcement that "Operation Warp Speed" has helped to secure a vaccine to combat the rather suspiciously timed China-virus in record shattering time would have been the final death blow to Joe Biden's attempts to stagger across the finish line, so the elite powers-that-be put a hard-STOP on the respective drug companies making their announcements until after the election. Downright scary, if you ask me!?! But not alltogether suprising given the dark machinations "We the People" have had to bear witness to these past 4 years. Only thing I can say to that is that KARMA can be a REAL B**** and a BIG THANKYOU TO PRESIDENT TRUMP AND VP MIKE PENCE FOR THEIR TIRELESS DILLIGENCE IN DOING WHAT IT TOOK TO MAKE THESE VACCINES HAPPEN!!!
