Posted on 03/15/2020 2:11:56 PM PDT by TheConservativeBanker
Whether we will collectively move away from fears that make us subservient ....
By Philip Alcabes | March 10, 2020 Flights are canceled, airports are closed, conferences and conventions postponed, churches and mosques shuttered, soccer games played in stadiums empty of spectators. My university has called home the study-abroad students from Italy, Japan, South Korea, and China. It would be easy to look at the world in the face of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, and believe it is theater, penned by a playwright filled with xenophobia and fears of promiscuous mixing with other humans.
Every epidemic is theater, a drama written by the powerful for the sake of the unsuspecting. AIDS became a morality tale of innocence and sin. Outbreaks of Ebola became stories of strange tribal customs and feckless governments. Measles outbreaks become the fault of a delusional but highly organized “anti-vaxxer” movement. What’s unusual about the outbreak of COVID-19 is that the story isn’t being told by the powerful. The powerful are just consumers here, responders, sometimes influencers, salespeople of a certain frightened view. But the story of COVID-19—a surrealist masterpiece—masked citizens, ubiquitous squeeze bottles of Purell, conspiracy theories, bravado, insouciance, boredom, and anxiety—is taking shape purely out of information.
A little epidemiology to start with. It’s becoming clearer by the day that COVID-19 is a conventional virus. By this I mean that many people who are infected (perhaps most) do not get sick at all or become only mildly ill. Most of those who do get sick are older (children under age 15 are almost never reported among the seriously ill). They may have a concerning but not serious illness, including fever and cough. A few suffer badly. Some must be hospitalized, and a fraction of those who are hospitalized have and will continue to die......
(Excerpt) Read more at theamericanscholar.org ...
Good read...
Something understandable.
Good article, interesting author. Thanks.
It’s an article that sounds reasonable and thoughtful with regard to the virus itself. But not necessarily with regard to political considerations.
The author’s response to Trump and to current political themes has a distinct flavor of leftism, including repetitive use of the word “xenophobia,” which he seems to use in the same, clichéd, accusatory manner, blindly accepting media narratives.
If what the author is saying is accurate, then why would our hospitals be overrun? People keep saying that will happen like it’s a foregone conclusion.
I thought that the community could use an article by a real epidemiologist which neither downplays the coronavirus significance, nor succumbs to the hysteria that seems to grip otherwise sensible people.
Corrupt media Dempanic that may result in a economy downturn worse than 911.
Do governments ever promote a story line which reduces their power or which makes them look less necessary? We should at least consider that media and the permanent government (bureaucracies) are deliberately creating a panic to make tyranny more acceptable downstream. In Virginia, where I live, it is indisputable that Ralph Northam is an aspiring tyrant, as well as a lying piece of feces.
Another flaw in this author’s commentary is his apparent inability to recognize the immense and exquisite political balancing act President Trump is forced to perform in his response to this virus problem.
Forced, simply because of the infantile and ruthless disposition of the media and the democrats in their desire to harm him.
bttt
In other words, are you acknowledging that this is primarily a political and propaganda crisis, not necessarily a 1918 influenza type health crisis?
Remember that the author is actually a real scientist, not a propaganda expert.
Simple.
His medical statements are sound.
But the political innuendo in his article is far left.
Political commentary by scientists are political, not scientific.
I’m honestly more worried about home invasions than Captain Trips at this point thanks to the enemedia sending people into full panic mode.
The article was not all political. The science seems sound on the surface. I have been a university professor for the last 10 years. Almost all scientists are leftists. You do have to sift the flyspecks from the pepper when you read their work. Are you disputing his scientific judgment or his politics? He could be wrong on political issues, but reasonably on target with the scientific content.
When he includes Trump with Putin and Xi in the following lines
“the Trump administration in the US, Putin in Russia, the Xi administration in China, and their many imitators had been decisive and ruthless in locking up their undesirables and in delivering policies that appeal to hypernationalist rhetoric.”
the author is making political comments. And his political judgment is clearly displayed as very low IQ.
He’s equating Trump with Putin and Xi.
How many times to I have to repeat to you, as I did in post #15, that the medical science in the article was sound?
Medical science part = good.
Political innuendo = not good.
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