Panic at the Disco

The idea of going back on into circulation doesn’t bother me as I have never left it; however, that was because no one else was out there with me.  I have ridden PATH trains, taken Ferries and walked all over NYC and Jersey City many times. I have gone to the market, my local coffee shops and any of the open shops to fill pantries and fill my coffers. True I have had to rely on online to shop for extraneous items as I am now on my third attempt at redecorating my apartment, being confined does that.  Or I am that bored.  I have baked way too much, not worked out enough and am splitting my seams waiting to get back to a routine that includes the gym and yoga.  That said I will go in with my own mask, gloves and clean everything before and after I touch the lot, strip down the clothes and wash those and follow the same protocol I have been doing since mid March.  I rarely did food take out or delivery and that has not changed as I was a once a week kind of person but oddly now with more restaurants opening they still have that option available so on that note it seems like a great time to take advantage as the last thing I want to do is be crammed in with people shoving food and drink in their faces and the droplets and air filled with toxic spit.   I feel for the servers as nothing is going to stop that train as it crashes into the station. And for now the same goes with hair and nail salons, my spa however is a private facility and that I will go to to sweat out some of the calories I have shoved into my face of late.

I am not shocked to see the herd mentality kick in as this shut in shit can only go on so long but why was simply because they had not a fucking clue and this continues with the phase plan and the idea that this somehow will stop the spread. No it won’t it simply curtailed it for a moment the rising numbers in States that opened earlier prove that.  My favorite explanation by a dipsht Okie as the Trump Dump last night was this, ““If it is God’s will that I get coronavirus that is the will of the Almighty. I will not live in fear,” said Robert Montanelli, a resident of Broken Arrow, a Tulsa suburb

Continue reading the main storBy late morning in Tulsa on Saturday, a steadily growing line of rallygoers had assembled. Some had traveled significant distances, but many other attendees were Tulsa locals or came from nearby states, like Kansas and Missouri, or elsewhere in deep-red Oklahoma. The crowd was overwhelmingly white, and most people ranged in age from their 40s to their 60s, though a sizable number of attendees also brought their children.

“It’s all fake,” said Mike Alcorn, 40, who works in maintenance and lives in Wichita, Kan. “They’re just making the numbers up. I haven’t seen anybody die, not from coronavirus. I don’t even know anybody who’s got it.”

And few actually do, or if they do it is all second hand information and those that have had personal experience as one of my Barista’s have it is because he has long tentacles into the community and in turn is a drama queen at some level so the of the two he knows, one is dead.  I have heard of four in my building but again that is about the level of how Covid has affected others.  Heard of, know of, read of or don’t know anyone.   And that is what we see now. The media does a great job of finding and eliminating sources who fit the bill of the profile they are trying to create.  When it was all seniors and meat packers one would think it was everywhere and in fact it was as again that is the true death numbers, those elderly, those poor and living or working in confined spaces.  But the numbers we are given will never be accurate so I have given up believing any of them and it appears no one else does either, hence the race to the restaurants day one, phase one. Or is that two? Who came up with this bullshit plan? I see Igor Fauci’s dirty unwashed hands all over this.

But to give this endless number parade a perspective, we have to look that two factors really contribute to the numbers -ageism and racism – as those two components really figure into some of the major death counts. And by looking at the numbers it appears that is true.  As it stands  the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reports that 8 out of 10 of the people who have died of covid-19 in the United States so far were 65 and older.“The COVID-19 emergency gives us the opportunity to examine health inequalities in the U.S.,” they write. “It gives us a chance to look again at the way Americans view and treat older people. And it lets us look at how pitting generations against one another only leads to disaster.

And the racial component is another. Across the United States, we are seeing alarming statistics about the disproportionate toll of COVID-19 on Latino and black people. In New York City, the New York Times tells us, coronavirus is twice as deadly for these minorities as for their white counterparts. In both Chicago and Louisiana, black patients account for 70% of coronavirus deaths, even though they make up roughly a third of the population.

At Massachusetts General Hospital, where we practice, an estimated 35% to 40% of patients admitted to the hospital with the coronavirus are Latino — that’s a 400% increase over the percentage of patients admitted before the outbreak who were Latino.

All medical care is done via the  Crisis Standards of Care guidelines, which are utilitarian and aim to benefit the greatest number of people while treating “individual cases fairly.” It, however, defers to a system that penalizes on the basis of comorbidities, and will undoubtedly and unfairly penalize the populations that are already more vulnerable to those conditions, aka, largely faces of color who have extraneous health problems; Racial disparities already existed in medical care and Covid just exacerbated it.

And there is the belief that being young is somehow a natural preventative. Well as Covid is killing off the old and faces of color where do you think the wheel will land next when it stops spinning? I will let you guess on that one.  As for the children with the mysterious illness well that was yesterday and apparently that too is over? Or is it? Hell if I know you Google that one.

My friend in Tennessee went to Florida on vacation and that is the state of mind and being when it comes to the young.  I, however, think the second wave is this happening right now. And as we reopen the cases will spike again but they have already let the horse out of the barn and it is too late to close the door, so minor punishments like no sports, crowded auditoriums or the like will be the most significant loss in the months to come as they have nothing else to deprive us from.

We are over 40 Million strong unemployed and the reality of jobs and coming back to fully functioning offices is a distant future as that we were dumping folks fast and furious. So once the plates have been cleared and the check paid,  start planning now for a serious recession.  As the unemployment office is still trying to catch up and add to that the immense fraud and theft going on (I spoke to a woman whose entire UI check was taken from the bank when she went to withdraw it). And she is a waitress and unsure about phase two opening and what that will mean. So eat up there folks!  I note that almost all the buildings in the area are having massive move outs, some in but most are vacancies and more will follow. Most of those moves are because there were few buildings allowing it and fewer movers available, that will be the biggest log jam ahead as the eviction moratoriums are up, the use of damage deposit for rent has been used already so next up is out and back home or to cheaper alternatives.

The New York Times did find that for many, particularly Millennials (my favorite group!) are the ones most likely leaving but with plans to return (please don’t, thanks);  but despite this little adjustments are being made to rents which is not surprising as Landlords have a huge tax and mortgage issue coming due in the months ahead and the belief that this is all just temporary. Sure what.ever.

Then the bills and costs of Covid are starting to arrive in the mail despite the Government’s promise to cover the costs for uninsured fully and the difference of those insured and their deductible.  And of course costs for the test which seem to vary widely are also covered but the point of the test is that it only tells you are negative now but you are not immune.  Even the antibody tests are not conclusive so don’t throw out those masks quite yet.  Ask this guy about his bill, or these billings.  And more and more stories about bills and costs are coughing up all over the place.

So enjoy today’s Father’s Day brunch and realize that the person shoveling in Eggs Benedict next to you coughing and laughing has nothing wrong with him at all, its just allergies, right?

That Covid thing?

We are still in the throes of a pandemic, despite that the Covid Task Force has been disbanded and the daily lottery numbers have given way to proclamations that are pro protest, amidst the calls to being the phase one openings of New York City and most of New Jersey.  For the states that began this phase weeks ago they are finding slight upticks in the numbers that have little to do with the ongoing protests and other incidents that have placed people into close contact with Police contributing to the chaos with tear gas and flash bombs that lead to coughing and spewing droplets all over the place. Talk about stopping the spread, really?

Covid, I believe, is what led to the protests. Frankly the deaths of black men and others at the hands of Police have been topping 1,000 (3 a day ) for the past five years since The Washington Post and Guardian began to tally the deaths they tracked across the country after Ferguson.  I am sure much like Covid those numbers are largely skewed and incorrect in light that we really don’t have any way of tracking deaths that occurred later out of custody due from injuries sustained or even suicide the result of PTSD when once experiences serious trauma.

But Covid is here and it is not going anywhere as long as it has a lung to attach itself to and spread that virus like bad case of herpes.  We all remember that one? You don’t?  Well incurable disease and fear of contagion has been around a long time, so welcome to the club.  But we really get our knickers in a twist when its about sex and how its transmitted. Remember AIDS?   Starting to see similarities between them all?  EBOLA, ZIKA, H1N1.  Then we have a return of Polio, and my personal favorite Measles and Whooping Cough, all preventable but not to the Anti Vaxx crowd.

One of the most important tool in understanding contagion and transmission is contact tracing and it has a long history from Smallpox to AIDS. Irony that now States are trying to enter that phase is of course a little to late and utterly without any true training or plan in place it will be as effective as the lockdown was to stopping the spread, as well cases are still there so that worked out well, didn’t it?  Economic destruction and social unrest are equal tradeoffs for the failures of our Government, both federal and state, to have any type of coherent and consistent pandemic response.

This is where we are with regards to Contract Tracing and it will be as fucked up as all the rest so don’t throw out those masks and gloves quite yet.

Contact tracing is ‘best’ tool we have until there’s a vaccine, say health experts

By Frances Stead Sellers and Ben Guarino
The Washington Post
June 14, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. EDT

It has quelled outbreaks of Ebola, allowed smallpox to be corralled before being vanquished by a vaccine, and helped turn HIV into a survivable illness. And whenever a new infectious disease emerges, contact tracing is public health’s most powerful weapon for tracking transmission and figuring out how best to protect the population.

But now, as coronavirus cases are surging in hot spots across the country, the proven strategy’s efficacy is in doubt: Contact tracing failed to stanch the first wave of coronavirus infections, and today’s far more extensive undertaking will require 100,000 or more trained tracers to delve into strangers’ personal lives and persuade even some without symptoms to stay home. Health departments in many of the worst-affected communities are way behind in hiring and training those people. The effort may also be hobbled by the long-standing distrust among minorities of public health officials, as well as worries about promising new technologies that pit privacy against the public good.

“We don’t have a great track record in the United States of trust in the public health system,” said David C. Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors. Ever since the 40-year Tuskegee experiment, which withheld treatment for syphilis from poor black men, officials have had to make special efforts, he said, to reach those now “disproportionately impacted by covid who are African Americans and Latinos.”

Still, as states relax restrictions, public health experts believe wide-scale contact tracing is the price that must be paid to reopen safely without reverting to the blanket lockdown that put nearly 40 million Americans out of work. Time is of the essence, they say, taking advantage of the drop in cases resulting from the shutdowns.

“Contact tracing is finding the next generation before they happen, getting ahead of that transmission cycle to stop it,” said Emily Gurley, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the instructor of the school’s new six-hour online contact-tracing course. Gurley doesn’t believe the strategy will stop transmission, but that in concert with testing and other measures, it can prevent the disease from spreading exponentially.

Right now, though, the virus is showing signs of taking the lead again. As states have lifted restrictions on retail and large gatherings, more than a dozen are facing new heights in cases or hospitalizations, according to Washington Post data.

In Arizona, for example, the governor reopened before local health departments had hired and trained its new army of contact tracers, said Will Humble, former director of the state’s health department.

“We flattened the curve. Then, by the time we ended, the contact tracers weren’t up and running yet,” said Humble, who described case investigation and contact tracing as key elements of a multipronged response, including mask-wearing and social distancing. The health departments in the state’s hard-hit urban counties have been repurposing staff, in addition to making new hires, he said, using federal dollars and support from an Arizona-based nonprofit group, the Crisis Response Network.

Incentives could have been built in, tying each region’s reopening to its hiring of adequate contact tracers, Humble said.

“We didn’t do that here,” he said. “Now we have to ramp up a contact-tracing workforce that isn’t going to get to everything probably.”

Texas, also seeing a dramatic surge, has relaxed restrictions after hiring about 3,000 of the 4,000 contact tracers Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said in April he planned to have in place as part of his reopening strategy.

“Both we and the local health departments continue to add staff,” said Chris Van Deusen, spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. “We can scale up further if that becomes necessary.”

Michael Sweat, director of the Center for Global Health at the Medical University of South Carolina, said the state health department, which has suffered from long-term underfunding, was trying hard to ramp up contact tracing as parts of the state suffer “worrisome micro-epidemics.”

“There’s a lot of effort going into training and deploying people, and working on technology to help. But they are still getting their footing,” Sweat said, as the infection growth rate in Charleston suddenly doubled.

In April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded $631 million from the Cares Act to state and local health departments for surveillance, including contact tracing, even as a report from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security estimated 100,000 new hires will be needed to trace all contacts, safely isolate the sick and quarantine those exposed, at a cost of $3.6 billion.

Across the country, the efforts to ramp up are vast and varied.

The University of California at San Francisco has been tapped by the state to create a Pandemic Workforce Training Academy that will train as many as 3,000 people for the state’s 58 county health departments, many of them focusing on low-income communities where requests to quarantine can be financially devastating.

In Fairfax County, Virginia, the county health department has subcontracted to a private company, GattiHR, to create a 400-strong, largely remote contact-tracing team, looking for people with “empathy, attention to detail, resilience [and] investigative skills,” and finding successful applicants among those furloughed from the hospitality industry.

In Rhode Island, Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) unveiled a free voluntary app that health officials hope will prove more reliable than people’s memories in re-creating their recent contacts — one of numerous cellphone tracking innovations, including the Apple-Google exposure notification system, that have prompted privacy concerns from civil libertarians.

And in Florida, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has been working urgently with Doctors Without Borders to win the confidence of migrant workers, where 37 percent of those tested at pop-up clinics were positive. Their goal is to slow the virus’s spread before farmworkers leave for summer jobs in Georgia, South Carolina and beyond.

“We have a window of opportunity,” said Gerardo Reyes Chavez, a former farmworker, who said that as people have become sick, they have worried they might lose their jobs. “They are having to weigh what is scarier for them — to know they have the disease or not.”

But several people like Chavez who work with immigrant groups said people have grown more willing to respond to contact tracers as the virus has sickened more people, giving them concerns about infecting their own family members.

In San Francisco, librarian Ramses Escobedo, who became a contact tracer after two weeks of training, said the health department gave out a 60-page instruction document. “It has information from the scripts you’re supposed to follow, the questions you’re supposed to ask.” (Escobedo, who speaks Spanish, noticed some errors in the Spanish translations and said he had them fixed.)

Of the 30 people Escobedo spoke to in his first three weeks as a contact tracer, only one refused to answer his questions.

Susie Welty, a Spanish-speaking contact tracer who joined the UCSF effort after her own overseas research on HIV was suspended by the pandemic, also said people have largely been responsive. Getting them to agree to voluntarily self-isolate is far easier when resources are available to provide food and other out-of-pocket payments during the 14-day period.

Welty described a conversation with a pastor whose wife had tested positive. When the pastor explained he did not want his congregation to know and so did not want them bringing food during their quarantine, Welty was able to refer them to SNAP, the food supplement program.

“San Francisco has resources,” Welty said. “That is not the case in many jurisdictions,” she added, saying it is particularly hard for undocumented workers to comply if they are unable to feed their families.

“They’re scared,” said Venus Ginés, founder of the Latino community health organization Dia de la Mujer Latina, which operates in Houston and other cities.

After the Houston health department asked Ginés to help fill contact-tracing positions, her organization supplied 200 résumés of Spanish-speaking applicants within 24 hours, and Ginés said the health department told her that hires will be made from that pool.

Kirstin Short, Houston Health Department bureau chief of epidemiology, said her agency relies on Dia de la Mujer Latina and other organizations to “speak as that trusted authority within that community to vouch for us as a government entity.”

But the possibility of data falling into hostile hands worries representatives of immigrant groups.

“There’s always that fear if I say something, and this person is undocumented and the government finds out about it, then that person could be deported,” Ginés said. “We don’t know if this information is going to get hacked or how it is going to be utilized.”

Using cellphone location data or Bluetooth to determine proximity, as has been done successfully in Singapore and South Korea, increases those concerns.

The app rolled out in Rhode Island is voluntary — an effort to walk a line between digital data collection and protecting civil liberties.

“Privacy and data protection are paramount,” Raimondo said in an interview. “Which means I need to give you confidence that if you opt in, your data is safe.”

But privacy advocate Mitchell Baker, CEO of Mozilla, which owns the Firefox Web browser, said it’s easy for data to be misused.

“How do citizens know what is actually happening? What data are you collecting, where is it going, how is it used, and when and how is it destroyed?” she asked.

Not everyone owns a smartphone. And many experts believe conversations with a contact tracer are preferable for other reasons, too. When a disease so disproportionately affects marginalized populations, it’s important to build trust, said Joia Mukherjee, chief medical officer of the international medical nonprofit Partners in Health, which works with the Massachusetts contact-tracing program, as well as numerous vulnerable communities across the country.

“This is a terrifying time. You need some level of human contact,” Mukherjee said. “If I were exposed, I would want to know to protect my mother’s life.”

Even when people do comply — in person, on the phone or online — the novel coronavirus is proving to be an exceptionally wily foe.

Unlike a blood-borne or sexually transmitted disease, or one such as smallpox or measles that scars its victims, the coronavirus moves invisibly on people’s breath, meaning they may have no idea they’ve recently spent time with somebody who is infected.

Because people can become contagious in just a few days — as opposed to two weeks for syphilis, for example — contact tracers have limited time to reach them before the virus moves on, leading some epidemiologists to believe digital technologies are key to stopping it.

And the microscopic bug moves so stealthily — before symptoms show up, or without them ever appearing — that it confounded the earliest attempts to corner it, according to a recent CDC report. This past week, after a World Health Organization official cast doubt on whether the virus could spread asymptomatically and then revised her position, doctors called for more clarity on an issue with such profound implications for how they practice medicine.

The best way to establish the truth, infectious disease specialists say, is to use contact tracing to build a fuller picture of the virus’s habits and preferences, including information about people who for some reason escape infection.

“It’s not a silver bullet: It won’t reach everyone; not everybody will comply.” Welty said. “But it’s the best we have now, the best we will have until we have a vaccine.”

So as we move forward with no General leading the march we are heading into a battle that I suspect will end like Gettysburg only that there will be no winner in this one.

The Wall Street Journal did an outstanding job investigating the failures of the two stooges in New York, Cuomo and DiBlasio (Murphy proves that with three you get egg roll and the two’s company and three’s a crowd but he follows the Italian Stallion’s lead) and how they continued throughout the crisis to mishandle the Covid outbreak in the region.  

Many of the things that I have long suspected and commented on was the bizarre assignments of hospitals as the primary facilities to receive Covid patients without sufficient funding and materials to handle the influx they were clearly overwhelmed early. Then we have the transferring of patients that never made sense and now we see this may have contributed to their deaths as they were simply too ill to be moved.  As for the crazy Naval ship and the Javitz Center those two bullshit facilities were dog and pony shows to prove to the President we were in serious shit.  Again the WSJ does not discuss the crazy fucking tent of Evangelical gay hater but that too I have never thought necessary nor actually useful.  And I have long said the never ending bizarre communication that had the goal posts moved endlessly often with conflicting if not contradicting information.

Here are some of the most salient point the Journal made:

• Insufficient isolation protocols, mixing pos with not pos patients (and later this includes the returning of the elderly to nursing homes while still ill and in turn contributing to the rising death tolls) 
• Inadequate staff planning especially trained staff to handle patients including allowing many to die alone
• Mixed messages. Shifting guidelines about when exposed workers return to work along with incomplete staff protection policies
• Over reliance on government sources for key equipment, much inadequate or faulty
• Procurement planning gaps, focusing on ventilators while ignoring other key supplies and medical needs including PPE and testing materials

One of the many issues that has come out of this was the excessive use of ventilators as the key to treatment, but since that we have learned that many other less intrusive and dangerous methods (the issue of droplets spread as well as patient overall success ratio) have been more useful. And this of course comes from Oxygen treatment as well as monitors observe patients, as well as the ability   to suction mucus from lungs to facilitate breathing.  Of course add to this,  few experienced available medically trained individuals placed in hospitals, and this led many to die alone if needlessly since they had no one to oversee the cases.   In fact, the dated and faulty equipment may have contributed to the deaths of patients, including some ventilators that led to collapsing patients lungs.  In addition  the lack of coordinated information on treatments  that led to many patients to develop deadly blood clots and die from that as well as kidney failure.  All treatable.

Then of course the testing failures and chaos that led many to be returned to their communities to infect more and the patients and staff exposed to medical waste thrown about, the lack of isolated chambers to place patients and in turn transferring them without proper protocol to stop spread.  And the lack of communication between hospital systems leading them to be returned as their was no available space.

And lastly the amount of spread to health care was largely due to a failure to have proper PPE equipment, to have a policy that was consistently in place with regards to when an ill staff member could return and that too has been obvious with the whole mask debacle as one where just a bandana will suffice. Really?

This is why when I shop I wear a very secure mask, gloves and am careful on public transport. I move if someone sits to close and frankly I walk about keeping my distance even when outside.  I shudder to think when schools begin how in the flying fuck they are going to do any of this as again there is no clear leadership let alone science to explain what to do.  There is no money and no materials or again protective equipment in place for Teachers and Staff to use, for students who cannot afford to have the proper masks etc and let alone who or how this will be enforced. I walked by the bars and restaurants open yesterday along the harbor and they were packed arm in arm so social distancing has gone right out the window with little regard to the reality that there is still a major health crisis in place and why?  George Floyd.

Again to not dismiss the reality of that fact but Mr. Floyd was positive for Covid.  It does not excuse that Chauvin kneed him for over 8 minutes and in turn the other two officers were also placed on top of his body to reduce movement (nor the other standing there like some sort of Scarecrow in place to scare off any potential film makers of this encounter); however, it may have been a contribution to his death.  As Police are currently running amok in the streets gassing, bean bagging and going nuts with largely peaceful protesters are possibly contributing to further spreading of a fatal disease (and that may be the point saves the whole other way of killing) and that cannot be overlooked.   Covid affects the ability to breathe and that is essential to understand and acknowledge too that Mr. Floyd may not even have known he was ill, that he needed medical attention and in turn would have never led him to go out that day. Again that is hindsight but Covid and its decimation in the black community cannot be overlooked or forgotten either.

Big Rent Due

While I have written about the issues facing residential renters that is a double edged problem as some owners are small scale landlords with one or two investment properties that rent is the primary financial investment to pay the mortgages, taxes and incidental costs required to maintain and own investment properties. In 2008 many single investors bought numerous properties with the intent of owning as a method of long term investment and when that market collapsed it led many tenants in the lurch as banks foreclosed or the property was sold to larger REIT venture capitalists in which to again refurbish and resell or use as rental markets demanded including short term/Airbnb use. That too is another fallout post Covid for the small investor who are now listing furnished properties for rent with shorter leases in anticipation for the long term while others are simply moving to the more traditional means or trying to sell them. And once again the venture capitalists are quickly buying up such properties as well for their own long term gain.

That said the multiple family units be they condos or apartments are a market I have yet to see what will result as again I suspect many residents will want out of such hot boxes of confinement due to costs, lack of space and simply fewer demands to distance upon entering or exiting the property. The building behind me is one such example as an albatross that they stupidly accelerated and now will have multiple expensive units in which will go vacant for I suspect quite some time.

This from Forbes:  According to RealPage, about 370,000 new high-end units are to reach competition this year (although construction delays and disruptions could deflate this number), marking a 50% increase from the national supply that came online in 2019. 

“We have too much product that was either just completed or under construction and you’re not going to have people moving around as much as [it would be otherwise] typical in the near term,” says Willett. “It’s going be really hard to get that new product filled up.”

For the summer months, which usually see a peak in rental demand, it’s still hard to tell what the effects will be, despite the impacts already rippling throughout the industry.

“Everybody’s wondering what this all means for the summer leasing season,” says Robert Pinnegar, CEO of the National Apartment Association. “Traditionally, the summer period is when you see the most movement of people from property to property, from state to state, from city to the city.

“With the uncertainty that’s going on now, especially with the economy essentially being at a standstill, nobody really knows what that’s going to do. And the unknown factor here is what government policy is going to be with regards to how we interact when the businesses reopen.”

And if working from home becomes the norm it may mean larger plans other than just redesign and scheduling staffing needs for many companies as it too will have a ripple affect and nowhere will feel it more than Manhattan.

Which brings me to the issue of commercial properties which have been on the upswing in most markets, while housing lagged, this is one area of build that has not. Crane watch became the mantra of most business journals under some misguided (intentionally or not) to sell and market their cities to businesses in which to relocate their operations. Along with massive tax incentives that enables business to not pay income nor other revenue generating taxes for decades it become an inticing invite to enable business to hopscotch across America while small business are given no such breaks and they continue to generate the most jobs and in turn revenue to the state coffers. Then came Covid and that game changed.

Small business owners closed are already struggling with rent and now the added lootings we may see more closures and in turn that will affect overall taxes and mortgage burdens.   But it is not only the small businesses.

This from the Washington Post:   Nearly half of commercial retail rents were not paid in May. Companies as big as Starbucks say the financial devastation from the shutdown has left them unable to pay their full property bills on time. Some companies warn they will not be able to pay rent for months. And this from the New York Times:  If building owners cannot come up with enough money to pay their next property tax bill in five weeks, a deadline the city has refused to postpone, the city will be starved of an enormous revenue stream that helps pay for all aspects of everyday life, from the Fire Department to trash pickup to the public hospitals. It could lead to a bleak landscape of vacant storefronts and streets sapped of their energy.

But again like residential rents, commercial ones are not doing much to re-examine their balance sheets and rental agreements. This is from one such store owner in New York:  In 2018, even the national chains began closing more spaces than they opened. Rents have come down somewhat in a few heavy shopping arteries, but on the streets where I was looking to open stores, rents didn’t seem to budge. In 2019, rent for my NoLIta store jumped from $360,000 a year to $650,000.

And I laugh at the once adored WeWork that had everyone salivating at their “worth” that fell hard and fast before Covid and now it too has been infected with LayOff mentality and demands to reduce rents.

This is one new road we are going down and it sure as hell is like the rest of our infrastructure, rocky, bumpy and full of holes.

Office Towers Are Still Going Up, but Who Will Fill Them?

Developers around the country are grappling with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic as tenants cancel plans and workers fear returning to the office.

The New York Times
By Kevin Williams
Published June 2, 2020

Before the pandemic shut down businesses, a robust economy had powered a building boom, sending office towers skyward in urban areas across the United States. The coronavirus outbreak, though, has scrambled plans and sent jitters through the real estate industry.

Skyscrapers scheduled to open this year will remake skylines in cities like Milwaukee, Nashville and Salt Lake City. Office vacancy rates, following a decade-long trend, had shrunk to 9.7 percent at the end of the third quarter of 2019, compared with 13 percent in the third quarter of 2010, according to Deloitte.

Developers were confident that the demand would remain strong. But the pandemic darkened the picture.

“There is a pause occurring as companies more broadly consider their real estate needs,” said Jim Berry, Deloitte’s U.S. real estate sector leader.

The timing is unfortunate for Mark F. Irgens, whose 25-story BMO Tower in Milwaukee opened in mid-April at the peak of the statewide lockdown in Wisconsin. A month later, a small fraction of typical daytime foot traffic was passing by as most businesses adhered to the governor’s stay-at-home directive, which expired last week. A restaurant that was slated for the ground level was canceled, and three potential tenants have delayed their plans.

Instead of showing off the building’s sparkling Italian marble floors and panoramic vistas of Lake Michigan, Mr. Irgens is worrying about who is going to pull out next and what type of corporate landscape he might face when the pandemic finally ends.

But he is not putting on the brakes. The BMO had been planned for five years, and he has leases to negotiate, investors to please, tenants to woo and loans to pay off.

“Development projects are different than making widgets,” he said. “You can’t stop; you can’t turn it off. You have to continue.”

Slowly, workers are filling their BMO offices. Managers, who were scheduled to report on Monday, constitute about 15 percent of the building’s occupancy. Mr. Irgens thinks it will be the end of the summer before it gets up to 50 percent. Without a coronavirus vaccine, it may be year’s end before the building approaches a “normal” occupancy, he said.

Other developers around the country are also dealing with the fallout, especially for towers with Class A space, regarded as the highest-quality real estate on the market. In most cases, new buildings are not fully occupied, and developers were counting on a strong economy to do the work for them. For instance, the BMO Tower was 55 percent leased before the pandemic.

The question facing the owners of office towers is: Will anyone still want the space when coronavirus crisis fades?

If the economic pain drags on, there could be long-lasting changes to the way people work and how tenants want offices to be reimagined, said Joseph L. Pagliari Jr., clinical professor of real estate at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Some of the changes — like more spacious elevators — could be costly to put into place, he said.

The pandemic could be a “pivot point,” Mr. Pagliari said, and that would be bad news for building owners. The office towers were designed to be “best in class,” he said, but the pandemic has suddenly made their most salable amenities — common areas, fitness centers and food courts — into potential liabilities.

The economic crisis could also spur high interest rates on debt, which would cause building values to fall, Mr. Pagliari said. That may happen even if the crisis diminishes in the weeks ahead.

“The current pandemic has raised perceptions about the likelihood and consequences of future pandemics,” Mr. Pagliari said. Developers who can factor in such events will gain an advantage, but any skyscrapers that are built with pandemic fears in mind are years away.

The prospect that workers may want to continue working from home does not worry John O’Donnell, the chief executive of Riverside Investment and Development, which is developing a 55-story tower at 110 North Wacker Drive in Chicago. The tallest office building erected in the city since 1990, it is scheduled to open in August and will be anchored by Bank of America. Other tenants include law firms, many of which are doing business from home.

“There is a need for collaboration, team building, common business cultures and a continuous desire to have social contact within a business,” Mr. O’Donnell said.

The building is 80 percent leased ahead of its August opening. One tenant signed for 40,000 square feet of office space at the height of the lockdown, which Mr. O’Donnell took as an encouraging sign.

The building is already being adjusted to meet post-pandemic needs, something Mr. O’Donnell said newer structures were better able to do. Amenities are being updated to be touch free. And owners are talking with tenants about walk-through thermal imaging to monitor workers and visitors for fevers.

The pandemic will result in a demand for more office space, not less, said Paul H. Layne, the chief executive of the Howard Hughes Corporation, a national commercial real estate developer based in Houston. Developers will move away from the industry-standard 125 square feet per person toward roomier workplaces.

But others say it is too early to tell when demand for office space will return. Jamil Alam, managing principal of Endeavor Real Estate Group, said the situation would vary by city.

“There will be winners and losers,” Mr. Alam said, explaining that he thinks denser metro areas like New York and Boston, which have been ravaged by the coronavirus, could find their luster lost in favor of smaller markets.

Endeavor, which is based in Austin, Texas, has a portfolio that includes 15.6 million square feet of commercial real estate in cities like Dallas, Denver and Nashville. One of its projects, the 20-story Gulch Union, will be the largest office tower in Nashville when it opens in August with 324,254 square feet of office space.

Smaller markets like Nashville are well positioned for companies wishing to pull up stakes from major metropolitan areas with higher density and costs, Mr. Alam said. Gulch Union has leased 27,000 square feet, and four more deals totaling 40,000 square feet are near completion.

“Deals are still being done,” he said.

There will be an appetite for urban, walkable, mixed-use office environments, Mr. Alam said, and changes will need to be made in buildings over time, like fewer touch points on handles and elevator buttons.

But projects that have not been started yet will be paused, said Chris Kirk, managing principal of the Salt Lake City office of Colliers, the commercial real estate brokerage firm.

“If you are a developer or landlord or C.F.O., you are concerned,” he said. “Everyone is feeling the impact.”

And the city is experiencing a building spurt downtown. A 24-story Class A tower developed by City Creek Reserve, the development arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is scheduled for completion next year. The building, which will have 589,945 square feet of office space, is already 80 percent leased.

Salt Lake City has been averaging a new Class A office high-rise every decade, and the pace is increasing. Still, the pandemic might put the brakes on that.

“Anyone who would be coming out of ground speculatively now without the commitment has got to be thinking about their timing,” Mr. Kirk said.

Mr. Irgens hopes to ride out the pandemic and continue with other projects. In February, his company broke ground on a six-story building in Tempe, Ariz., and it is moving forward with a 235,000-square-foot Milwaukee office project that is 42 percent leased.

“My partners in my business are working really hard to figure out how to have business continuity, and it is really hard to do that,” he said. “Things are changing daily.”

The Collective

I feel we have become the Borg, a collective mind unit that is also much like the robots of Westworld, programmed to think and behave in a manner that is about preserving the status quo, pleasing the men who control the world and in turn follow our roles and parts to ensure preservation.  Sounds great.

Again my conversations are limited of late to a small microcosm of individuals within walking distance and despite my ability to walk great distances there is little dialog to be found when everyone is afraid.  Few read, few choose knowledge and few even ask questions as they fear being exposed as the idiot they are.  Funny I have never in my life thought anyone who asked questions was an idiot, in fact just the opposite. But then again this is now and now we are all experts on whatever we want to be experts on.

Today after a quick trip to a Whole Foods in Tribeca I was amazed at how there was not a single cleaning product or paper one on the shelves, but yes there was meat, chicken and tons of other food products, so much for shortages.  But again I find that here in Jersey City the same but I just wanted to ride the ferry and walk in the early fog for a change of pace.  There is only so much walking one can do looking at the same scenery day after day.

The news is of course bleak, stupid and useless but then buried in the headlines was Fauci declaring that a second wave is not inevitable. Funny yesterday I just saw a headline saying that a second bump was happening in States that had reopened. Sure since most of them had few cases to begin with, even less testing and now finally people are actually getting tested to be able to join the living it would be expected.   As for me I have steadfastly refused to test for a disease I have never had any symptoms of nor for antibodies as that would be well odd and it meant I was a carrier, how charming a thought.  Then again….

Today the dueling banjos of Cuomo and DiBlasio are playing the same song with oddly a different tune and Murphy the tres of the amigos is of course saying Jersey is the one state that will have the biggest second wave ever.  Pull out that dick there and brandish it about Murphy, show us what a man you are!

Meanwhile men need to prove their manhood by beating, killing and shooting people as that is how men do it.  The Cops in Minnesota decided to just kneel on the supine black man, George Floyd, as he suffocated to death.  (And again not a new or unfamiliar story here)  I saw that mode of death on Killing Eve, but Eve could not go through with it and the woman was Russian!  The same day was the infamous “Karen” story of the week where a woman calls the cops on a Black Man bird watcher.  The dude looked like Van Jones and just that hobby alone pretty much confirmed that he went to the Ivy League so this was not Bone Thugs and Harmony smoking a spliff in a wooded dense area.  And again if I stumbled on either I would wonder what world I had entered to find this.    It was broad daylight and she had a dog, run bitch run or not.  But I want to point out that a few months earlier a young woman had been killed by “thugs” in Morningside Park and they were minors who stabbed her death which led to much consternation here given that again it was young black males and the Central Park Jogger is a story that lives on in the great film, Then They See Us.

I am not sure how I would confuse an attractive bespectacled black man for “wilding youths” but okay and then if he is kindly asking me to leash my dog not shouting, “Hey whitey I’ll cut a bitch” or whatever the youth are saying now, and offering a treat to my dog, at this point I would be right there trying to figure out if he was single.  Then likely I would be the one he would be calling the Cops on as I was not “socially distancing.”  Its been a long quarantine.

I do think he was right to film her as well being a black man doing well anything is a red flag to be killed so he did the right thing.  But that was the end. No one was harmed nor any reason to continue this but nope it gets put on social media and “Karen” was outed.  She is clearly a troubled woman and I want to thank the media for endlessly covering crimes on young white women by black men and of course the endless police violence on the same does make one wonder what do you do anymore to resolve fear. Well try just getting the fuck out of there. This is personal responsibility folks pre-pandemic.

The end result is she now is unemployed, her dog has gone back to the rescue organization and what does any of this do.  She needs counseling and support and a job where she has no customer contact, her company could put on her on leave, get her the counseling she needs and in turn enable her to perhaps move to a less urban area where there are black people who she fears.  I hear Wyoming is nice.  Even the gentleman is regretting that it went that far, yes he should as well as that boomerang will come back in his direction and it will not be good.

Then later coming into my building the Concierge informed me that the second round of stimulus checks are coming and when would they be arriving? What? Uh no. Two of the workers have told him repeatedly that this is true and again this is not new here as another one told me that his friends had received “Trump Checks” even before the stimulus had been approved.  I again did the same thing, printed up the news stories from the Washington Post and the New York Times that discusses the second stimulus and the Republican position on that which is negative so where they are getting this shit is beyond me.  I am fucking sick and fucking tired of being the go to for people who simply refuse to hear truth.  The two workers walked out before I finished explaining this so I knew that they did not want to be shown up by a woman who actually knows something and that is why men sit in bushes and do more than watch birds.   Again, I get the fear but what that woman did was insane, falsifying a police report and the next time a sinister character is lurking in the park bushes the likelihood of someone coming in response drops.   Thanks “Karen.”

And of course this all goes back to why having clear leadership, someone to explain facts, discuss fear in a productive way and enable people to be heard and try to reconcile the confusion that we face when a conflict, situation or individual confuses us in ways that do not allow us to respond in rational manners.  This pandemic is such a situation where people are so fucking confused they simply refuse to bother to learn facts, like the two workers here.  And today I read another historian who wrote a book on the 1918 Flu Pandemic and has two words about our Governments response:  Incomprehensibly incoherent 

That, I am afraid is a larger problem than Covid.

Going Somewhere?

That was once a literal inquiry if someone was planning to go on holiday, leave a room or just plain leave.  Now today it is the million dollar question as many of us sit in wait wondering what is next and what will happen when we finally get somewhere.

The reality is no one knows anything about anything and that includes the virus we have come to know as Covid.   That much is clear as many man hours and labor has been spent on when did it get here and how did we know it did and more importantly who brought it here.  In other words, the elusive Patient Zero which means a whole hell lot of nothing frankly as this is now and now what do we do?

Much is made of the decision to NOT shut the country down sooner, or how it was done and the reality of the disease and its travels Asia, to Europe, to America and elsewhere as it travails across the globe leaving a wake of decimation be it physical  or economical as at this point it is hard to grieve as the losses are so great in both.

The New York Times posted a 1000 names of the dead taken from the random of 100K and climbing since Covid hit the shores sometime in 2019 – 2020. Again who the fuck cares as they are still dead and still dying.   Normally I love a good obituary but this time I passed as this is beyond even my level of empathy and compassion, I am just too angry to be anything else.

Then we had the Memorial Day holiday which I believed would lead to chaos if the powers that be did not lessen the leash we have been on these near three months and it shows that some of the pups are not well trained as they flocked to public places and ran amok.  This did not surprise me; however, I was surprised how the tri-state area seemed quite contrite and complacent but that may have been due to weather as it was not clear until the afternoon and for many it is just exhausting to think about doing more than organizing once again the shopping, the laundry and the rest of daily life to add a day/weekend trip to go somewhere else only to do the same there. Remember no restaurants nor shops are open for regular traffic/business so is that not the point of getting away, to get away from the routine?

Now was I shocked that in Arkansas a pool party went amok? That in the Ozarks it was a crazy ass party of drunks?  That in South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida shit and crazy hit the fan? No.  Have you been there, no wait, lived there?  After living in Nashville and traveling in the region no I wasn’t and again these are areas that have not been as heavily affected by the virus and they are sure this is all bullshit and somehow about Trump.  If you met the great unwashed as I have you would realize they are just not screaming hillbilly racists.. well that they are.. but they are just like any part of America that has been relegated to the discount heap pile.  They are sorted over, picked apart and neglected and that rage has to be released in ways that have led to mass shootings, opioid addiction, violence and of course Trump.  To think that is exclusive to the region, think again and check the story about the Staten Island Shop Rite shoppers abusing a patron for not wearing a mask or anything in Jersey with regards to the Orthodox sect.

Again the idea that in bleak times we look to leadership to define heroism and in turn guidance we have somehow latched onto Cuomo who for whatever reason thinks he is the Big Covid Daddy of us all, regaling us stories about his daughters, their boyfriends and his brother and mother as if we too are all one family fighting the virus together. No we are not and shut the fuck up.  I have written about the Three Stooges here before and once again want to highlight that as Cuomo feigns dismay over the dead he carefully placed in the budget an amendment  absolving legal responsibility for those in the medical industry (the same ones he sent many Covid patients back to to their ultimate deaths as well as infecting others) was due to the one factor that explains it all money.  

And as New York tries to figure it out the expression goes: As goes California there goes the nation. If that is so then guess what we are fucked. The States have these odd panels comprised of former Feds, Private Industry and of course Billionaires who will do what I have no clue but the idea that private industry can rescue America is another one of the many bullshit screeds that have been exposed behind the pandemic curtain.  Americans have been slowly eroding their faith in Government (and this has not changed) but have been stable with regards to the State and Municipal entities and we can say well hello to the flying monkeys on that as well.

No one, I repeat, no one has the Magic Crystal Ball in which to figure this out.  There can be all the speculating, posturing and of course my personal favorite, modeling on how and if and when and why if that is this then that could be this but if that x is not y then it becomes z and then all hell breaks loose.   I never want to see/hear/know about another model for anything, including homes, tops, bottoms, super or otherwise.   I love that if and or but somehow magically is able to predict and tell us what may, could of, might of and if or nor had this been done then, or maybe then or this time for sure.  Okay, thanks.

What we are seeing is fear and that is not measurable nor predictable.  We have people running amok here in two different directions.  One heading to the beach and beer ponging until Covid kills them or the ones running screaming that Covid is coming, Covid is coming in their best Paul Revere until that versus Covid makes them hoarse.  Either/or, Neither/Nor I am done with the daily digests of someone told me that I know of their friend on Facebook who told them about a BBQ with 13 families and they all work in a prison and then they all will go back to work at the prison and then more shit will hit the fan or not.  So do you know them and are they at your house? Did you go to the BBQ? To the prison? Do you live in the City? The State? Work with them or their family? No. Then why do you give a flying fuck? This is personal responsibility have some.

And that is why once again as we watch another Black person being killed as if it is okay to follow them, tape them and then wait and turn over the video to the Police but accept no responsibility as you watch men chase and gun him down sure what is the problem. Or the girl calling the Police as she was walking her dog off leash in an area where it is required and a man asked her to do so,  I see the sense of urgency.  Or the black man standing on the corner waiting for a bus is an issue as well the buses aren’t coming as often so he is waiting longer than usual and therefore your fucking problem. Wow, just wow.  I don’t give a flying fuck unless you come into my personal space and that is three feet, not even six and so when you are on the bus/train/rail don’t but here is what I do, I MOVE.  Gosh that is not hard.  Well I can now call 1-844-WYT-FEAR and all will be solved.

No one knows shit so the prognosticating, the predicting, the forecasting is all for nothing or not as they get paid for their performance, like monkeys. Do they fly too?

No One Knows What’s Going to Happen
Stop asking pundits to predict the future after the coronavirus. It doesn’t exist.

The New York Times
Sunday Review
May 24, 2020

By Dr. Mark Lilla; Professor of humanities at Columbia.

The best prophet, Thomas Hobbes once wrote, is the best guesser. That would seem to be the last word on our capacity to predict the future: We can’t.

But it is a truth humans have never been able to accept. People facing immediate danger want to hear an authoritative voice they can draw assurance from; they want to be told what will occur, how they should prepare, and that all will be well. We are not well designed, it seems, to live in uncertainty. Rousseau exaggerated only slightly when he said that when things are truly important, we prefer to be wrong than to believe nothing at all.

The history of humanity is the history of impatience. Not only do we want knowledge of the future, we want it when we want it. The Book of Job condemns as prideful this desire for immediate attention. Speaking out of the whirlwind, God makes it clear that he is not a vending machine. He shows his face and reveals his plans when the time is ripe, not when the mood strikes us. We must learn to wait upon the Lord, the Bible tells us. Good luck with that, Job no doubt grumbled.

When the gods are silent, human beings take things into their own hands. In religions where the divine was thought to inscribe its messages in the natural world, specialists were taught to take auspices from the disposition of stars in the sky, from decks of cards, dice, a pile of sticks, a candle flame, a bowl of oily water, or the liver of some poor sheep. With these materials, battles could be planned, plagues predicted and bad marriages avoided.

In those places where the gods were thought to communicate verbally with humans, oracles and prophets were designated to provide answers on demand. The most highly revered oracles in the ancient Greek world were the high priestesses at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. When it came time to respond to a petitioner who had placed a question before her, the priestess would enter the inner sanctum and seat herself on a tripod erected over a crevice in the ground, out of which inebriating gases were thought to rise.

These fumes paralyzed her rational faculties and put her in a trance of receptivity that allowed the god Apollo to speak through her in cryptic remarks and riddles. These would be interpreted by a second figure, the prophet, who answered the grateful petitioner in poetry or prose. It was a very successful start-up and made Delphi a wealthy town.

Prophets today are less flamboyant. Former prime ministers do not, as a rule, sniff drugs before appearing on CNN. They sit meekly in the green room sipping mineral water before being called on to announce our fate. Augurs have given up on sheep livers and replaced them with big data and statistical modeling. The wonder is that we still cry out for their help, given that the future is full of surprises.

Professional forecasters know this about the future, which is why in the small print of their reports they lay out all the assumptions that went into the forecast and the degree of statistical confidence one might have in particular estimates, given the data and research methods used. But harried journalists and public officials don’t read or comprehend the footnotes, and with the public baying for information, they understandably pass on the most striking estimates just to get through the day.

Ancient augurs and prophets were in high-risk professions. When their predictions failed to materialize, many were executed by sovereigns or pulled apart by mobs. We see a

Take a banal example: snowstorms and school closings. A half century ago, when meteorological forecasting was less sophisticated, parents and children would not learn that classes were canceled until the storm began and it was announced on radio and television that very morning. We lived in harmless uncertainty, which for kids was thrilling. When snowflakes fell they even looked like manna from heaven.

Today, mayors and school superintendents, putting their faith in the meteorologists, routinely announce closings a day or more in advance. If the storm fails to arrive, though, they are sharply criticized by parents who lost a day of work or had to find day care. And if an unforeseen storm paralyzes the city, leaving streets unsalted and children stranded at school, the reaction is far worse. More than one mayor has lost a re-election bid because of failed prophecies, victim of our collective overconfidence in human foresight.

Our addiction to economic forecasting is far more consequential. Here the footnotes really do matter but politicians and the press encourage magical thinking.

The candidate declares, My plan will create 205,000 new jobs, raise the Dow 317 points and lower the price of gasoline 15 cents. Two years later, the gloating headline reads: The President’s Unkept Promises. Stagnant growth, a bear market and war in the Middle East make re-election unlikely.

Never mind that declining global demand slowed growth, that Wall Street is a drama queen and that a freakish tanker collision set off the war. A failed presidency is declared. And so the press and the public turn to fresher faces — who of course offer the same absurdly precise predictions. Not for nothing did Gore Vidal call us the United States of Amnesia.

The public square is thick today with augurs and prophets claiming to foresee the post-Covid world to come. I, myself, who find sundown something of a surprise every evening, have been pursued by foreign journalists asking what the pandemic will mean for the American presidential election, populism, the prospects of socialism, race relations, economic growth, higher education, New York City politics and more. And they seem awfully put out when I say I have no idea. You know your lines, just say them.

I understand their position. With daily life frozen, there are fewer newsworthy events to be reported on and debated. Yet columns must be written, and the 24/7 cable news machine must be fed. Only so much time can be spent on the day’s (hair-raising) news conferences or laying blame for decisions made in the past or sentimental stories on how people are coping. So journalists’ attention turns toward the future.

But the post-Covid future doesn’t exist. It will exist only after we have made it. Religious prophecy is rational, on the assumption that the future is in the gods’ hands, not ours. Believers can be confident that what the gods say through the oracles’ mouth or inscribe in offal will come to pass, independent of our actions. But if we don’t believe in such deities, we have no reason to ask what will happen to us. We should ask only what we want to happen, and how to make it happen, given the constraints of the moment.

Apart from the actual biology of the coronavirus — which we are only beginning to understand — nothing is predestined. How many people fall ill with it depends on how they behave, how we test them, how we treat them and how lucky we are in developing a vaccine.

The result of those decisions will then limit the choices about reopening that employers, mayors, university presidents and sports club owners are facing. Their decisions will then feed back into our own decisions, including whom we choose for president this November. And the results of that election will have the largest impact on what the next four years will hold.

The pandemic has brought home just how great a responsibility we bear toward the future, and also how inadequate our knowledge is for making wise decisions and anticipating consequences. Perhaps that is why our prophets and augurs can’t keep up with the demand for foresight.

At some level, people must be thinking that the more they learn about what is predetermined, the more control they will have. This is an illusion. Human beings want to feel that they are on a power walk into the future, when in fact we are always just tapping our canes on the pavement in the fog.

A dose of humility would do us good in the present moment. It might also help reconcile us to the radical uncertainty in which we are always living. Let us retire our prophets and augurs. And let us stop asking health specialists and public officials for confident projections they are in no position to make — and stop being disappointed when the ones we force out of them turn out to be wrong. (A shift from daily to weekly news conferences and reports would be a small step toward sobriety.)

It is bad enough living with a president who refuses to recognize reality. We worsen the situation by focusing our attention on litigating the past and demanding certainty about the future. We must accept what we are, in any case, condemned to do in life: tap and step, tap and step, tap and step ….

The Three Stooges

Living in New Jersey I have the pleasure of having a Democrat who is incompetent for Governor so that takes the whole blue state red state thing right away off the plate. Across the river in New York, the city and the state, are also run by Democrats in the position of Governor and Mayor respectively.  Both are flying fucking idiots.

To begin, only a few weeks before the major shutdown Cuomo fired Transit Daddy, the much beloved and beleaguered head of the MTA. Since that time the service that is indispensible has struggled with employees becoming seriously ill, the homeless using the now near empty trains a home base, shut the trains leading to more confusion and chaos for those essential workers to get to work, and in turn the level of violence now occurring on these near empty trains is returning to 1970’s level, where Charles Bronson become a vigilante.  I won’t be riding any of them for quite some time as well you don’t have to as a cab gets you uptown in seven minutes so screw that.

Cuomo’s shenanigans include his whining about the family bullshit with his brother already a figure of some questionable competence on CNN, and the endless trajectory of his competitiveness with the Mayor of NYC which has contributed to further confusion and policy that one day is this, the next another.  Those two idiots posturing of which is the biggest douche is a tough call but here in New Jersey we had the triplets, the Mayors of Hoboken, Jersey City, and Newark, taking turns for who could be the most restrictive and invisible while doing so.  These three have cleverly stayed of the limelight while simultaneously doing as little as possible but leaving as much confusion as possible in their wake. Why we have a curfew is still mind boggling, nothing is open past 5 anymore and why would they be? But again if you are black and poor the cops will be right by to check on that. Again the racial profiling, the absurd mask handing out and the endless sagas with the Orthodox sect never seems to end but hey standing outside sharing a drink or talking is death’s warning.  Be afraid be very afraid!

The Governor of Connecticut is not faring any better but no one seems to care that much for whatever reasons but he is clearly like Murphy taking the lead from Doppio as I call Cuomo.

I read this today in the Guardian and add Murphy to the list.  Half the deaths here in New Jersey are from the older folks homes.  Then to add to the problem forcing the same homes to take back the patients after hospital release.  What the fuck?  As for overall total deaths,  I cannot be sure they are all  legit, valid covid patients or even accurately accounted. The absurdity about the numbers is another as many counties here do not report fully the results, deaths are held for 24 hours or longer as we have no way of knowing any of it as here in New Jersey they are not responding to Freedom of Information Requests, thanks to a law that enables them to pass during a State of Emergency.  Great transparency there.

And if you note all three stooges have made it impossible for anyone to sue hospitals or long term care facilities for Covid related injuries or deaths. Good plan on not knowing how many people died from inadequate to neglectful care.

In New York City, DiBlasio is being investigated by the City Comptroller and one day certainly Cuomo will be facing the Grim Reaper himself, when all is said and done about his mis-management of this crisis. And DiBlasio continues to demonstrate what a fucktard he is with each passing day.  But then again he is not the first nor last Politician during this crisis to be called an idiot.

I have loved the posturing bullshit, from the naval ships, to the conference centers commandeered to be overflow hospitals.  All without figuring out if they would take Covid positive or would they be better serving the elderly, the homeless or the sick from not Covid? That was fascinating to watch to watch that power play with  Doppio demanding them to and then not and then yes and then a month later sailing away with a salute. How much did that cost per patient?  Then the bullshit religious tent in Central Park, the histrionics about hospitals when they found in New York it was largely due to poor centralized communication and asset allocation.  So basically a shit load of money and posturing for nothing as between them it appears they barely treated 300 people, and I question why and what was the reasoning behind that as there were no hospital beds anywhere available?

How about now starting contact tracing and tracking? Little late in the game and that will be fucked, trust me I feel it.   How about now finding ways to resolve the homeless crisis before it ended up having to close subways? How? Why? When did you finally figure that out?    I still love Murphy and the way he backpedals each executive order to fix the fucked up one from the day before.  Talk about knucklehead.

This is a sham, a scam and a fraud. These three men plus one other did little to circumvent or handle any of this as it evolved and still are not. Each day another fire another saga and the lottery numbers continue. Why? Cause they fucked it up.  They are in out of their depth, breadth and skill set not unlike Trump but the difference is that Cuomo is a career pol from a career family of the same. He understands the media and how to manipulate it down to his Steven Colbert screen of highlights of what the topic is.  He is working the room in a way a crooner does to get the audience to tip big and leave happy.  I watch as the misinformation grows, the confusion, the daily mis-mismangement and messaging continues to prove that we have no one in charge, no one capable and no one even willing to admit this.  We are so fucked because of these white men.  No wonder Covid is winning this war look at the Generals.

Andrew Cuomo is no hero. He’s to blame for New York’s coronavirus catastrophe

His record was terrible before coronavirus, but his abysmal handling of the crisis should get him thrown out of office

Lyta Gold and Nathan Robinson
The Guardian
Wed 20 May 2020

‘Elderly prisoners have died of coronavirus because New York has failed to act on their medical parole requests.’ Governor Andrew Cuomo

Andrew Cuomo may be the most popular politician in the country. His approval ratings have hit all-time highs thanks to his Covid-19 response. Some Democrats have discussed him as a possible replacement for Joe Biden, due to Biden’s perceived weakness as a nominee. And there have even been some unfortunate tributes to Cuomo’s alleged sex appeal.

All of which is bizarre, because Cuomo should be one of the most loathed officials in America right now. ProPublica recently released a report outlining catastrophic missteps by Cuomo and the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, which probably resulted in many thousands of needless coronavirus cases. ProPublica offers some appalling numbers contrasting what happened in New York with the outbreak in California. By mid-May, New York City alone had almost 20,000 deaths, while in San Francisco there had been only 35, and New York state as a whole suffered 10 times as many deaths as California.

Federal failures played a role, of course, but this tragedy was absolutely due, in part, to decisions by the governor. Cuomo initially “reacted to De Blasio’s idea for closing down New York City with derision”, saying it “was dangerous” and “served only to scare people”. He said the “seasonal flu was a graver worry”. A spokesperson for Cuomo “refused to say if the governor had ever read the state’s pandemic plan”. Later, Cuomo would blame the press, including the New York Times for failing to say “Be careful, there’s a virus in China that may be in the United States?” even though the Times wrote nearly 500 stories on the virus before the state acted. Experts told ProPublica that “had New York imposed its extreme social distancing measures a week or two earlier, the death toll might have been cut by half or more”.

But delay was not the only screw-up. Elderly prisoners have died of coronavirus because New York has failed to act on their medical parole requests. As Business Insider documented:

“Testing was slow. Nonprofit social-service agencies that serve the most vulnerable couldn’t get answers either. And medical experts like the former CDC director Tom Frieden said ‘so many deaths could have been prevented’ had New York issued its stay-at-home order just ‘days earlier’ than it did. On March 19, when New York’s schools had already been closed, Cuomo said ‘in many ways, the fear is more dangerous than the virus.’”

The governor has failed to take responsibility for the obvious failures, consistently blaming others and at one point even saying “governors don’t do pandemics”. (Actually, some governors just don’t read their state’s pandemic plans.) But much of the press has ignored this, focusing instead on Cuomo’s aesthetic presentation: his poise during press conferences, his dramatic statements about “taking responsibility” (even when he obviously hasn’t), and his invisible good looks.

The mask mural is yet another publicity stunt mistaken by the press as a sign of leadership. On 29 April, Cuomo unveiled a wall of handmade cloth masks that had been sent to his office by concerned citizens all over America. He called it “a self-portrait of America. You know what that spells? It spells love.” Since the arrangement of masks doesn’t form words, the mural doesn’t actually spell anything, but it is a perfect symbol of Cuomo’s leadership failures. Handmade cloth face coverings are not as effective as N95 masks, of course, but if unsuitable for healthcare workers they would still have been perfectly appropriate to distribute to New Yorkers (some of whom have been brutally arrested for not wearing masks). But Cuomo, rather than putting the needs of New Yorkers first, chose to tack hundreds of cloth masks on a wall as a monument to himself.

Cuomo’s record was shameful long before coronavirus began. He enabled the IDC (Independent Democratic Conference), a group of conservative Democratic state lawmakers, in allying with the Republican minority to block progressive legislation. (Cuomo denies any role in the IDC, but that stretches credulity.) Before the pandemic, he pushed through Medicaid cuts which shut down necessary hospital space in the name of “efficiency” despite the warnings of medical professionals. And on 3 April, as 3,000 New Yorkers already lay dead from the virus and hospitals like Elmhurst in Queens were overwhelmed with cases, Cuomo forced through further Medicaid cuts, slashing $400m from hospital budgets.

As the state now staggers to its feet, Cuomo has partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to “reimagine education” (which almost certainly means privatization), and with the ex-Google chief Eric Schmidt to – as Naomi Klein puts it – “permanently integrat[e] technology into every aspect of civic life”. All of this has happened without the democratic input of New Yorkers, who would likely prefer that the progressive legislators they elected could govern without interference, that their hospitals have enough money to function and that billionaires don’t infiltrate and control every element of civic life.

There’s something disturbing about Cuomo being hailed as the hero of the pandemic when he should rightly be one of the villains. As Business Insider notes, he is now only able to attain praise for his actions because his earlier failures made those actions necessary. He’s lauded for addressing a problem that he himself partly caused. Of course, part of this is because Donald Trump has bungled the coronavirus response even more badly, so that Cuomo – by not being a complete buffoon – looks like a capable statesman by contrast. But this is the problem: for too long, Democrats have measured their politicians by “whether they are better than Republicans”. This sets the bar very low indeed, and means that Democrats end up settling for incompetent and amoral leaders who betray progressive values again and again.

The Mother

 I have said since the beginning that the men running this dog and pony show suck at it.  We need a mother t set this straight.  To find balance and boundaries that work on a larger scale.

For many this has become the norm and the alteration of circadian rythym has made things worse as a coping strategy and for others it seems to work well. Hell if I know but I know that I am in lockdown after 8 until 5 am and it takes a toll on the body to have to be forced to sit regardless of weather or hell for no reason what.so.ever. If someone can explain the purpose of curfew then feel free as none of it will actually be valid as it is just a parrot of whatever the White Daddy has said. And we all know he has no clue as it is just bullshit mixed with faux science. Cause a virus doesn’t give a flying fuck about the time of day so me going for a walk at 10 pm versus 10 am is fuck all nothing about “keeping me safe” and “stopping the spread.” In fact it may be a better idea as there is no one about and nothing open so who am I going to catch/transfer or contact at that time?

Here is another thing, quit with the lottery numbers and naming the dead. I don’t know them and the numbers mean nothing as while Cuomo is starting to break them down into type of positives, finding that many were in quasi quarantine and not essential workers which makes their POS diagnosis even more worrisome if not point proven that people are not fucking locking themselves in and even when they are they still letting the evil one in. So how or are they lying? I go with lying.

Cuomo examines who is getting hospitalized
With everything shut down, the governor wanted to see where most of the new cases of coronavirus hospitalizations were coming from and it’s primarily downstate, New York City and Long Island. 66% of those people were coming from their own homes and Governor Cuomo found that shocking. He said they were mostly over age 51. 84% of people were at home and not traveling and non-essential employees. The governor said those statistics reinforce the need to wearing a mask, using hand sanitizer and washing your hands, and if you are part of the vulnerable population you need to stay home to protect yourself and maintain social distancing. “It comes down to personal responsibility,” Cuomo saidCuomo examines who is getting hospitalized

Hospitals in New York state say only 17 percent of recently admitted patients were working, Governor Cuomo announced on Wednesday. Hospitalizations and new cases continue to decline, but the death toll is approaching 20,000.

With everything shut down, the governor wanted to see where most of the new cases of coronavirus hospitalizations were coming from and it’s primarily downstate, New York City and Long Island. 66% of those people were coming from their own homes and Governor Cuomo found that shocking. He said they were mostly over age 51. 84% of people were at home and not traveling and non-essential employees. The governor said those statistics reinforce the need to wearing a mask, using hand sanitizer and washing your hands, and if you are part of the vulnerable population you need to stay home to protect yourself and maintain social distancing. “It comes down to personal responsibility,” Cuomo said

And the other day Governor Newsom in California blamed a nail salon as a super spreader. Really? Been to a nail salon? As your hands are in water the minute you walk in, the tools are cleaned and the women wear masks. So the only way that would have happened if a woman was sick went had a mani pedi and coughed all over everyone. That could happen well anywhere and once again cannot say that the salon itself was the reason. So bullshit on that.

This again shows that people are assholes and anyone sick coughing all over the place needs to think about their priorities and having one’s hair done, having a manicure or going to a club is probably not a good idea so if anything comes out of this people will check themselves at the door before they leave. And right now the whole taking the temp thing means nothing as you can be a carrier, have no symptoms or have contracted the virus and it has not yet evolved into the next stage which is a fever. And again a fever is not always Covid. But I am willing to say anyone with a temp over 99 as a base needs to stay the fuck home.

Next on the hit parade is the Covid parties. Of course retracted but at this point the media gloms onto Covid like it is Covid. But it would not surprise me as another attempt by the crazy anti vaxx set to build antibodies and of course not have to worry about a vaccination in the future. Go ahead you fuckers given this we finally will make it mandatory that no child can ever set foot in a public school again without a vaccination for all communicable diseases. YAY!

And of course Children are carriers and are getting sick now of some mysterious disease. This means schools folks won’t be opening in September or if they do expect to finally face the dream of all Teachers, smaller classes, shorter days, less bullshit about testing, a focus on health and even better nutrition which aids in building the bodies immune system and of course kids not showing up sick, parents helicoptering in schools as that means only those with business are let in. YAY!

A side note is the whole collaborative learning goes out the window, the notion of Teacher as Actor and of course the idea of a curriculum that can be adapted to meet online needs will be the money maker so watch how that plays out in the next year. So if I was going back to Teach I would also want all cleaning materials provided with that boxed curriculum and then at the end of the day I walk out with no homework either nor any contagious diseases. This is a 9-5 job or 7-3 and at the end of the day it is just that. And if we have learned nothing from this all professions need to set those boundaries.

So as we move out of quarantine, we need to start establishing those. And what I have seen of late means it is business as usual when it comes to violence and race. Of course the media when not dropping Covid bombs daily or slavish hero worship of medical professionals the scold and shaking of heads over the the endless brawls that seem to only be about faces of color. I find that hard to believe that only Black folks fight at funerals as they did here this week, stand up to Cops about social distancing, get into a fight at a Dollar Store where a man ends up dead, or get into a fight at the mall. But hey folks you are the only ones the news will cover and that does little to change the dynamic that you are the cohort most affected by Covid and the least likely to get the help you need. So fuel that racist trope and see how that works out for you.  This is where we know Black Lives Don’t Matter when it comes to law enforcement but why give them a reason?  Here we know that the social distancing policies are enforced randomly without explanation but I sure as hell would not have a party, a gathering or any encounter that could be open for a 311 call.  Why would I? Well I have personal responsibility and don’t want to get sick. So start there.

After living in Nashville I believed racism was an issue that was not a portion of the larger population but an issue clearly related to law enforcement and the Black Lives Matter movement demonstrated that a large portion of people supported and believed that  and demanded change.  And we saw nothing happened. But in my everyday life as well I never heard or saw anything that made me feel it was an issue other that the few racist folk whom I could avoid by well avoiding them. Then I moved there and watched faces of color act in ways that were distressing and the white majority around them enabled it if not encouraged it.   It was then I realized this was an odd co-dependency thing that gave each group power of another. This was then in turn aided by the Churches preaching garbage such as the prosperity pulpit and tolerating abuse as a means of compliance and building character. My little white religious friend from Alabama refuses to see the Biblical texts that encourage if not permit it and denies all of that while well coming from a holy roller family in Alabama, need you say more?

And what is distressing is that mentioning this and even pointing out that the Orthodox community has been constantly challenging vary ordinances and have a history of issues regarding the law and compliance is of course equally racist. No just like pointing out the white trash that are running amok in varying cities and states over the current quarantine shut downs. Yet the educated white elite that have asked questions and been vocal about some of the policies are downplayed as right wing crazies which again doesn’t seem to be the case. What we do do is that we make it easy to dismiss and ignore anyone by using a label in which to do so. The reality is that poverty first, discrimination and long term policies, laws and institutions that foster segregation have contributed to many of the tropes we use to validate why they continue. And that may be why when a young black man out jogging is shot to death on camera and it takes national outrage to get the men charged, two months later. And the same for many beaten and killed by Police. Guess what? This will not change and the reality how do we change this? So let’s go back to the comment about personal responsibility. We seem to lack it.   We want others to do the heavy lifting and in turn complain when it is not done.  Well it ain’t happening now as all of this Covid shit has been dumped on all of our laps.  So there is personal responsibility, yet not.  This is intimidation, threat and of course a use of denial of civil rights, economic coercion and fear to encourage it. Hmm where have I heard/seen this before?.  Hello I got woke that we have never had equal rights, ever. But will we? We have to put aside the differences focus on the commonalities and that may be issues that are about public health, education, unionization and other general factors that cover all races, then after get into the details.  But we are not a cooperative, cohesive nor compromising nation.

Not all Black people are Barack Obama or are all White men like Donald Trump but you see that was and is much of the problem here. A black man who was utterly capable of putting largely a nation at ease and even when you disagreed with him you could respect him as he carried himself with such dignity and a demeanor that allowed you to do so. Now look at women, Hilary Clinton, did not carry herself that way. But to me Elizabeth Warren does. She is intelligent, one of us and easy to approach and yet respect as she earned that and in turn shared that. Trump demonstrates none of that but his narcissism appeals to the white trash/trailer park group who are well, white trash, just as ill educated and under employed, use drugs, abuse women and commit crimes as do faces of color they are just, however; A member of a large tribe and they do nothing but just show up. No folks that is not White Privilege that is just arrogance and ignorance in large scale numbers and numbers matter. Watching the Civil Rights leaders and members of the past they carried themselves with dignity, with a sense of self and pride. They wore suits, dresses, they spoke well and were educated even when education was challenging at best when they were coming of age. So why are we so full of rage? Well people died because of it and for it and nothing changed. Well nothing ever does until you walk in the door and that may be the back door but you can leave by the front. But things have to change and this is the time it will but there is no one here to lead, no faces of color like MLK, Cesar Chavez, Betty Friedan or Shirley Chisolm. There are no Gay leaders who can rise to the challenge as Harvey Milk so who will or more importantly can? Without someone willing to take leadership, to not be afraid and yet face criticism but willing to play by the rules and walk around them to get to that back door and get in we are fucked. Covid can be the best thing that happened or the worst, you decide.  My mother was right about that too, “Take them to a Hotel don’t exchange last names get your business done and leave.”  We need to get shit done and move on.   Own your evil (and by that I mean your own prejudices and biases) and more importantly fix it.

And as much as I respect Obama he failed to step up. And you have to ask him why as I have no idea other than the pull your pants up speech and maybe that explains it. That the divide between the elite and the not is not about money or color it is just the reality of life. When you move up and out you move on and leave those behind. And we are all now sitting on our behinds waiting for someone to fix or to lead. And in most people’s homes it has always been the Mother. We need a woman and we need her now. Put aside any issue that it is about color and that bullshit that gave us Biden as he is not a fresh voice but he is a seat filler and with that maybe Obama might walk in the back door and do something. It is better than nothing. And we got nothing and no one right now. But a leader for the faces of color he is not and has never really been but again there are way better women who would, but we failed there as well. I take my personal responsibility seriously and I wear my feminist trope and it has cost me in life, and I learned that well in the racist, conservative bible belt and I will never understand how all the people there allowed it. Oh wait I do now. Race matters right after the check clears. And the biggest cashiers? Churches. Funny how it all goes back to religion, the biggest racist of it all,  misogynist, and of course the largest denominator classicist. So why Obama was hated?  Yes, he was Black but he was never religious and that is why we have Trump, who is neither, but at least to them he is half of it (and he fakes it better Obama could not do that it is not his character) This is why we have what we have, not race but faith as the common variable in the complex equation of politics, race and equality. We are so fucked and Covid is the least of it.

Got It, Yet?

The end is not neigh it is nowhere near it and the reality is that many people who seem confused about contagion and viruses and how they spread bought the messaging that self quarantining was the answer to stopping Covid and then in a few months we would be free and clear. And no as that was simply done to curtail it and slow it, stop it no.

Add to this the confusing rambling incoherence and endless conflicting messaging from the get go this did not help in allowing people to understand what Covid is and what they can do to be proactive to not catch, spread or in fact understand if they even had the disease as they were not able to get quickly tested for Covid or any presence of an antibody to tell them they had and were now able to move about freely, not fully immune but likely so with some protective protocol in place to ensure they are safe to be with others.

No, the media, the local Governments, the federal Government and of course social media went off the rails and decided to do a daily lottery announcement where every number announced was a losing one.  And everyday people never heard anything but negativity and with that it spread faster than Covid could have ever wished.  The shut down of the economy further was another issue and that too was exacerbated by a system so antiquated that many found themselves wishing they had Covid as death seemed a better option.

Then we had again likely interference from foreign agents to further inflame and agitate as evident by social media posts and  quick review of commentary pages on boards, message sites and newspaper articles. In the best of times they resemble white noise to sewer waste and given the level of average intellect this is of its own a super spreader.

Lastly the reality is that most of the virus is in fact contained that the irony it is within two sources – health care workers and those deemed essential. The lack of protocol in handling cases, the testing issues, the lack of PPE and of course the actual set up in a hospital to handle these type of highly contagious virus has contributed to much of it being spread further and even become more deadlier as the strain attaches itself to the host and in turn its DNA alters itself to manifest itself in a whole other type of disease or diseases in which to treat.  So you see many simply having lung failure as they collapse from the pressure as Covid seems to literally choke the life out of you, others have blood clotting, heart attacks, their own bodies immune systems go into overdrive and lead to heart attacks, and other numerous if not endless other symptoms and ailments that in some cases fatal others utterly treatable but still long lasting if not permanent damage to the physical body. Covid is a bitch on wheels but again do you hear that in the daily lottery numbers how many actually have the worst case scenario versus those who do not and the average stay in the hospital, the length of time in hospital and of course time from date of the positive test to the day they test negative? Nope you don’t.

Then we have the endless bullshit about testing, the crazy dopey Grandpa and his Igor that either come out with utter bizarro messages and his Igor to say, “No the Master is wrong we will die.”  So it doesn’t help that no rational single message and plan is shared on a regular basis.

I quit listening to the media and instead read carefully every article that has information about the disease and the double check the science journal about the current most recent hysterical screed about  Covid.  Yesterday buried in an article about a CDC report declaring the death total will be triple  in months my first thought that this has Igor’s fingerprints (that is if he wasn’t wearing gloves but careful in contactless delivery) all over it as he is doing his best to reign in Trump.  So by scaring the shit out of everyone he knows that eventually the insiders will corral the CDG and he will retract his most recent crazy. And yep it works.

But lastly the reality is that the reason Covid is still here is because of not only health workers but the essential workers who are running the show here.  We have no way of knowing how many are ill at any time be that municipal workers which I have heard on the down low is quite high among the Police which explains their escalating violence and why many seem to not follow the protocols and are just wandering around without masks beating the shit out of people as well that is some kind of contact and I sure as hell wouldn’t do it unless I wanted to catch it or in turn had it already or well knew I did and thought fuck this I want to be a super spreader.

And right now we have a shitload of people who have Covid and it is called Thinkihadititis.  And these idiots are now running around without any confirmation or ability to find out it is true and they could be very much asymptomatic carriers as we don’t know anything about the bodies ability to hold onto the virus and in turn how long it remains to shed.  We assume 14 days but then again without clear bold testing fuck all on that. And again that means you have three days you are fine, day three the cough or some other symptom arrives, it is Covid? Until you are tested fuck if you know. Then you have up until a week waiting for results.  So now it Day 10 and you feel better. Are you? Then the test comes back, no you do not have Covid, but did you also get tested for the flu?  And even if you did test NEG are you? As do we know if they are false positives and then you go out and well two out of every four you meet and greet you may expose as you did not go back to get a “second opinion” as I like to call it to ensure that you are fine.  There are numerous labs and they can all have cross contamination issues, poor testing agents or administers of said test that affect results.   And that is your week two right there in Quarantine.  Who the fuck is doing that?  And again you get sick try to get tested and numerous calling, failing to get it and by day four (the average for the record of Covid) you feel better so you don’t follow up just to see if in fact you are better and the virus is there just like Herpes waiting to shed itself to the next victim.  So out you go and for the next 10 days you are super spreader just like the whore Herpes love.  Again understand Herpes and that virus you get the drift.

This brings me to the issue with children who had all kinds of shit this fall from minor stomach flu like problems to major Asthma attacks and mysterious other ailments they are now finding.  It also mayshow they may be carriers, and in turn that window from exposure to actual symptoms may be longer than the believed 72 hours which it seems to take with regards to normal viruses.  And Covid is not normal in any stretch of the imagination but and this is big but.. it is a blood borne virus and that much is true.  It is not airborne like Measles or Whooping Cough.  But its pass rate is just in that same classification as it is more than one to one as in the case of the flu (Again for the mathematically challenged it means in a family of four three of you are tagged “it.”)  And again in that 72 hours that is a long three days in which contact and spread can be serious hence the lockdown now entering month three.

And those are again the contactless workers, the delivery agents, the grocery shoppers, the retail clerks, the phone call center agents, the transit workers, the people who are largely invisible from the Amazon primers, the pickers at Sephora or some retailer just trying to survive the second wave as in bankruptcy,  to the meat packers.   Or the Farmers, their distributors and the rest that have led to much food destruction and waste as the supply chain is fucked up.   Add to that the larger scale truckers, the many municipal workers who are not just “Front liners” but the road repair, street cleaners, meter maids and assorted others who cannot work remotely. And that is a large cohort scared shitless and yet are happy to have aa job.  Read their hysterical paranoid screeds on social media telling people to stay home to not buy makeup and candy and nothing not essential.  Ask my Doormen about the endless packages that include Gap sweats and their frustration at trying to deliver and organize the chaos that makes Christmas seem like a low key day.  There is your spread. And that means the Covid ain’t leaving us anytime soon.

If People Are Staying Home, Why Is Coronavirus Still Spreading?
People Magazine

Two months in to near-nationwide stay-at-home orders, Americans are ready to get back to their pre-pandemic lives. Those who are non-essential workers (and followed the rules) have been at home all day, every day, save for trips to the grocery store or for socially distant walks. And yet, the number of new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. continues to go up each day, by about 2 to 4 percent.

While the number of new cases is decreasing in hard-hit areas like New York, Michigan and New Jersey, or small states like Hawaii, which is down to around just 1 new case a day, the numbers are spiking upwards in nearly half of the country, from Illinois to Texas to New Hampshire to Alabama.

There isn’t one single reason for the increases, but several, based on the way the U.S. shut down (or didn’t), the current push to reopen and the nature of the virus itself.

Essential Workers

While many Americans are able to stay home, essential workers are still heading in each day, to hospitals, nursing homes, supermarkets and factories — all places where they can come in contact with people with COVID-19.

Nursing homes, in particular, are dealing with large outbreaks of the virus. At least 10,000 deaths in the U.S. have been linked to nursing homes, where the older residents are highly susceptible to COVID-19, and workers are often surrounded by sick patients. One nursing home in New Jersey was so overwhelmed by the number of patient deaths that police found 17 bodies stacked in the facility’s morgue.

In the Midwest, several meat processing factories are dealing with large outbreaks among their workers that only began in the last few weeks. At a Tyson Foods meat factory in Perry, Iowa, 58 percent of the workers have tested positive for COVID-19, NBC News reported. Tyson, and several Smithfield meat factories, have had to temporarily close or slow down production as workers have gotten sick, leading to meat shortages nationwide.

Additionally, many of these essential workers are making minimum wage and can’t afford to stay home and quarantine, even if they get COVID-19.

“They are afraid of losing their jobs,” J. Luis Nunez Gallegos, an assistant medical director at a health center in Washington, D.C., told The Washington Post. “They are anxious their employers won’t respect the quarantine, or that two weeks seems too long, and they don’t always have the savings to get by.”

And as these essential workers continue to go to work, they also risk bringing COVID-19 home to their families and spreading the virus further.

The Push to Reopen

Now, with the economy struggling, many governors are starting to slowly lift stay-at-home orders in their states and allow non-essential businesses, such as hair salons, retail stores and gyms, to reopen. This is happening despite warnings from health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci who warn that reopening too soon could cause another spike in cases, and polls showing that most Americans are against easing restrictions.

Video: Should you wear a face mask for an outdoor run during the pandemic? (Courtesy: Shape)

Several states that have begun to reopen are now seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases, The New York Times reported. Indiana, Kansas and Nebraska all eased restrictions on Monday despite spiking numbers, along with Iowa, Minnesota, Tennessee and Texas.

And while the White House was able to announce in mid-April that the projected number of deaths had decreased from 100,000 to 60,000 by the end of August, those estimates have now gone back up, and deaths are estimated to hit 100,000 by June. As of Wednesday morning, more than 71,000 people have died.

The Virus Persists

Another issue is the messaging — when social distancing was first emphasized in mid-March as a way to “flatten the curve” and limit the spread of COVID-19, it wasn’t a way to eliminate the virus completely, as people may have believed.

What social distancing actually does is slow down virus transmission to a level that is manageable for hospital workers and enables them to have enough hospital beds, masks and equipment to properly treat COVID-19 patients.

While the virus will eventually slow down in areas that are adhering to social distancing and other safety precautions, “there will be some places where it’s still circulating, so it never really leaves,” Dr. Robert Norton, a professor of public health at Auburn University and member of several

Unfortunately, the virus will likely continue to persist until a vaccine is ready, in about 12 to 18 months at the earliest.

Police vs Cop

I have questioned whether we are closer to martial law as the pandemic quarantine goes on.  The odd Blue Angel flyover did little to change my mind as I wondered what the purpose of that was to tribute medical personnel when they are inside most of the time doing their job and to have to step outside to watch planes just simply fly over without any of the performance style flight actions the Blue Angel’s do did little to assuage my suspicions.   Anything Trump is involved with is something always worth questioning as nothing he does comes from a place of good.

Of late there have been several incidents over social distancing.  We have had police intervention at a Funeral in Williamsburg leading questions about being Anti-Semitic given the advance notice; then we have had a Doctor accosting young people in Louisville over the issue ending up with assault; followed by a fight in a Walmart (that may be just another day);a bar fight; a woman who died after a fall with another dispute; a dollar star another fight; a street brawl in New York City by teens which finally culminated with Police beating a man in New York and another in Jersey City over social distancing policies.

As I walk the city I have seen many examples of those with masks, respecting space and attempting to do their best finding some type of distancing in closely contained quarters and equal numbers of those not. I only care about myself and my ability to maintain my sense of security and well being regardless of Covid or not.

And what the debate centers on is a loss of civil rights from requiring masks which lead to many kinds of curious inferences and whyy banks are closed to walk ins to the fear by many black individuals and of course others who simply feel it is all just too much.  But then we have Google and Apple coming up with Apps to lend to tracking and tracing.  Where is Edward Snowden and his crew who had no problem post 9-11 doing just that monitoring the emails and calls of American citizzzens over protecting us while violating our civil rights then but now during a pandemic its a no go?

Today in my discussion at the Coffee shop there was again a litany of complaints about others not following the mandates and rules governing the social distancing policies of the State of New Jersey, versus those of Jersey City, Newark, Bayonne, Hoboken and Weehawken all within a 10 minute light rail ride between all of them.  The current policy of wearing face masks on public transit and the percent of ridership falls to largely riders to be compliant and in turn you again see some compliant and some not.  The issues of the Subways in New York have led to finding two dead bodies of homeless individuals following the recent announcement of shutting them down nightly for intensive cleaning. It was then at one a.m. when they were found. Really they just died right then? Or how long were there corpses riding the trains all day without notice?

I cannot stress enough that we have no clue what the fuck is going on here.  I am not sure anyone does. I am not a Police officer nor am I Cop and to me they are very different.  A Police Officer is honorable, dependable and reliable to enforce and protect, a Cop is someone who does the job and has more prejudicial biases and other inherent factors that led them to become these enraged individuals who are more dangerous than any of the criminals they allege to protect us from.

And in turn upholding the law becomes challenging as the reality is much law is written so vague and circumspect that it makes it challenging to enforce let alone prosecute and like this current quarantine nonsense almost impossible to do so.   There are city mandates, state mandates, recommended mandates and all of them often parallel but not and some are incredibly so wordy and poorly written that few understand the meaning, let alone what the outcome will be if one violates the orders. Case in point – face masks.  State has mandated them on public transit and in closed in confined spaces. In other words any business that is open to the public – grocery stores, drug stores and the like.  There is no actual ability to enforce so it falls to the business person to do so.  And in turn many Police are not doing so and that message is very visible and in turn absurd.  New York had the same then they changed their mind and made it mandatory anywhere and everywhere. Again enforcement and compliance varies.  And in Jersey City tonight they are voting on an ordinance to “urge” compliance with masks all the time, at the same time they are discussing rent freeze ordinances which means nothing and in turn will do little to actually do something to accelerate testing, tracking and tracing.

So in other words we got shit.  So Police are now our Mothers and Fathers and even they cannot keep up with the daily changing goal post and endless changes to the opening or in turn closing of city rules and regulations.  So they go back to the basics and rely on being a cop who uses race, age and neighborhood to determine guilt.  In other words: Business as usual.

We are in this for another 12 months and in turn that will add up to 18 in total so we are in this for the long haul.  The reality is that we cannot live in fear but we can live in reality and that means being proactive.  When I heard that the Farmer’s Markets were returning I was thrilled and of course told that once again I was being exposed to contaminated food.  Well I have been for years and hence why I try to shop organic and shop for myself as having numerous people handle my food already adds to the risk so having another to shop, bag and in turn deliver adds more so I am better off doing it myself. And as I cannot change anyone else’s behavior I can only change mine.  So I take the precautions and to my best to cover my ass.  As for those hanging out on stoops, in parks, on corners I have no interest or concern as they are not my concern, I can move out of the way and avoid it as I have that ability.  What I don’t have is when those lie to me, fail to tell or disclose to me their status or exposure and in turn that reminds me of the issues of consent and disclosure when it comes to sexuality and that was what it has been like that for me since AIDS.  We forget that and as a result we are not fucking nuts over a virus that we can avoid, we can get well from if we are treated and tested quickly and that again is another problem the lack of adequate affordable health care. That too is the next bigger problem, then all the masks, social distancing violations and utter oblivion and noncompliance could ever be.  I am the Police but I am no one’s Cop. 

The Winning Ticket

Everyday the crazy daily lottery announcements by Cuomo in New York and Murphy in New Jersey has become at one point de rigueur watching then loathing by many who have become immune to the daily Colbert show graphics, the scolding and of course the sibling Cuomo rivalry.  From the absurd threats and faux tears over deaths of citizens that on a daily basis these men would give two shits about is now passed the point of absurd. This is now in month two, entering month three and the jig is up. You are fucked and you know it. What they believed that it would somehow move or compel the federal government to finally step up and take leadership has failed, then it went into a way of insuring compliance by scaring the public shitless, has now become a type of cheerleading performance art.  This is another way of manipulating the public into believing they are the reason and are heroes due to their social distancing aka home imprisonment as they have nothing else.   Basically it is men doing what they do best – coercing compliance and consent in order to fuck you.

I was led to an article about the Jersey City Mayor who is opening the city up for no other reason that he needs to get business and in turn money into the city coffers.  If they stay closed much longer there is less likelihood they will ever reopen and in turn those closures will kill more lives than Covid in the long run.

The true measure of what this pandemic is is about the death rates and how they are in relation to normal death rates at any given time and what extrinsic factors contribute to rises and falls in a population due to any number of variables.    Chicago could use shooting deaths or say Ohio Opioid related ones that affect a cohort in higher numbers over another.  AIDS was perhaps the largest one I recall in my generation but we have had others such as 9/11 that led to an uptick in death  long after the attack due to deaths by illnesses suffered by first responders, including suicides.  And Covid appears to share that but in this case may cities are counting all dead as Covid related and that artificial count is somehow to include those who died but were not confirmed as that as cause of death and those who for whatever reason died and is believed may not have, but due to Covid and the push at hospitals, led them to die sooner than expected.  Sure that is a good idea, not at all.

And lets talk briefly about testing. Again in the article with Jersey City Mayor there is a requirement that front line Municipal workers must be tested every two weeks, there is no given number of how many that is but each week that must be a significant number which in turn is counted again and again against overall tests and the negative and in turn positive numbers that never seem to die off (pun intended) which means that it is front line “essential” workers contributing to the large number of positives as few are tested without meeting criteria otherwise. Then add to that any retests and follow up tests for those who did test positive and have to return to verify that they are now past the contagion stage which also means 14 days following recovery.  How many of those are tested and what are their results? Are they finding them all negative now or are they still positive?  And in turn what percent/proportion of those allocated tests given to them.   So again how many people in need or desire of wanting to be tested regardless of symptoms are being tested again that are not municipal employees or follow ups?

As we move on with this disease that is clearly problematic we are going into the unknown but again the data lovers can rely on one number that cannot be denied – total deaths.  Regardless of the way the  individual died we have a total death number for a period so that may be the clue in what it means to move forward.  If I hear one more comparison to fucking 1918 I will throw on my suffragette gown to rally for women to vote.  We are in the 21st Century with much more effective means to communicate, a robust global medical field of scientists, universities and companies that have this virus/drug thing as a full time occupation and in turn we are also supposedly better educated and in turn aware of our surroundings and long term needs so I don’t get why we are still talking about 1918. Even I wasn’t alive then.  So lets work with what we have – FACTS. Oh those are the real problems here we don’t have those but we do have the dead, so they do tell tales.

The metric that could tell us when it’s safe to reemerge

May 4, 2020
The Washington Post

By:  Jeremy Samuel Faus, an emergency physician in the Division of Health Policy and Public Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and an instructor at Harvard Medical School. Carlos del Rio, a professor of medicine and global health at Emory University. The views expressed are solely their own.

There’s a metric that can indicate when it is safe to reopen society that does not depend on politics or guesswork. It’s called excess mortality.

Excess mortality is the number of deaths from any cause that both occur in a given time period and surpass the expected number. Deaths in the United States have been carefully counted for more than a century. These “all-cause mortality” numbers are extraordinarily stable. We know to a remarkable extent how many Americans are expected to die every day.

As The Post reported Saturday, there were an estimated 37,100 excess deaths across the United States in March and the first two weeks of April — nearly 13,500 more than are currently attributed to covid-19. The number of such deaths can be useful in indicating when the coronavirus threat may be less potent.

Remember, excess mortality is a metric that does not depend on the number or percentage of positive SARS-CoV-2 tests. Those statistics depend on policies: How many tests are being done, and on whom? Similarly, the “case fatality rate” of confirmed or suspected cases of covid-19 is subject to forces resulting from testing decisions.

Excess mortality does not depend on counting the number of covid-19 deaths, which ultimately relies on the subjective opinion of physicians and medical examiners proffering their best guesses on death certificates (and whose minds might be understandably steered by the day’s news — “Did this patient with advanced cancer die of the coronavirus, or with the coronavirus?”).

In graphs that track the number of deaths per week, month and year, entire generations blend into the next. For years, nothing much seems to happen. Then there’s an unusual rise in deaths, say, among young men in the 1990s. It tapers off by the end of the century. There’s a sudden spike in New York and New Jersey in September 2001. Mostly, though, the death counts drone on with the march of time, without much deviation and without fail.

These graphs make visible the mundane reality that death is a part of life, quantified. They also show when something unusual is happening. In Massachusetts, for example, the week-to-week data show that this year began like usual. Then, on the week ending March 29, there was a blip: 10 percent more deaths than the usual number. Nothing unprecedented, but it looked like a fluke. Rates returned to normal the next week.

Then history began to unfold in the graphs. The following week, 11 percent more deaths occurred than expected. The next week, 35 percent more. The week after that, there were 73 percent more deaths than normal. Then the number climbed again, to 119 percent more deaths than expected. By April 19, there had been 2,946 more deaths than expected since the beginning of March. By then, the state had reported 1,800 deaths from the coronavirus.

Now, are these undercounted deaths directly caused by covid-19? Did they occur indirectly due to covid-19, because patients who needed medical attention were scared to seek it?

The reliability of excess mortality lies in eschewing this question. Put another way, using excess mortality as a barometer of this pandemic involves being deliberately agnostic to such questions. Excess mortality cares not why anyone died. It simply observes the fact.

This is also why excess mortality presents an unusual opportunity. By closely monitoring excess mortality, which is occurring all over the United States, it is possible to determine when it is safe to reopen the economy and when is too soon.

As long as excess mortality rates are observed, the effect of SARS-CoV-2 remains too substantial to return to normal. Conversely, as excess mortality abates, it’s possible that physicians will continue to observe that some people who die have also tested positive. Even so, if death rates remain at expected levels, the virus is not posing an unusual threat to our normal way of life.

This will be especially potent if new cases spike in several months. Many cases may occur in people who — knowingly or not — already had the virus. If this coronavirus behaves like other respiratory illnesses, second exposures should be milder. If most people who test positive in the coming months have already had the virus, the death rate will be very low — assuming that our immune systems behave as expected. Excess mortality rates would therefore be indispensable in helping health officials to contextualize future spikes in covid-19 cases.

Excess mortality should form the core of evaluation around reopening the economy. Excess mortality can, however, lag behind caseloads because covid-19 deaths start cropping up a couple of weeks after infection, so comprehensive testing is still necessary. Without tracking excess mortality closely, there is a risk that officials might see the results of universal testing and interpret a handful of new cases as bigger threats than they truly are. This could paralyze society for too long.

While excess mortality information in the absence of adequate testing could inform policymakers that another shutdown is necessary, such information might come too late to prevent another major outbreak. Employing these tools together, however, would allow us to determine whether this pandemic has subsided — and likely detect any resurgences.