Living The Truth

In 1978, Czech dissident Vaclav Havel published, via samizdat, an essay entitled, The Power Of The Powerless.  In 1968, a futile attempt to "put a human face" on socialism in Czechoslovakia, was crushed by Soviet tanks, and a wave of repression occurred to ensure it never happened again.  Havel and others attempted to build resistance to the communist apparatus.  In his essay, Havel describes what he characterizes as a "post totalitarian system", one that relies on a:

. . . labyrinth of influence, repression, fear, and self-censorship which swallows up everyone within it.

In other words, something like the society the Woke are trying to build right now in America.

Havel gives us a parable, the story of the greengrocer who places in his shop the sign, Workers Of The World, Unite!  Does he do so because he believes in the slogan?  No, he does so as a sign of his submission to and humiliation by the regime because it is too dangerous not to.  From the regime's perspective it is even more powerful because those who disagree with it must publicly demonstrate their support.  The individual living within such a system must live a lie to survive.  Havel proposes that the only path towards restoring a free society is for the individual to refuse to live the lie and that by living the truth on a day to day basis to differentiate themselves from the mandated culture.  Havel's argument is complex and goes on to explain how it is possible to exploit the cracks in the system, live the truth, and still possibly survive.  

Havel himself was jailed several months after The Power of the Powerless was published clandestinely, serving four years in prison.  He survived living the truth and, in 1989, became the last President of Czechoslovakia and, in 1992, the first President of the Czech Republic.

With that in mind, I ask you watch the 10-minute video embedded below.  It came to my attention through a piece by Rod Dreher, author of the just-released Live Not By Lies.  It was published in the American Conservative, an online magazine and one which features many authors I do not care for.  However, I follow Dreher on twitter so I can get notice of his articles, finding him credible and thoughtful.

The video, posted on October 27, is by Jody Shaw, an administrative assistant at Smith College in Northhampton, MA as well as being a graduate of the school and a self-described liberal.  She's also "sick and tired of enduring what she describes as “harassment, discrimination, and hostility” in the workplace at Smith, because she is white" and Ms Shaw speaks up not just on her own behalf but on behalf of many others who have spoken with her but fear speaking publicly.  She is resisting the poison that Critical Race Theory and the Woke are trying to inject into our society.

Stopping the hysterical stampede towards totalitarianism will take the work of many brave people like Jody Shaw.

Ms Shaw, claims that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which prohibits discrimination based on race illegal, protects her.  She's right, but unfortunately, the increasingly progressive-oriented legal academics and civil rights groups do not agree with her, arguing that White people are not protected by the Civil Rights Act despite its clear language.  A little back history is important here.  In 2009, when Eric Holder became Attorney General in the Obama administration, he hired about 100 new lawyers for the Civil Rights Section of the Department of Justice.  A later Inspector General report on that hiring process chastised Holder for hiring those lawyers exclusively from a select group of civil rights organizations, including the NAACP and LaRaza, which take the position that the anti-discrimination provisions of the Act do not apply to Whites, while rejecting many other qualified candidates with similar credentials, but without similar views.

It is also appropriate to note that, as I write this, the California Democratic Party is spearheading an effort to repeal the anti-discrimination clauses in that state's constitution.

Every time I think of the courage of a Havel or a Jody Shaw I become more outraged at the moral inversion currently underway in large parts of our society, and one specific example comes to mind.  Angela Davis is someone of whom I've written before, a violent and evil person.  Since this post in January 2019 with the eruption of the Woke this year she has regained a great deal of public prominence being featured on the cover of Vanity Fair which contains a fawning and disgraceful agit-prop interview of Davis by movie director Ava Duverney, as well as two glowing articles in the New York Times during October.

Angela Davis is a communist.  She opposes human rights.  And, when approached in the 1970s seeking her support in seeking the release of dissident Czechs like Vaclav Havel, her response was "They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison".  Those involved in her public rehabilitation show their true colors.  For more on the noxious Davis read this piece.

The Woke want you to believe that it is Angela Davis who lacks power and privilege, even as she has been showered with decades of appointments in academia and celebrated as a political and fashion icon, while it is those like Jody Shaw, fearing the loss of jobs and careers for speaking out, who wield the power and privilege.  When you are asked to believe that you are being asked to live the lie.  Will you decide to live the truth?

UPDATE: If you want to know what it is like living in the Woke version of America, ask Tiffany Riley, recently fired as a high school principal in the Mount Ascutney School District in Vermont.  The District Board fired here because back in June she wrote:

I firmly believe that Black Lives Matter, but I DO NOT agree with the coercive measures taken to get to this point across; some of which are falsified in an attempt to prove a point. While I want to get behind BLM, I do not think people should be made to feel they have to choose black race over human race. While I understand the urgency to feel compelled to advocate for black lives, what about our fellow law enforcement? What about all others who advocate for and demand equity for all? Just because I don’t walk around with a BLM sign should not mean I am a racist.

In the peculiar logic of the Woke, one of the Board members said the most convincing moment for her was in a phone conversation with Riley.  When the Board member accused Riley of being a racist, it was the fact that Riley rejected this accusation that was the most damning fact. 

This reasoning, so common on the Woke, evokes a scene from the magnificent German film, The Lives of Others, in which the interrogator from the communist Stasi secret police of East Germany questions a prisoner:

Q.  You think we imprison people on a whim?

A.  No.

Q.  If you think our humanistic system capable of it, that alone would justify your arrest.

In an October 15 statement, Riley asserted:

“I did not know that talking about ‘all lives’ was ‘code’ for opposing the nonviolent messages of the Black Lives Matter movement. Black lives have always mattered to me, which is why I had been leading equity training in the school.”

These examples point out that the Woke are just as much a danger to traditional liberal Democrats as they are to those on the right.  There are many who believe in opposing racism and seeking justice in society who fail to realize that the Woke and their allies like BLM and Antifa are racist and oppose equal justice for all in society.

This is Your Future under the Woke and the Democratic party, none of whose leading figures have objected to this insanity so antithetical to basic American values.   Absolute adherence is demanded to every single aspect of woke theology or you will be branded a heretic.

Fine People On Both Sides*

President Macron of France has expressed his displeasure with the coverage of the recent Islamist beheadings and knife murders in the American press, specifically the New York Times and Washington Post, whose coverage has amounted to declaring "there are fine people on both sides" of these atrocities.

Both outlets have run multiple pieces with this perspective.  For example, the Post ran an article, "Instead of fighting systemic racism, France wants to 'reform Islam'", and numerous articles explaining away the incidents as results of France's secular policies.

After seeing the media coverage President Macron declared:

"Alignment with American multiculturalism is a form of defeatist thought"

I think he's on to something there.  As we've discussed in previous posts, the current Woke theory of multiculturalism is very different from that of twenty years ago.  That ancient relic multiculturalism was about mutual tolerance, acceptance and, in many instances, enjoyment of differences with the idea that we shared a common American culture.  Today's multiculturism focuses on fostering differences, power, intolerance, suspicion and the destruction of common values.  France is right to reject it.

Actually, as I look at the American media coverage it probably is an overstatement to call it a "good people on both sides" approach.  Rather it skews things so those really responsible for the incidents are the beheaded teacher who mocked Mohammed and the three killed in Nice, who were all (gasp!) practicing Roman Catholics, so probably bigots who deserved it, while the true victims were the killers driven to these unfortunate acts by French social policy hostile to Muslims.

---------------------

You probably know the title of this post is taken from President Trump's 2017 remarks at a press conference after the Charlottesville protests over the removal of a statue of Robert E Lee and the presence of white nationalists and neo-nazis at the protest.

I did not see or hear the President's remarks at the time but certainly heard about them.  Based on my personal dislike for the man and his penchant for appalling rhetoric and generating random, unintelligible word salads when not reading a speech, I assumed, given the small but still residual respect I then had for the media, that both his words and the context were being accurately reported.

Over a year later, I read the actual transcript of that press conference and was surprised.  It came via Ann Althouse, the retired U of Wisconsin law professor, whose blog I read daily.  Althouse, who voted for Hillary in 2016, came across the transcript while looking for something else, and felt it important to bring it to her readers attention.  It turns out that while Trump did say "there were fine people on both sides" of the protests, he was referring to the argument over whether the statue should be removed, and at two different points explicitly stated he was not including white nationalists and neo-nazis in that group, specifically saying he "them I totally condemn" and denouncing them as "bad people"!

Yet the myth persists and candidate Biden has repeatedly used it during his campaign and I suspect most regular readers of the NY Times, Washington Post, watchers of CNN or MSNBC, or listeners to NPR do not know about the President's full remarks. 

This is why I no longer believe anything from these sources unless I can independently verify it.

 

Raise Your Hand

Wow.  Came across this at Open Culture.  It's Janis Joplin and Tom Jones from his 1969 variety show This Is Tom Jones.  Jones was certainly no slouch in the singing and dynamism categories but Janis is just an amazing singer and ball of energy.  Reading the article I realized I'd heard her sing the song at Woodstock in August 1969 which you can listen to here.  I like her with Tom better.

Righteous Acts

The Trump administration has recently taken four important actions confronting the scourge of racial discrimination and stereotyping underlying Critical Race Theory and embraced by the advocates of Woke theology (for more on the dangers posed by CRT read other posts in the Your Future series). They are the cornerstones of a strong Federal response to CRT and are certain to be immediately undone if Joe Biden is elected.

The first is the investigation of Princeton University by the Department of Education based upon the admission by its President that it is a racist institution, and therefore possibly acting in contravention of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Second, the Department of Justice lawsuit against Yale University for its alleged discriminatory admission practices, also in violation of the Civil Rights Act.

But it is the next two that are, by far, the most important:

On September 4, Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a directive banning Critical Race training in the Federal government. This followed the revelation that such training has infiltrated the federal bureaucracy in recent years.

Vought's letter states:

"These types of 'trainings' not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce. We can be proud that as an employer, the Federal government has employees of all race, ethnicities, and religions."

Banned is:

". . . any training on 'critical race theory', 'white privilege', or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil." 

The final act is the Executive Order (EO) issued by President Trump on September 22 banning Critical Race Theory training by Federal contractors and grantees, an EO impacting a wide array of institutions from business corporations doing business with the government to colleges and universities which receive federal grants (the details of the EO can be found at the end of this post).

Democrats and their media allies have falsely and repeatedly claimed that this EO bans diversity training. This is a lie.

To the contrary, the order explicitly:

 . . .  does not prevent agencies, the United States Uniformed Services, or contractors from promoting racial, cultural, or ethnic diversity or inclusiveness, provided such efforts are consistent with the requirements of this order.

Moreover it allows for academic discussion of Critical Race Theory, providing:

Nothing in this order shall be construed to prohibit discussing, as part of a larger course of academic instruction, the divisive concepts listed in section 2(a) of this order in an objective manner and without endorsement.

It is a moral disgrace that 56 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, large parts of the academy, media, and one of our political parties have embraced this doctrine (the tipoff is anyone invoking the term "systemic racism" supports CRT) and that such an Executive Order is needed. 

As progressive Zaid Jilani has noted:

The portion of people who view their race as defining them declined a lot during the 20th century, coinciding with a big decline in implicit and explicit bias. These folks really looked at that and said we want to crank it up again?

And beyond just the effect on race relations, CRT is a reactionary doctrine that would reverse the Enlightenment and take us back to an era of tribalism and clans, set at each others throats.

Keeping the United States together, a nation of 330 million with diverse ideas and backgrounds is not easy. CRT is not only designed to make it harder to keep our country together but it is opposed to the idea of "neutral processes". Neutral process is the idea that our government institutions and judicial processes will strive to have processes that work equally for all parties. It means that no actions or elections are irreversible or should be events posing an existential threat to any American citizen. In reality, no processes are perfect, or perfectly neutral, but being able to assure some basic level of adherence to these processes is essential in the trust needed to maintain a democratic republic.

CRT rejects the concept of neutral processes, believing that all institutions are based on racial group-centered power hierarchies and that is all there is. There are no real ideas as such, there are no differing individual perspectives. The only question is who is on top of the hierarchy and those are top are entitled to wield power in any way they believe is justified. It is why if CRT advocates control our culture they would have no hesitation in banning any dissenting views, openly endorsing repression. My principles when I was a liberal democrat and today include freedom of speech freedom of conscience, and due process and equality under the law. It turns out that for many who professed the same beliefs it was merely a tactical move. An America where CRT holds sway in government and our institutions will be transformed into an unrecognizable country.

Or, as Frank Hebert wrote in Children of Dune:

When I am Weaker than you, I ask you for Freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am Stronger than you, I take away your Freedom because that is according to my principles.

And, once again, in a Biden Administration these actions will be immediately reversed. My guess is Biden does not understand what CRT really is, but those around him surely do, as will the thousands of Democrats appointed to political positions in the Federal bureaucracy in a Biden administration, and the progressive trained judges appointed by Biden (or Harris).

As a palette cleanser let's close with the UK Minister for Equalities, Kemi Badenoch, blasting CRT.

The EO is titled, Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping.  In the preamble, after discussing the creed expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the sentiments of President Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr regarding equality and the worth of the individual, it goes on to say:

Today, however, many people are pushing a different vision of America that is grounded in hierarchies based on collective social and political identities rather than in the inherent and equal dignity of every person as an individual. This ideology is rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country; that some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors; and that racial and sexual identities are more important than our common status as human beings and Americans.

This destructive ideology is grounded in misrepresentations of our country’s history and its role in the world. Although presented as new and revolutionary, they resurrect the discredited notions of the nineteenth century’s apologists for slavery who, like President Lincoln’s rival Stephen A. Douglas, maintained that our government “was made on the white basis” “by white men, for the benefit of white men.” Our Founding documents rejected these racialized views of America, which were soundly defeated on the blood-stained battlefields of the Civil War. Yet they are now being repackaged and sold as cutting-edge insights. They are designed to divide us and to prevent us from uniting as one people in pursuit of one common destiny for our great country.

It then cites several recent examples of training in this pernicious doctrine:

Training materials from Argonne National Laboratories, a Federal entity, stated that racism “is interwoven into every fabric of America” and described statements like “color blindness” and the “meritocracy” as “actions of bias.”

Materials from Sandia National Laboratories, also a Federal entity, for non-minority males stated that an emphasis on “rationality over emotionality” was a characteristic of “white male[s],” and asked those present to “acknowledge” their “privilege” to each other.

A Smithsonian Institution museum graphic recently claimed that concepts like “[o]bjective, rational linear thinking,” “[h]ard work” being “the key to success,” the “nuclear family,” and belief in a single god are not values that unite Americans of all races but are instead “aspects and assumptions of whiteness.” The museum also stated that “[f]acing your whiteness is hard and can result in feelings of guilt, sadness, confusion, defensiveness, or fear.”

The preamble concludes:

Therefore, it shall be the policy of the United States not to promote race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating in the Federal workforce or in the Uniformed Services, and not to allow grant funds to be used for these purposes. In addition, Federal contractors will not be permitted to inculcate such views in their employees.

Banned are nine types of "divisive concepts":

(1) one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex; 

(2) the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist; 

(3) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; 

(4) an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex; 

(5) members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex; 

(6) an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex; 

(7) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex; 

(8) any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex; or

(9) meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race. The term “divisive concepts” also includes any other form of race or sex stereotyping or any other form of race or sex scapegoating. 

"Race or sex stereotyping" is defined as:

. . . ascribing character traits, values, moral and ethical codes, privileges, status, or beliefs to a race or sex, or to an individual because of his or her race or sex.

"Race or sex scapegoating" is defined as:

. . . assigning fault, blame, or bias to a race or sex, or to members of a race or sex because of their race or sex. It similarly encompasses any claim that, consciously or unconsciously, and by virtue of his or her race or sex, members of any race are inherently racist or are inherently inclined to oppress others, or that members of a sex are inherently sexist or inclined to oppress others.

The EO also directs the Attorney General to:

. . .  continue to assess the extent to which workplace training that teaches the divisive concepts set forth in section 2(a) of this order may contribute to a hostile work environment and give rise to potential liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . . .

A Closed Ecosystem

A closed ecosystem is "a self-replenishing ecosystem in which life can be maintained without external factors or outside aid".   I'm familiar with the concept having worked in the environmental field for many years.

It is what media, including social media, have been busily constructing in America over the past few years; an echo chamber in which only certain voices can be heard and others excluded.

Over the past decade we've seen the growth of "fact-checking", an industry dominated by progressive minded institutions like Politifact, Snopes and the various legacy media outfits like the New York Times and the TV and cable networks.  

They apply a common and consistent approach depending on the political orientation of the statement source and the narrative these institutions seek to impose on consumers.

If it is Republican or GOP both the literal statement and the context in which it is set will be scrutinized meticulously.  If the statement is actually correct but there is context omitted it is declared "false".  It the statement has inaccuracies but the missing context provides support for the assertion the statement is still declared "false".  The opposite occurs if a progressive or Democrat is the source of the statement.  I've seen fact checkers acknowledge a statement by a Democrat is actually false but then supply some additional context and declare the statement "partially true"!

Then the social media take the fact checker conclusions into their process for determining what their users can see or whether warnings need to be posted regarding certain articles thus reinforcing a virtuous circle for progressives.

The same approach is taken regarding determining if a group or individual is engaged in hate speech.  Media companies rely or cite to certain groups when reporting on this subject or, in the case of social media, actually engage these groups to help determine if certain speech should be banned from their platforms.  Many of these groups are actually hate groups themselves though positioned on the Left, who deliberately sent out to demonize those with whom they disagree.  An example is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) which outrageously and overbroadly classifies its political opponents as hate groups in order to get them banned and condemned.

The SPLC is also an example of another phenomenon - the takeover of once respectable organizations by Progressives who turn them to evil purposes but profit from the long-standing brand reputation and continue to suck in contributions.  Forty years ago the SPLC was a fine organization fighting real racists like the KKK.  Today, it is a fund-raising scam with hundred of millions in slush funds and happily designating anyone not 100% following the progressive line as a hater.  Other organizations that have gone through the same mutation include Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union.

More recently we've seen a variation added to the toolkit of the fact-checkers which is to simply not fact-check statements made by politicians, individuals and groups they sympathize with.  Why bother going to all the trouble to explain away inaccurate statements when you can just ignore them?

I was prompted to write this after looking at the NY Times and WaPo fact checks on last night's debate.  It turns out that neither fact-checked Joe Biden's statement that no one lost their individual health insurance under Obamacare.

Not only is that statement a lie, but it ties back to the most consequential political lie used to pass a domestic program in American history.  In 2009-2010 during the Obamacare debate, President Obama repeatedly stated, on more than 30 occasions, that if you liked your doctor or your healthplan, you would not lose them under Obamacare.

The truth is that five million Americans lost their plans under Obamacare, including my sister, her husband and their daughter.  Moreover, in 2011, once Obamacare was law and it was safe to tell the truth, the Department of Health & Human Services, in the preamble to a rulemaking, estimated that up to 93 million American could lose their existing coverage once the Cadillac Tax imposed by the law, kicked in (and which I wrote about way back in 2013).  This catastrophe was only averted by Republicans in Congress postponing the deadline for imposition of the tax.

Given the penchant for carefully counting each Trump "lie" in the press, my question is whether President Obama's lie, which had big consequences on millions of Americans, should be counted as 1, 30, 5 million or 93 million?

And, as for Joe Biden's statement and its accuracy it's as if for readers of those publications it has now been certified as true through omission in the fact-check.

That is what I mean by a closed ecosystem in which readers and watchers can be comfortably enmeshed, with their dearest beliefs constantly reinforced, unaware of reality.

Covid + 7

 It's now been seven months since Mr Covid joined us.  Here are my past pieces and you can read where I was right and wrong.  Current reflections:

1.  I never thought the storm would go on for this long.  Back in February I anticipated it would be bad but over by summer or latest early fall.  To me the lead indicator of how bad it was going to be was that China, which does not place individual health as its highest priority, was willing to take a substantial hit to its top priority, the economy, in order to control Covid.  Now, who knows?

2.  As older folks (though in good health) we are in the more vulnerable category.  It's to our benefit that a lot of younger people get this to develop immunity and break transmission chains, and it is also to our benefit to take reasonable precautions to make we don't get infected but it may be to others benefit that we do. 

3.  Let's be thankful that unlike many other similar pandemics, this is not disproportionately impacting the young.  Better us old folks than them.

4.  Would any other strategy have made for a significant difference for the United States?  As I look at what's happened globally I am more doubtful about this than I was earlier in the year.  And I am speaking of practical measures, not those invented in the public health dreamworld.

5.  People need to stop making premature declarations about winner and losers, particularly claims driven by politics.  As we've seen from the ups and downs and various waves it ain't over until it's over.  We simply don't know what will happen in the next few months and you cannot extrapolate from current conditions.

When the Northeast was hit early in the this, many in the rest of America thought they were handling it better than the Northeast.

When later the Southeast was hit, many blamed state leadership, even though the results (as of now) weren't as bad as the Northeast. 

Maybe now that most states have experienced at least one wave we can get beyond that.

After the Western Europe initial wave crashed and cases were very low in the summer, some people claimed it proved they were handing it better than the U.S., where deaths had declined but were at a relatively high level.  Now Western Europe faces a massive second wave.

Worldometer data for Today:

U.S. (pop. 331 million), 73,000 cases, 959 deaths

Spain, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands (pop. 371 million), 135,000 cases, 783 deaths

 ADDED: Next day data:

U.S.: 79,000 cases, 894 deaths

S,UK, F, I, G, B, N: 141,000 cases, 978 deaths

6.  What is a Covid death?  I've learned there is great variation in how deaths are classified by various countries which makes direct comparisons difficult.  It is also very difficult to get definitive, as opposed to anecdotal, information on this.  From my research, Belgium may have the most expansive definition while the U.S. is relatively liberal in attribution along with a number of other countries.  For some other countries, like Italy and Spain, there have been credible allegations of under counting.  And some countries, like Russia and Iran appear to have pretty restrictive definitions.

Mortality differences between countries are also influenced by demographic and health conditions.  Countries with younger populations will have lower rates (for instance, the states of the Arabian Peninsula have high infection but relatively low mortality) as will healthier populations with less high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity, all conditions that are more prevalent in the U.S. than in many other countries.

This is the current list of countries with death rates in excess of 400 per million.  I picked this because it provides a broad bracket with the U.S. in the middle.  About all I feel comfortable saying right now is all of these countries are in the same ballpark.

U.S.  688

Brazil  732

Spain  738

Argentina  607

France  524

Colombia  581

Peru  1,026

Mexico  676

UK  652

Chile  720

Italy  612

Netherlands  404

Belgium  908

Ecuador  705

Bolivia  730

Panama  599

Sweden  586

Moldova  407

North Macedonia  420

Montenegro  403

There are several other countries currently on track to exceed 400, including Armenia, Iran, Ireland, Romania and South Africa.  Given the extent of the current outbreak in eastern Europe I anticipate several more countries from that region joining the list.  And with the unknowable future course of the pandemic the list could look entirely different in early 2021.

7.  Per capita versus absolute numbers.  I see a lot of this, again often for political purposes when people argue whichever one suits their purpose.  Please stop it.  

Example - India is not on the list above but it has the third highest number of deaths (117,000) and second highest number of cases (8.7 million).  The U.S. has the highest death total but, as you saw above, it is not the highest per capita.

8.  What is happening now?  The entire Western Hemisphere has been hard hit, even Canada which had done fairly well and is seeing a surge.   Western Europe is seeing a huge second wave, and Eastern Europe, which had been relatively insulated earlier is now seeing a major wave.  In contrast the Scandanavian countries have been stable so far.  Things are getting worse more slowly in Russia and the former Soviet Republics.  The Middle East has been seeing many cases for a while with Israel, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq having recent surges.

Sub-Saharan Africa has, so far, seen minimal impact with the exception of South Africa.  In South Asia, India faces a full scale pandemic.

9.  I'd like to have more and better information on what the countries that have escaped the worst have been doing.  I am not including isolated islands nations (Australia, New Zealand) or small city states (Hong Kong, Singapore) with conditions difficult to replicate here.  What interests me are places like Uruguay, surrounded by hard hit Brazil and Argentina.  Or Germany which, until recently, had also done much better than its neighbors.  Why has Vietnam, which does not have the most robust public health system, done so well?  

On a related matter, I'd like to know if there are genetic, health, or demographic factors that are playing into the relatively good performance of East Asian nations in addition to their control measures.

10.  Related to #9 is trying to make sense of the Sweden response.  My reading indicates that the measures it took (and didn't take) are is less dramatically different from most countries than either its supporters or detractors claim.  The other thing to note is that, as of today, Sweden's death rate (586) is substantially higher than its neighbors Denmark (120), Norway (51), and Finland (64).  The only thing I know for certain is that we can only draw conclusions when this is over.  It would be premature now.

11.  U.S. pandemic planning was built around an influenza, not coronavirus, outbreak and predicated on an infection with a fatality rate of 10-20%!  We still don't know the ultimate fatality rate for covid-19 but it is substantially less.  As of today the fatality rate per confirmed cases is 2.6%.  However, we know the actual cases are a multiple of that figure so the actual fatality rate is less than 1% and might be as low as 0.15%.  Looking at how we (and the world) have reacted to this I do not think we could, under any circumstances, handle an influenza pandemic of the scope in our planning documents and that is a very, very sobering thought.

12.  This is definitely not the flu (or at least like any flu we've experienced in the U.S. in the past half century).  Before covid I'd never paid any attention to how the CDC developed its estimates for flu cases and death each year.  Now that I have it is clear to me that the deaths are very likely overestimates, so covid is actually worse than it appears from a comparison with the CDC flu estimates.

Covid is also very different in its impact on age groups.  The groups hit hardest by flu are the youngest and the oldest, but as we've seen, covid has much less impact on those under 20 than the flu and may have a slightly less impact on those under 40.  But for populations older than 65 it is much worse.

ADDED: I've also realized the need to be cautious when comparing covid with prior pandemics.  With prior pandemics death and cases are rough estimates while we've never counted any disease in real-time with the specificity with which covid is tracked globally.  Comparisons can be very misleading if not properly caveated.

13.  Treatments are better which is contributing to the lower death rates since April but there is still a lot we don't know about covid transmission, how it acts on the body and any longer term impacts on those infected.

14.  There's been a lot written about herd immunity with some suggesting it may kick it at lower population infection rates than previously postulated.  The verdict it out but it looks to me that the Western Europe resurgence is not a good sign.

15.  The original idea about lockdowns was to implement them for a few weeks to avoid surges and collapse of health care systems.  They have evolved to some extent to be in place until there is a cure for covid-19.  I think this unsustainable the longer the pandemic goes on and the economic, societal, physical, and psychological costs are substantial.

16.  Though I think outcomes would not have been substantially different (the one exception that does come to mind is sending infected patients to nursing homes) most of our leaders and institutions have not come out of this looking good.

- Public health officials told us for the first two months that public wearing of masks was stupid and ineffective and then started calling us stupid if we didn't mask.  In February, I looked online at mask studies (most in East Asia) and concluded they had at least some marginal benefit in crowded or indoor locales and we've been using them since then.

- They completely screwed up the development of a reliable covid test which set us back at the beginning.

- The published government plans developed since 2007 (which I reviewed online) were so general as to be not usable as practical implementation and response guides. 

-  In May and June we were suddenly told by public health officials and some politicians that participating in mass gatherings somehow magically gave you covid immunity if it was for purposes the public health and politicians approved of.

- And as for Dr Fauci he's been on every side of every issue since January.  I know he has some big fans, but I don't get it.  He also has detractors who think he's been wrong on everything but he hasn't.  He's been wrong and right about everything because of his shifting statements.

- State politicians in some cases downplayed covid early on, in others sent infected patients back to nursing homes, in others delayed urging the use of masks, and in other completely overreacted in their dictates which have been kept in place well beyond reason.  And not enough bad can be said about the ghoulish Governor Andrew Cuomo.

- The President did what he often does.  The actual actions taken at his direction were often good or at least not bad, but they were accompanied by terrible rhetoric, bad tone, conflicting messages, goofy ramblings and stream of consciousness which is not what the public wants to hear at a time like this.  He sounded (and sounds) like a man not in control of himself.