Losing the battle with the Pandemic: Natural Consequences as a result of ignorance, incompetence, and bad judgement

The state of Utah is a microcosm of what is happening around the world with the COVID-19 pandemic. The reaction to the initial wave of virus infections was quickly overcome with standard public health practices; closing business, prohibiting gatherings of all kinds, mandating masks, encouraging personal hygiene such as hand-washing and etc. The results were predictable. The incidence of viral infection started to go down. Unfortunately for the overall population, the leaders of our state and country vastly underestimated the effect of a highly contagious disease in a population with no immunity and no vaccines and abandoned these tested public health measures and went back to business as usual. 

Starting with a self-centered and rabidly political president and extending to a significant number of people who somehow believe that the small amount of good he accomplished in four years excused putting the entire country at risk from an uncontrolled pandemic, to state officials that are so afraid of the protests of hard-core so-called conservatives who threaten violent opposition to any public health restrictions at all, the governments of Utah and other states have abandoned taking any actions that might curb the spread of the disease. 

Around the world, we have seen graphic evidence of countries that have enacted stringent public health measures including shutting down their whole country, such as was recently done by Israel, and gotten control of the situation. We can't even mandate universal masks or take any other action that will really address the spread of the disease. 

Meanwhile, the country and the state are absorbed in politics and are paralyzed by a President who puts his personal agenda above the lives of his constituency. The virus doesn't care about your politics. It is killing people in my neighborhood, three people in the last week, and will continue to kill people until we follow the well-proven national health measures that we have known about for over a hundred years. 

Note: The Daily New Cases of the virus is merely an indicator of the problem, the real number to look at is the percentage of positives from the number of tests which, in Utah Valley where I live, is now over 25% of the tests given regardless of the number of tests. 

What about voter fraud?

 

In 2016, Clinton received 65,853,514 votes in the popular vote and Trump received 62,984,828. According to the popular vote, Clinton received over 2.8 million popular votes than Trump. Currently, as of the date of this post, with the election count incomplete in a few states, Biden has 75,596,426 popular votes and Trump has 71,043,149. The difference today is over 4.5 million, far more than the difference in 2016. In 2016, despite his loss of the popular vote, Trump did not contest the election on the basis of fraud. Back in 2016, a New York Times article "All This Talk of Voter Fraud? Across U.S., Officials Found Next to None" stated as follows:

After all the allegations of rampant voter fraud and claims that millions had voted illegally, the people who supervised the general election last month in states around the nation have been adding up how many credible reports of fraud they actually received. The overwhelming consensus: next to none.

In an election in which more than 137.7 million Americans cast ballots, election and law enforcement officials in 26 states and the District of Columbia — Democratic-leaning, Republican-leaning and in-between — said that so far they knew of no credible allegations of fraudulent voting. Officials in another eight states said they knew of only one allegation.

But apparently, according to Trump who is the apparent loser in the 2020 election, everything has changed in the past four years. Now, we have rampant voter fraud. Here is the split in the electoral college in 2016

Wikipedia: 2016 United States presidential election

You might note that 7 electors refused to follow their state mandate and voted contrary to the results of the election. 

Here is today's tally of the Electoral Votes from the Associated Press.

Now I have a couple of questions:

Why are there only allegations of voter fraud in the states where Trump is losing?

For example, in North Carolina, Trump is only ahead by about 75,000 votes. Why is that state excluded from the Trump allegations? By the way, Trump has only made allegations of fraud in 5 states and those are only states where Biden leads in the vote count.

Why is there only voter fraud in 5 states?

If Trump is worried today about voter fraud why wasn't something done about the supposed problem during his 4 years in office?

Why did Trump try to prevent the Post Office from delivering and collecting ballots?

Why did Trump vote by mail if voting by mail was basically flawed?

Why have I been voting by mail for years without a single issue or problem?

Just thinking. 

Surviving the Pandemic: It will continue to get worse

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/utah/

Back in the latter part of September, the Daily New Cases in Utah of the COVID-19 virus went over 1000 a day for the first time. After spending most of my life involved in court cases in the Arizona and Federal Court system as a trial attorney, I am used to looking at evidence. Because we now live in Utah, I have been following the statistics closely. What did the State of Utah do when the Daily New Cases went over 1000? The Governor urged the residents to wear masks and practice social distancing. 

About that time, I could see from the increasing statistics including the percentage of positive tests that the number of Daily New Cases would soon go over 2000. The number did go over 2000 about a month later in October. I was wondering what the State of Utah would do when the number went over 2000 a day. The State issues an Amber Alert statewide and asked people to wear masks and practice social distancing. Hmm. When something doesn't work the first time, you just keep doing the same thing over and over hoping that it will work. 

When the number of Daily New Cases went over 2000, I could easily see that the rate of increase was accelerating and I wondered what would happen when the number went over 3000 new cases a day? Here is a quote from a KSL.com article about the increase entitled, "2,987 more COVID-19 cases, 17 deaths reported Friday as Utah breaks records again."

"The numbers being reported today are exactly what we've been warning Utah residents about for weeks," Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said in a news release. "They are why we've implored Utahns to adopt the behaviors that could have prevented us from reaching this point."

So, if what you are doing doesn't work, you just do more of it and hope it starts working. The positive test rate for the rolling seven day average in Utah climbed to 19.7%. This indicates that almost 1/5th of the population is now sick with the virus. Despite this, business is as usual in Utah Valley where I live. People are still gathering in large groups. People still come to our door without masks and there is no indication that the people in the state are taking this dramatic increase seriously. In fact, I am still hearing that the "virus is a hoax and as soon as the election is over, it will go away." The "virus" does not know about or care about any one country's election. 

I am now predicting that the incidence of the COVID-19 virus will go over 4000 a day here in Utah very shortly and may go even higher. 

Right around me, I am seeing multiple families where the entire family is sick and it will take months for the family to recover. I have friends who are dying of the disease. All of this is just in our own neighborhood. What does it take to follow what is being done in many other countries with success in limiting or at least reducing the incidence of this disease? The government throughout the United States seems frozen into inactivity by trying to protect an economy that will end up being thoroughly ruined by the pandemic if no action is taken. 

In the last few days, here in Utah Valley, I have seen groups of young people with as many as 30 to 50, mostly without masks and huddled together without even a semblance of social distancing. We are also having church meetings in Utah Valley with up to 100 people in attendance where those attending are "encouraged" to wear masks. Hmm. 

The Pandemic in Utah (and elsewhere) is out of control

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/utah/

This is a graph of the Daily New Cases in the State of Utah. Although the totals are not nearly as high as those in other states, the increases since September show a steep upward curve. This graph is particularly of interest to me because I live in Utah. But I also live in the United States. Here is the graph for the same day for the entire United States. 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

You can see the same increasing trend in the United States as you can see for Utah. Now, what happens if we look at the same day for the whole world?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Why do they all look about the same? Simple. This is a record of a worldwide pandemic. Just as John Donne said about people (men back then) "No Man is an Island." No city, county, state, or country in the world is not part of this pandemic. You can't have a pee area in a swimming pool without sharing. 

Here in Utah, the spread of the COVID-19 virus is looked upon as a local issue. Each county is subject to an individual evaluation with a simplistic three-tiers system of high, moderate, and low. What is missing is a realization that people can indiscriminately move from one county to another, i.e. the swimming pool. There is no enforcement just admonition to wear masks etc. 

Essentially, there has been an accumulation of incompetence, ignorance, and an inability to appreciate reality topped off with a disdain for "science." In the United States, the whole approach to control has been politicized to the point that supposed economic considerations have outweighed the fact that a huge increase in COVID-19 will likely destroy any chance of a swift economic recovery or any recovery. 

Meanwhile, as one of my daughters related to me just recently, there are people who believe that the whole pandemic is a Democratic hoax and invention. Hmm. I wonder how the Democrats got Spain to go along with their hoax. Here is the graph for Spain on the same day as above.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/

The economy of the United States is hopelessly lopsided. Here is a quote from a USAToday article entitled, "How much do you need to make to be in the top 1% in every state? Here's the list."

Nationwide, it takes an annual income of $538,926 to be among the top 1%. Among the approximately 1.4 million taxpayers who meet this threshold, the average annual income is about $1.7 million – about 20 times the average income of $82,535 among all taxpayers.

However, the top 0.01 percent has an average annual income of over $7 million dollars a year. In the first quarter of 2020, the lower 50% of households and nonprofit organizations held 1.4% of all net worth in the United States. In other words, the spread of a pandemic will cause unimaginable suffering and loss but it will not end up affecting the huge disparity in wealth in the United States and around the world. Some of the largest companies in the world are benefitting from the pandemic with record sales. See "Who Are the One Percent in the United States by Income and Net Worth?"

Back to Utah. Up to this point, the government in Utah at all levels has not made any effort to enforce any mandate that might contain or even affect the spread of the COVID-19 virus. How high do the statistics have to go before something is done?

Meanwhile, I will continue to stay home, distance myself from everyone, and wear a mask when I go outside and talk to people. I will also continue to monitor the recovery of my near relatives and friends.