I guess I think there is a middle ground and we, as a country, are unable to find or follow that right now and that is going to cost us greatly. Example: from a news story today---
"Fauci was asked about one of Trump’s tweets on Saturday morning, in which the president said that two available drugs “taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.â€
“I’m not totally sure what the president was referring to,†Fauci said, after Trump had left the podium and his aides continued briefing reporters. But he said he believed Trump was referring to a single, anecdotal study that showed that a combination of the drugs hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial, and azithromycin, an antibiotic, were effective in combating coronavirus infection.
“There are those who lean to the point of giving hope and saying, ‘Give that person the option of having access to that drug,’ †Fauci said. “And then you have the other group, which is my job as a scientist, to say my job is to ultimately prove without a doubt that a drug is not only safe, but that it actually works.â€
Do I think the President has a clue about these drugs and how they work? No. But I also think Dr. Fauci's approach is a very academic, ivory tower, let me study this and tell you all about it 3 years from now which is not helpful. His business is to be a very conservative, academic scientist, not a problem solver. Yet he is put in charge and allowed to be the mouthpiece which is also not helpful.
So who do I like to try and read about and hear from -- the medical folks in the trenches. The doctors who are having to treat patients and are using these drugs to combat things and maybe having success. The guys using the malaria medicines with success -- it might be anecdotal, but it seems to be saving some lives so why not try it if the treating doctor thinks it is worthwhile. I think they should also be allowed to use the Japanese drug favipiravin, which the Chinese found reduced the time of illness from 11 days to 4 -- but I haven't heard a peep by Dr. Fauci about that because it has not gone thru the 3 year process of study. They want us to act as if this is a war, but then they act as if this is an afternoon tea. Governor Cuomo gets on TV and wails about how he is so afraid they will run out of ventilators when there is a doctor in Canada who has shown how you can rig one ventilator to service 9 people. He is solving a problem, not hyping fear.
I guess I don't have a lot of confidence in how anything is being handled right now. The pols are all pretty stupid and run around wringing their hands and don't want headlines that say they let thousands of people die -- but they can't seem to figure out that their actions are also dooming the country to economic collapse and seeing people be out of work and lots of folks never able to recover. And maybe even worse. I lived through the LA riots, it does not take much to set off angry, desperate people. And there is a story every day about how guns and ammo are selling like hotcakes. The "scientists" want to treat this as their day in the sun to really be able to show their knowledge and control folks like a petri dish. But we are a living society and their dynamics don't work. And the news media is just looking for the most sensational headline it can find and doesn't care if they forment fear and panic -- gotta gets those clicks!
I guess I sound cold and brutal, but at times like these I think Spock had it right: "The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few -- or the one." And I fall into the age and health category of the "few" (i.e higher risk) with respect to COVID-19. So I take precautions as advised, but I would not have society shut down to protect me or the 1.4% who could die because there are millions and millions who need to live and have a future worth living for -- not one filled with fear and hardship.
I think about what life might be like if all those GI's has said "I'm not going" to whatever war was threatening our way of life. Some died, some were injured, some came out traumatised -- but society benefited by their sacrifice and courage. I am not seeing a lot of courage in Americans right now. But I am willing to be a soldier and sacrifice if I am called to do that for the folks younger than me because I have had a good, properous life and I want that for them also and not years of shambles and fear and wondering how they will feed and shelter their kids and provide a decent life for them. So I wish we would all just move forward with sense and precautions, but also with courage and selflessness.
