Pandemic
The Washington Post has an account of how the COVID-19 testing approval process went so badly wrong, delaying testing, leading to the present crisis.[1] And for all of it, the test is still crap.[2]
Meanwhile, the number of deaths in New York City alone approaches 2,000 (of over 57,000 confirmed cases) and there are over 100,000 confirmed cases in the state of New York alone.[3] I guess I’m waiting for the milestone when the deaths in New York City alone exceed those of 9/11 and I think we might be starting to see a specific path to human extinction here with the capitalist imperative,[4] an absolute fiasco of testing,[5] and a supremacy of malfeasance.[6] This is the stuff of a dystopian novel about a species that has organized itself into a condition incapable of appropriate response to even the dire crises right in front of its very own eyes, let alone longer term stuff like the climate crisis.
Honestly, can you imagine what George Orwell would do with material such as this? Can you, really? I think we need the man himself.
Shawn Boburg et al., “Inside the coronavirus testing failure: Alarm and dismay among the scientists who sought to help,” Washington Post, April 3, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/03/coronavirus-cdc-test-kits-public-health-labs/
- [1]Shawn Boburg et al., “Inside the coronavirus testing failure: Alarm and dismay among the scientists who sought to help,” Washington Post, April 3, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/03/coronavirus-cdc-test-kits-public-health-labs/↩
- [2]Christopher Weaver, “Questions About Accuracy of Coronavirus Tests Sow Worry,” Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/questions-about-accuracy-of-coronavirus-tests-sow-worry-11585836001↩
- [3]Center for Systems Science and Engineering, “Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases,” April 4, 2020, Johns Hopkins University, https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html↩
- [4]David Benfell, “The capitalist death cult,” Not Housebroken, March 27, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/03/27/the-capitalist-death-cult/; David Benfell, “When nothing happened next,” Not Housebroken, March 29, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/03/29/when-nothing-happened-next/; Mike Snider, “Work strikes at Amazon, Instacart and Whole Foods show essential workers’ safety concerns,” USA Today, March 30, 2020, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2020/03/30/coronavirus-safety-drives-strikes-amazon-instacart-and-whole-foods/5086135002/↩
- [5]David Benfell, “When ‘good’ news might not be so good,” Not Housebroken, April 2, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/04/02/when-good-news-might-not-be-so-good/; Shawn Boburg et al., “Inside the coronavirus testing failure: Alarm and dismay among the scientists who sought to help,” Washington Post, April 3, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/03/coronavirus-cdc-test-kits-public-health-labs/; Christopher Weaver, “Questions About Accuracy of Coronavirus Tests Sow Worry,” Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/questions-about-accuracy-of-coronavirus-tests-sow-worry-11585836001↩
- [6]David Benfell, “Why do Republicans seem better prepared to present proposals on coronavirus relief than Democrats?” Irregular Bullshit, March 20, 2020, https://disunitedstates.com/2020/03/20/why-do-republicans-seem-better-prepared-to-present-proposals-on-coronavirus-relief-than-democrats/; David Benfell, “While neoliberal hot air floats over gig workers’ heads, here’s the Trump administration,” Not Housebroken, March 23, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/03/23/while-neoliberal-hot-air-floats-over-gig-workers-heads-heres-the-trump-administration/; Adam Gaffney, “Trump sees the coronavirus as a threat to his self-interest – not to people,” Guardian, March 17, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/17/trump-sees-the-coronavirus-as-a-threat-to-his-self-interest-not-to-people; Susan B. Glasser, “A President Unequal to the Moment,” New Yorker, March 12, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/a-president-unequal-to-the-moment; Sarah Jones, “Dear Rich People: Please Stop Hoarding Things,” New York, March 30, 2020, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/things-are-bad-and-rich-people-arent-helping.html; Nick Martin, “This Is Crisis Colonization,” New Republic, March 30, 2020, https://newrepublic.com/article/157091/crisis-colonization; Dana Milbank, “For Trump, a reckoning has come,” Washington Post, February 28, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/28/trump-reckoning-has-come/; Ashley Parker, Yasmeen Abutaleb, and Lena H. Sun, “Squandered time: How the Trump administration lost control of the coronavirus crisis,” Washington Post, March 7, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-response-squandered-time/2020/03/07/5c47d3d0-5fcb-11ea-9055-5fa12981bbbf_story.html; David Remnick, “How the Coronavirus Shattered Trump’s Serene Confidence,” New Yorker, March 22, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/30/how-the-coronavirus-shattered-trumps-serene-confidence; Paul Waldman, “How coronavirus has deeply flummoxed conservative media,” Washington Post, February 28, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/28/how-coronavirus-has-deeply-flummuxed-conservative-media/; Kevin D. Williamson, “History Called — and Senator Burr Called His Broker,” National Review, March 20, 2020, https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/history-called-and-senator-burr-called-his-broker/↩