Princes and Canaries

Viral Musings:  Good morning from virus central, or as NY’s Governor Cuomo calls us the canary in the coal mine, an expression I use frequently to describe my exquisite sense of smell but one that I’d rather not have applied to my city of residence.  I am also not surprised that Dr Birx, or Debbie as Trump affectionately calls her while pointedly still referring to immunology superstar Tony by the formal moniker Dr Fauci, told all New Yorkers fleeing the Big Apple that they should self-quarantine themselves for fourteen days upon arriving at their hibernation destination.  Personally while I wouldn’t go so far as to say good riddance, I have no problem with people decamping as it declutters the sidewalks, Central Park and the elevators for us NYC diehards.  Anyway, if Trump has his way most of us will be free of this whole quarantine thing by Easter Sunday, because that’s “a beautiful day” at least that’s what he floated Monday night, previewed during a virtual Fox townhall and then repeated yesterday during his daily virus news conference/campaign rally. Dr Fauci did his best to throw boiling water on that idea, but Trump is generally impervious to science, or the smartest scientist in the room because of that uncle of his who taught at MIT, and is as persistent as a dog with a marrow bone so who knows.  Maybe that cancelled Easter Egg Roll will go back on the schedule, because who doesn’t love an event where everyone leaves with a basket, a few pastel eggs and a hacking cough. Some of Trump’s most ardent Congressional supporters like Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Liz Cheney, the number three House Republican and the only one in leadership with enough gumption to speak out when it suits her purpose, made it clear that a premature end to the “stay at home” order was a bad idea, pointing out that dealing with the virus is far more important than rushing the economy back into gear because what good is a strong economy if there’s no one left to benefit from it. Odds are the Easter release won’t happen, but how much do you want to bet that some of Trump’s more ardent fans have already booked cruises and trips to Disney World because at least one of them has already died from ingesting chloroquine phosphate, a fish tank cleaner, after Trump trumpeted the value of the chloroqouine/zithromycin combination for virus sufferers.  By the way that fish tank cleaner is now sold out!  Yikes.  Back to almost everyone’s virus hero, Governor Cuomo, in addition to comparing the city a small melodic bird, he continued criticizing Trump about his unwillingness to use the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of all those critical pieces of medical equipment and protective gear and though that hasn’t seemed to work, FEMA waffled back and forth about it all day, his slam about them not freeing up more ventilators from the national emergency supply did bear some fruit because by the end of the day the number of machines being sent from the federal supply to NY was increased from a miserly few hundred to a still not enough 4000.  Cuomo has promised to sterilize those machines and send them on to the next hotspot at the point that NY gets over its surge, whenever that may be.       

Be a Hand Nazi:  Getting back to the virus, things are not good but you probably know that already so I’ll leave it at that.  At some point the curve will flatten but that’s not going to happen for a while so in the meantime keep on washing your hands a lot and DO NOT TOUCH YOUR FACE, especially your nose, mouth and eyes.  A doctor treating patients at Cornell Weill Hospital tweeted out a video with some virus information.  In it he said that despite all the fears that you can get COVID 18 from air droplets, in his now substantial experience, it is largely transmitted by people touching each other and/or surface droplets and then touching their faces.  He says that while wearing an ordinary mask or scarf over your nose wouldn’t be sufficient for a medical professional working with coughing/sneezing patients it is an effective way to get you to keep your hands off your face when outside so go ahead, cover up when you go shopping, etc.  And then Purell, if you are lucky enough to have any, and/or wash your hands as soon as you can. 

Political Relief:  In the middle of the night the Senate finally agreed upon their much anticipated $2 trillion “relief” package after Minority Leader Schumer and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin hammered out final agreements on unemployment benefits, direct payments to individuals and families and the oversight of what Democrats had been calling a slush fund.  The agreement also provides money for hospitals, loans and funds for some combination of small businesses, cities, states and bigger corporations.  The objective is to support companies that have lost all or most of their customers and to help out low and middle income families until we get out of this mess.  Trump is on board and the Senate is expected to pass the package during the day sending it on to the House where Speaker Pelosi will try to get it passed by unanimous consent if possible.  Passage in the House will happen but the unanimous consent thing might not.  The stock gods who engaged in some very significant anticipatory celebration yesterday are a bit apathetic this morning awaiting the details.  Shifting gears to the presidential campaign, Joe Biden spent some time chatting with MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace yesterday, though there’s not much he can do right now for obvious reasons, for what it’s worth he oozed lots of compassion, in direct contrast to you know who.  He also received another labor endorsement, this one from the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, that’s on top of his previous endorsements from the National Education Association, the United Food and Commercial Workers and the American Federation of Teachers.   That said, Bernie Sanders supporters have been tweeting that Biden isn’t sounding “strong” enough, their justification for the Vermont Senator staying in the race and Bernie says he’s preparing for the April debate and the NYS primary, two things that may never happen.

Your Highnesses: And as I was writing this news came across that Prince Charles is COVID 19 positive but only mildly symptomatic or so his handlers say.  On the “positive” front, that other prince in his own mind Senator Rand Paul is a little touchy on the subject, pun intended.  He wrote an op-ed  defending his decision to socialize while he was waiting for his test results because he’s Rand and that’s how he rolls.