Eyeless on Campus: COVID19 USA--Forecasts & Prognostications ---THE METEOROLOGY OF PHASE ONE

Sunday, April 19, 2020

COVID19 USA--Forecasts & Prognostications ---THE METEOROLOGY OF PHASE ONE

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"...it would take a suspension of disbelief to ignore the barometer and announce the worst was over. "

   (The Lab)--Talking more like a weatherman than a top HHS official tasked with tracking the next local virus outbreak, Admiral Brett Giroir gave a drawn out briefing on Friday on the testing forecast. Based on percentages and controls, the numbers might indicate where to dispatch a team of tornado chasers to an infected area, combined with the local labs' abilities to return the samples in a hurry. The plan meets the approval of the task force's approach to reopen the economy.
   The first models were based on ill winds blowing in from Italy and Spain following the Wuhan typhoon. Prognostications based on worse case scenarios and lack of data showed a category five disaster in the making, and it soon spun up the Eastern seaboard and made landfall in New York City. The cone of probability rapidly expanded into the tri-state region. On the West coast, heavy gale warnings were posted a week before from Seattle to San Diego and governors, in spite of doubts from officials in the nation's capital, ordered forced shelter-in-place as businesses boarded up their shops with plywood and waited out the storm. It proved to be a very wise, life-saving decision.
   Hospitals were flooded with patients, material resupply exhausted the Strategic National Stockpile and lines of communication were established at the White House with daily briefings by storm experts. The forecast remained bleak even as Congress kept candles burning late into the night drawing up contingency relief programs for a population caught in the grip of an isobaric nightmare.
Soothsayers were pronouncing the doom of mankind, people began paying less and less attention to NOAA, and more and more to Noah. Somewhere in the darkness, as relentless rain pounded the empty streets from the Big Easy to the Big Apple, there came an idea. It was given not some trick name by the NHC such as "Katrina" or "Sandy," but one by the federally appointed task force. It was called "Phase One."
   The reaction ranged from relief to disbelief, from surprise to rebellion. But it would take a suspension of disbelief to ignore the barometer and announce the worst was over. Local officials, noting depleted resources with nursing homes the main targets of the cyclone, refused to accept the inevitable, that the federal government would eventually countermand the strict mitigation orders and lift social restrictions. The people didn't wait for that to happen. They swarmed the deserted streets in protest, waving flags and caravaning and cavorting as if the sun had blessed them since Ash Wednesday. Some governors allowed other than essential businesses with one removing riptide and sneaker wave closures on state beaches.
   A new storm was brewing on the horizon, one of discontent. Rumor was blowing all the way from China that the typhoon that hit the mainland was man made, in a lab. In the meantime, the admiral will continue to make the daily forecast and the CDC will dispatch the tornado chasers to the trailer parks and nursing homes hardest hit by the twisters.

Tornado image, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/storms-us-tornado-louisiana-texas-coronavirus-weather-a9461986.html

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RED FLAG
Checkpoint Charlie: NATO, Article 5 and the Berlin Wall
There was no North American Treaty Organization, NATO, immediately following the close of World War Two. By the close of the decade, due to pressure from the Soviet Union, particularly in Germany, the alliance was formed with 12 initial members. The concept of “collective security” had been around for over 30 years, at least on the Continent, with respect to the World War One League of Nations; neither the United States nor the Soviet Union were members. (09 March 2025)

Red Flag: The U.S.-Japan Security Pact of 1960
The recent statement by the White House concerning a “bilateral” treaty between the United States and Japan from 1960 raised the issue of the former’s lack of a security-military commitment, with the latter doing the heavy lifting. It comes as no surprise in light of other treaties such as NATO in Europe with the U.S. again carrying The Weight.
Part and parcel to how it all unfolded had to do with certain ambiguous positions by the two nations coupled with the American public not totally informed of the agreement. The situation was quite different in Japan. (09 March 2025)

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BORDERLANDS
Ukraine: The Art of the (Peace) Deal
Nations are big on treaties, enforcing them is another matter. This paper traces some of the more recent, failed and otherwise, then takes a close look at one of the most controversial in history, The Versailles Treaty at the end of World War One. (09 March 2025)

Ukraine and The Rubio Doctrine The purpose of this report is to test the secretary’s three core principles against the Ukraine conflict to see if they are viable and would have been if he became president in the 2015 election. (09 March 2025)

Ukraine Betrayed: American Robber Barons to Steal Rare Minerals
Ukraine possesses significant reserves of rare earth minerals and other critical raw materials that are essential for modern technology and industry. According to reports, Ukraine has deposits of 22 out of 34 minerals identified as critical by the European Union. (09 March 2025)