CORONAVIRUS--Paranoia, Polemics and Politics--@ HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY

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"...a pending epidemic of epic proportions just as the Asian flu swept the globe..." 

     (DEN@UNR)---Fear has overtaken indifference as the newest epidemic slowly expands globally. Beyond that initial burst of anxiety, yet another variable enters as the Chinese people are now getting the blame for the virus. Raissa Robles reports for the South China Morning Post that at least one school in the Philippines has demanded Chinese students to stay away,

    " Not long after the Philippine health department announced that first coronavirus case on Friday, Adamson University in Manila openly called for its “Chinese” students to stop coming to classes until February 14. The university has since apologized 'for the misimpression it may have created' .” (SCMP)
     In a report from The Bangkok Post, Thai doctors seem to have found a partial remedy in a blended mix of other anti-viral antidotes;

Thai doctors deploy HIV drugs: Virus update

Thai doctors deploy HIV drugs: Virus update People wearing protective masks to prevent the spread of the SARS-like virus are seen from the Jingshan park overlooking the Forbidden city after a snowfall in Beijing on Saturday. (AFP photo) A 44-year-old man from Wuhan died in the Philippines on Saturday as a result of coronavirus, the first known death outside China.

     But that doesn't help settle the fear generated by the presence of Chinese citizens in the culture. Hyung-Jin Kim, reporting for the Associated Press,  gives the lowdown on the anti-China tone surfacing in otherwise civilized nations;

      "South Korean websites have been flooded with comments calling on the government to block or expel Chinese and racist remarks about Chinese eating habits and hygiene. A popular Seoul seafood restaurant frequented by Chinese tourists posted a sign saying 'No entry for Chinese' before taking it down Wednesday after an online backlash." (AP)
As if a ban wasn't enough, an outright attack on the Chinese people as a race grew overnight in France;
     "A French teacher started a Twitter conversation recently under #JeNeSuisPasUnVirus (I am not a virus) that has drawn numerous accounts of discrimination, from children taunted in the schoolyard to subway passengers moving away from people who appear Asian..... A regional newspaper in northern France carried a front-page headline warning of a “Yellow Alert,” and later apologized amid national criticism." (AP)
     Adding to that sense of helplessness, with the first of the election contests to begin this week in the United States, candidates are quick to seize on the opportunity to bash opponents who have an ambivalent attitude toward  the less-than-adequate health care system recently under intense scrutiny.
VP Biden, a current frontrunner, claims there is no time for "fearmongering" but does exactly that by criticizing the president's recent cuts in health care programs;

Biden slams Trump response to coronavirus epidemic: This is no time for "fearmongering"

Former Vice President Joe Biden President Trump Donald John Trump Coronavirus death toll rises to 304 in China Michael Moore: Clinton comments about Sanders 'divisive,' 'cruel' and 'a lie' Palestinian Authority cuts security ties with US, Israel following Trump peace plan announcement MORE for cutting health programs amid an outbreak of the coronavirus that originated in China and has since spread to the U.S.

Instead of working with the White House for the sake of a nervous public, Biden has chosen to ramp up rhetoric and blame-fixing for his own self-interest. It shows the lack of a genuine plan in his own camp as to a bona-fide health-care-for-all program for the nation. It also shows a desperate attempt to grab the coattails of his opponent Bernie Sanders (D-VT) who has a realistic plan, currently ahead in this week's caucuses and primaries.  All of this while the president is being attacked by another Democratic opponent for his appearance and getting bashed back in the process. The total lack of regard for the necessity of leadership during a possible disease epidemic is obvious and shameful.
     In fact, according to Open Secrets, the health care industry has contributed just as much money to the Biden campaign as it has to the President's re-election campaign. (Open Secrets) For that matter, with all of the rhetoric about not taking big money, Senator Sanders has also accepted equivalent sums from health care. (Open Secrets) According to GovTrack, a website that follows bill sponsorship by senators, VP Biden, as senator, had a dismal record for presenting legislation related to health, at 8 percent, his lowest category. (GovTrack) None of his sponsored bills appear to suggest the need for unilateral health care for Americans.
     Coronavirus isn't about catching the flu, a runny nose and walking around wearing a surgical mask. The new viral strain has nothing to do with evacuations, quarantines and the latest hazmat gear. Coronavirus is about stoking paranoia, insulting ethnic groups and abuse of leadership through divisiveness instead of co-operation. What can we expect? Probably a complete failure in the effort to combat a pending epidemic of epic proportions just as the Asian flu swept the globe in the middle of the last century.



Further Reading

Wuhan virus may transmit along faecal-oral route, Xinhua reports

BEIJING (BLOOMBERG) - The coronavirus that's infected more than 14,000 people in two dozen countries may be transmitted through the digestive tract, Chinese state media reported. Virus genetic material was discovered in patient stool and rectal swabs, Xinhua said Sunday (Feb 2).

ER doctor confronts Pence over Medicaid cuts in diner

An emergency room doctor and former Democratic congressional candidate confronted Vice President Pence in a diner on Thursday over proposed cuts to Medicaid. Dr. Rob Davidson posted a video to Twitter of his interaction with Pence, after he said the vice president happened to come into the diner in Des Moines, Iowa, to greet people.

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Sources
Stay Home, https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3048626/coronavirus-outbreak-exposes-anti-chinese-sentiment
No Chinese, https://apnews.com/04f18aafe1074a1c06b4203edcbdc661
Protest photo, https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-prod/media/25d6dd37d1c34ea7898857e964c4fd95/1000.jpeg
Open Secrets (Biden), https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/industries?id=N00001669
Open Secrets (President re-election), https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/contributors?id=N00023864
Open Secrets, (Bernie), https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/industries?id=N00000528
GovTrack, Biden, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/joseph_biden/300008
Hazmat suit image, from "Andromeda Strain,"  https://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2019/11/27

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CORONAVIRUS--A Witness to Universal Health Care @ -- #IOWACAUCUS

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      "Is there any evidence that the Communists have planted these germs?"

     (The Den)--As the toll for the newest threat to health gradually sweeps outward from mainland China to all points around the globe, a sense of urgency sweeps across America as to its priority in an election year. Deaths in China alone now stand at over 300 and the government now finds itself forced to fire inept officials for not being better prepared for the epidemic;

China reports 304 virus deaths, fires officials for poor job

China's death toll from a new virus increased to 304 on Sunday amid warnings from the World Health Organization that other countries need to prepare in the event the disease spreads among their populations as more nations report local infections. Meanwhile, six officials in the city of Huanggang, neighboring.

     To what degree the United States is prepared for introduction of the virus into the Northern Hemisphere remains to be seen. Cancellation of flights from across the Pacific does not exclude other means for the invasive species known as "coronavirus" to enter the country. At least one historical pandemic that spanned the globe was mapped, categorized, criticized and eventually publicized as a by-product of H-bomb testing and Red Chinese "germ warfare."

   The so-called "Asian flu" that went global in the summer of 1957 was spread by a variety of means and in one case, a tourist ship due to dock in San Francisco was quarantined. A total of 96 passengers on board the President Cleveland were stricken with the disease as it crossed the Pacific from Manila. (Tyler Morning Telegraph) The map at the left shows the spread of the Asian flu. Note the map shows the origin of the flu as being in "Red China."
Note again the image of a US Navy destroyer off the coast of Japan, where the government there accused it as having been the vessel that delivered the virus to the island. By mid-June, 1957, over two million Japanese citizens had been struck with the flu virus, including hundreds of thousands of children. (Des Moines Register) It would be just a matter of time before the Asian flu became politicized.
     About the same time the Japanese were blaming US warships for bringing the virus to their island, a scientist claimed that H-bomb testing caused the insidious spreading of the disease worldwide.

     Reported in the Wilmington Morning News on 14 June 1957, Norman W. Pirie suggested it was the product of  "British and Soviet H-bomb tests." (Wilmington) Of course it was pure rubbish but the opportunity to bash foreign governments for the plague didn't stop there. Next to feel the weight of condemnation for the origin of the flu was the communist government of China itself. Reporters, lacking any real scientific evidence to base their claim on, ignorant of the very nature of just how many strains of the disease that exist, most of which fall under the category of the "common cold," began to look elsewhere to place the blame.
     At the time, Red China was making strides at entry into the United Nations, with strong opposition from the Nationalist government of Taiwan, and the United States. The efforts succeeded and the new nation did not get the call to join the world community. What better opportunity to also accuse the Peking regime of deliberately  creating a worldwide pandemic under the guise of flu, but in reality germ warfare.

     According to the Saskatchewan Leader Post, in mid-August '57, Commander William J. Tepsix of the Pennsylvania Veterans of Foreign Wars sent a letter to Dag Hammarskjold, the UN secretary general, demanding an investigation into a Red plot to poison the world with flu warfare. (Leader Post) It wasn't long before the equivalent of the Fifties "mainstream media" picked up on the story;
     " 'Is there any evidence that the Communists have planted these germs?' Burney was asked in a copyrighted interview in U.S. News & World Report, a weekly news magazine."
      Dr. Leroy E. Burney, the US surgeon general, replied;
     "No...I don't believe that is a possibility." (Circlefield,  OH Herald)
     The newspaper article was insistent in its tone that there was probably a communist plot attached to the epidemic somewhere, anywhere, the Soviet Union, Red China. To what degree the possibility existed was further considered by David Barnett of the Boston Globe in September;
     "Unlike atomic warfare, toxic warfare is relatively cheap and can be developed by any country." (Globe)

     By December, outright bashing of the Asian community for the flu incursion could be found in the Austin American, in  by today's standards, an ethnic slur, when Edward R. Kennedy, an NEA special correspondent, had this to say;
     "Now it is highly possible that the microbe hunters back home have isolated a special virus with slant eyes," (Austin)
      We are hearing similar insulting language with the newest introduction of the "Asian" flu now slowly creeping across the planet. In France, Asians and the Chinese in particular, have been accused of somehow being responsible for the disease forcing the hashtag #JENESUISPASUNVIRUS to trend on Twitter. (Twitter)
The racial insults on social media today are the product of the original epidemic of the mid-Fifties of the last century, at the height of the "Cold"-War, where bashing political institutions and cultures was acceptable, and as in ER Kennedy's case, funny.
     The attitude toward the Asian flu epidemic went from reasonable to ludicrous in a short span of one summer, due possibly to its actual mild effects in the West as compared to its devastating toll in the East. The measures currently being executed may or may not be enough but this brings us back to an even more important issue, one that is embedded solidly in politics this election year, that is universal health care.

     With the first test of the candidates survivability in the race next week, at least one has a meaningful solution, Bernie Sanders (D-VT);
     "Today, more than 30 million Americans still don’t have health insurance and even more are underinsured. Even for those with insurance, costs are so high that medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States. Incredibly, we spend significantly more of our national GDP on this inadequate health care system—far more per person than any other major country. And despite doing so, Americans have worse health outcomes and a higher infant mortality rate than countries that spend much less on health care. Our people deserve better." (Sanders)
     Certainly the medical profession, the hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry don't want it, there's no money in universal coverage. The current administration opposes it because it might mean the people, the very voters who have put the man into the White House, will be the ones to benefit from it. Even if there are things such as "inalienable rights," such as guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence, that doesn't mean, according to the status quo, the rich and powerful, it includes the average man. The troubling question is twofold: is universal health coverage an inalienable right, and does the establishment have the right to oppose it? The answers are simple, for the first, yes; for the second, no.
     Along with climate catastrophe, it will become a defining issue of the twenty-first century, whether the administration likes it or not, whether it's a communist plot or not.

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Sources,
Fired, https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/china-announces-304-deaths-14-002722471.html
President Cleveland, Tyler Morning Telegraph, 10 June 1957, Page 4.
Japan flu, Des Moines Register, 13 June 1957, Page 2.
H-bombs, Wilmington Morning News, 14 June 1957, Page 20.
Germ warfare, Saskatchewan Leader Post,  16 Aug 1957, Page 1.
Toxic, Barnett, D., Boston Globe,  15 Sept 1957 Page 40.
Kennedy, E.R., Austin American, 01 Dec 1957, Page 1.
#JENESUISPASUNVIRUS, https://twitter.com/hashtag/JeNeSuisPasUnVirus?src=hashtag_click
Sanders, https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/
Asian girls in masks image,  https://qz.com/299003/a-quick-history-of-why-asians-wear-surgical-masks-in-public/'
Gas mask image, https://www.guidesmag.com/gas-mask/

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