H5N1

In Guatemala, COVID-19 shows its power to kill trust

Via The Tyee, my colleague Emi Sasagawa writes: In Guatemala, the Virus Shows Its Power to Kill Trust. Excerpt:

It’s the start of month six of the world living with the threat of coronavirus. While restrictions are easing in Canada, a first wave of COVID-19 cases is resurging just south of the border in the U.S.  

Further south, in many less-developed countries, the first wave is just now picking up speed. With fewer resources and restless populations, some of those nations’ governments are seeing their political lives put in danger by the coronavirus.  

As citizens are asked to endure lockdowns and economic deprivation as a result of pandemic measures, trust becomes a currency increasingly precious. Eroding it are doubts about the statistics their leaders share, what competence they show in managing the virus and the economy, and where government money flows. 

Guatemala is a case in point — one The Tyee is looking in on occasionally as part of a project in partnership with the TulaSalud Foundation, which funds rural public health work in that Central American country. Grassroots opposition to corruption in Guatemala has roiled the country for years, playing a key role in unseating the previous president who was replaced in January by Alejandro Giammattei, a right-wing former physician and director of the prison system. He, too, under the harsh glare of the pandemic, faces severe trust issues. 

 As July arrives, Guatemala is struggling to deal with a steepening infection curve and a health system leaning towards collapse. The reported numbers have soared from 644 cases and 16 deaths on May 1 to 20,072 cases and 843 deaths on July 2. There is no indication the curve with be flattened any time soon. What took months to unfold across Canada — the outbreaks, the overwhelmed health system in certain regions, the economic and financial repercussions of the pandemic — has been compressed into a matter of weeks. 

Still, there were months to prepare. Yet Giammattei’s government is taking fire for not yet managing to provide personal protective equipment for frontline workers.  

“At this point, doctors still don’t have the appropriate health equipment,” said Dr. Rubén Gonzalez, former vice-minister of health and one of the leading voices in an alternative COVID-19 response exercise. “Of the total budget assigned for this emergency, only a small fraction, less than five per cent is being used, because the government hasn’t been able to negotiate a price with providers and, as a result, all plans by the government collapse. In the meantime, our health-care workers suffer.”

Americans don't get how badly they're handling COVID-19

Via The Atlantic: Americans Don't Get How Badly They're Handling COVID-19. Excerpt and then a comment: 

I returned to Paris with my family three months after President Emmanuel Macron had ordered one of the world’s most aggressive national quarantines, and one month after France had begun to ease itself out of it. When we exited the Gare Montparnasse into the late-spring glare, after a season tucked away in a rural village with more cows than people as neighbors, it was jarring to be thrust back into the world as we’d previously known it, to see those café terraces overflowing again with smiling faces.  

My first reaction was one of confused frustration as we drove north across the river to our apartment. The city had been culled of its tourists, though it was bustling with inhabitants basking in their reclaimed freedom. Half at most wore masks; the other half evinced indifference. We were in the midst of a crisis, I complained to my wife. Why were so many people unable to maintain even minimal discipline? 

Glued as I am to the news from the U.S.—where I was born and grew up and travel frequently— I couldn’t shake the feeling that France was also opening up recklessly early. But I was wrong to worry. As Donald Trump’s America continues to shatter records for daily infections, France, like most other developed nations and even some undeveloped ones, seems to have beat back the virus.  

The numbers are not ambiguous. From a peak of 7,581 new cases across the country on March 31, and with a death toll now just below 30,000—at one point the world’s fourth highest—there were just 526 new cases on June 13, the day we masked ourselves and took the train back to Paris. The caseload continues to be small and manageable.  

America, however, is an utter disaster. Texas, Florida, and Arizona are the newest hubs of contagion, having apparently learned nothing from the other countries and states that previously experienced surges in cases. I stared at my phone in disbelief when the musician Rosanne Cash wrote on Twitter that her daughter had been called a “liberal pussy!” in Nashville for wearing a mask to buy groceries. 

That insult succinctly conveys the crux of the problem. American leadership has politicized the pandemic instead of trying to fight it. I see no preparedness, no coordinated top-down leadership of the sort we’ve enjoyed in Europe. I see only empty posturing, the sad spectacle of the president refusing to wear a mask, just to own the libs. What an astonishing self-inflicted wound.  

On June 26, a day when the U.S. notched some 45,000 new cases—how’s that for “American carnage”?—the European Union announced that it would loosen some travel restrictions but extend its ban on visitors from the United States and other hot-spot nations. On Tuesday, it confirmed that remarkable and deeply humiliating decision, a clear message that in pandemic management, the EU believes that the United States is no better than Russia and Brazil—autocrat-run public-health disasters—and that American tourists would pose a dire threat to the hard-won stability our lockdown has earned us. So much for the myth that the American political system and way of life are a model for the world.

American self-absorption has always been an issue, but it's paradoxically become far worse just as communications technology brings the world together. It may have started when Americans consciously rejected European political systems, and European culture as well. Since then, other countries and other peoples have been of interest only as a means of demonstrating American superiority.

That's not true of all Americans, of course; the US has also produced some highly sophisticated people who understand the rest of the world very well. They've been having a terrible time since January 20, 2017.

Hollowed-out public health system faces more cuts amid COVID-19 pandemic

Many thanks to Lauren Weber for sending this major report by Kaiser Health News and The Associated Press: Hollowed out public health system faces more cuts amid virus. Here's an excerpt and then a comment, but you should just click through and read the whole long, grim story. Don't let it depress you, but do let it enrage you.

The U.S. public health system has been starved for decades and lacks the resources to confront the worst health crisis in a century. 

Marshaled against a virus that has sickened at least 2.6 million in the U.S., killed more than 126,000 people and cost tens of millions of jobs and $3 trillion in federal rescue money, state and local government health workers on the ground are sometimes paid so little, they qualify for public aid.  

They track the coronavirus on paper records shared via fax. Working seven-day weeks for months on end, they fear pay freezes, public backlash and even losing their jobs.  

Since 2010, spending for state public health departments has dropped by 16% per capita and spending for local health departments has fallen by 18%, according to a KHN and Associated Press analysis of government spending on public health. At least 38,000 state and local public health jobs have disappeared since the 2008 recession, leaving a skeletal workforce for what was once viewed as one of the world’s top public health systems. 

An Associated Press-KHN investigation has found a skeletal workforce facing more possible county budget cuts. KHN, also known as Kaiser Health News, and AP interviewed more than 150 public health workers, policymakers and experts, analyzed spending records from hundreds of state and local health departments, and surveyed statehouses. On every level, the investigation found, the system is underfunded and under threat, unable to protect the nation’s health.  

Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview in April that his “biggest regret” was “that our nation failed over decades to effectively invest in public health.”  

So when this outbreak arrived — and when, according to public health experts, the federal government bungled its response — hollowed-out state and local health departments were ill-equipped to step into the breach.

Over time, their work had received so little support that they found themselves without direction, disrespected, ignored, even vilified. The desperate struggle against COVID-19 became increasingly politicized and grew more difficult. 

States, cities and counties in dire straits have begun laying off and furloughing their limited staff, and even more devastation looms, as states reopen and cases surge. Historically, even when money pours in following crises such as Zika and H1N1, it disappears after the emergency subsides. Officials fear the same thing is happening now. 

“We don’t say to the fire department, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. There were no fires last year, so we’re going to take 30% of your budget away.’ That would be crazy, right?” said Dr. Gianfranco Pezzino, the health officer in Shawnee County, Kansas. “But we do that with public health, day in and day out.”

This is not just a Republican failure; the Democrats are equally to blame. Both parties, since about 1980, have presided over an enormous project of social engineering: the transfer of wealth from working people and the middle class to the 0.1%.

"Government is the problem" was Reagan's mantra, and as people began to notice that their incomes couldn't quite cover all their bills any more, they were taught to blame government spending for their suddenly heavy taxes. (Never mind that Americans were already among the most lightly taxed citizens of any industrialized country.)

 

So tax cut after tax cut came from Republican and Democratic administrations alike, on all levels of government. Somehow the taxes were always too burdensome, the government spending too wasteful. Universal health care was for those overtaxed "socialist" Europeans and Canadians, and a little grudging support for public health came only to provide symptomatic relief—to provide a Band-Aid, not to prevent the cut in the first place.

 

"We're all in this together" rings hollow in a country that's been taught for 40 years that everyone is personally responsible for his or her success or failure, health or sickness. And now that the consequences of 40 years of wealth transfer are manifest, 126,000 rugged American individualists are dead, 2.6 million have been sickened (so far), and everyone but the 0.1% have been further impoverished. (The 0.1% have been doing just fine, thanks.)

 

It will take more than yet another transfer of power from Republicans to Democrats to roll back COVID-19. It will take a rollback of 40 years of systemic theft from the 99%.

Willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19 in Australia

Via The Lancet Infectious Diseases: Willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19 in Australia.

More than half of the world's population faces long-term restrictions as the new normal to prevent the spread of COVID-19. If a vaccine becomes available, it might be possible to develop herd immunity and protect those who are most vulnerable to serious consequences of COVID-19. The population coverage required to achieve herd immunity through vaccination varies across diseases and is dependent on the basic reproduction number (R0). Modelling estimates R0 to be around 2·5 for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 when no restrictions or physical distancing measures are in place, and R0 reached almost 4·0 in Wuhan in early-mid January, 2020. Vaccination uptake for herd immunity would need to be at least 67% with an R0 of 3·0. In their Comment, the COCONEL Group reported that 26% of French adults would not accept a COVID-19 vaccine. We similarly explored this question among a diverse sample of Australian adults. 

We conducted an online survey of 4362 Australians aged 18 years and older during April 17–21, approximately 4 weeks after lockdown measures had been activated in Australia and at a time when potential deaths and health system capacity were still of great concern. We asked participants about actions or intentions toward the flu vaccine (“I have or I will get the flu vaccine this year”) and a potential COVID-19 vaccine (“If a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, I will get it”).  

In this sample, 630 (14·4%) participants said they would not get the flu vaccine this year, 394 (9·0%) were indifferent, and 3338 (76·5%) said they have or will get the flu vaccine this year. For a COVID-19 vaccine, 213 (4·9%) said they would not get the vaccine, 408 (9·4%) were indifferent, and 3741 (85·8%) said they would get the vaccine if it became available. 

Individuals who said they would not get a COVID-19 vaccine were more likely to believe the threat of COVID-19 has been exaggerated (43·7% [93/213]) than those who said they would get the vaccine if it became available (11·5% [429/3741]) and those who were indifferent (19·9% [81/408]). Inadequate health literacy and lower education level were significantly associated with a reluctance to be vaccinated against both influenza and COVID-19 (p<0·001; appendix). Notably, a high proportion overall were confident in the state (75·4% [3288/4362]) and federal (65·2% [2845/4362]) government's response. 

In Australia, attitudes towards a COVID-19 vaccine appear to be more positive than reported in France in late March, which might in part reflect greater confidence in the government. However, our data show efforts are needed to target vaccine education to those with lower education and health literacy. 

It remains to be seen whether Australia's high intentions towards vaccine uptake will remain when restrictions are relaxed and the immediate perceived threat diminishes.

COVID-19: What did people know, and when did they know it?

Thanks to James Fallows for providing the link in his excellent Atlantic article to a very helpful timeline in PDF on how COVID-19 came to the world's attention:

Download Covid19 and China.

In the same article, Fallows also links to the Obama administration's Pandemic Playbook, which the Trump administration dismissed and ignored:

Download Pandemic-Playbook.

 

COVID-19 responses highlight how humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don't fit their worldview

Via The Conversation: Coronavirus responses highlight how humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don't fit their worldview. The author is a professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University. Excerpt:

Bemoaning uneven individual and state compliance with public health recommendations, top U.S. COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci recently blamed the country’s ineffective pandemic response on an American “anti-science bias.” He called this bias “inconceivable,” because “science is truth.” Fauci compared those discounting the importance of masks and social distancing to “anti-vaxxers” in their “amazing” refusal to listen to science. 

It is Fauci’s profession of amazement that amazes me. As well-versed as he is in the science of the coronavirus, he’s overlooking the well-established science of “anti-science bias,” or science denial. 

Americans increasingly exist in highly polarized, informationally insulated ideological communities occupying their own information universes.  

Within segments of the political blogosphere, global warming is dismissed as either a hoax or so uncertain as to be unworthy of response. Within other geographic or online communities, the science of vaccine safety, fluoridated drinking water and genetically modified foods is distorted or ignored. There is a marked gap in expressed concern over the coronavirus depending on political party affiliation, apparently based in part on partisan disagreements over factual issues like the effectiveness of social distancing or the actual COVID-19 death rate. 

In theory, resolving factual disputes should be relatively easy: Just present strong evidence, or evidence of a strong expert consensus. This approach succeeds most of the time, when the issue is, say, the atomic weight of hydrogen.  

But things don’t work that way when scientific advice presents a picture that threatens someone’s perceived interests or ideological worldview. In practice, it turns out that one’s political, religious or ethnic identity quite effectively predicts one’s willingness to accept expertise on any given politicized issue.  

“Motivated reasoning” is what social scientists call the process of deciding what evidence to accept based on the conclusion one prefers. As I explain in my book, The Truth About Denial, this very human tendency applies to all kinds of facts about the physical world, economic history and current events.

Denial doesn’t stem from ignorance 

The interdisciplinary study of this phenomenon has made one thing clear: The failure of various groups to acknowledge the truth about, say, climate change, is not explained by a lack of information about the scientific consensus on the subject. 

Instead, what strongly predicts denial of expertise on many controversial topics is simply one’s political persuasion.  

A 2015 metastudy showed that ideological polarization over the reality of climate change actually increases with respondents’ knowledge of politics, science and/or energy policy. The chances that a conservative is a climate science denier is significantly higher if he or she is college educated. Conservatives scoring highest on tests for cognitive sophistication or quantitative reasoning skills are most susceptible to motivated reasoning about climate science. 

Denialism is not just a problem for conservatives. Studies have found liberals are less likely to accept a hypothetical expert consensus on the possibility of safe storage of nuclear waste, or on the effects of concealed-carry gun laws.

Denial is natural

The human talent for rationalization is a product of many hundreds of thousands of years of adaptation. Our ancestors evolved in small groups, where cooperation and persuasion had at least as much to do with reproductive success as holding accurate factual beliefs about the world. Assimilation into one’s tribe required assimilation into the group’s ideological belief system – regardless of whether it was grounded in science or superstition. An instinctive bias in favor of one’s “in-group” and its worldview is deeply ingrained in human psychology.

A human being’s very sense of self is intimately tied up with his or her identity group’s status and beliefs. Unsurprisingly, then, people respond automatically and defensively to information that threatens the worldview of groups with which they identify. We respond with rationalization and selective assessment of evidence – that is, we engage in “confirmation bias,” giving credit to expert testimony we like while finding reasons to reject the rest.

Unwelcome information can also threaten in other ways. “System justification” theorists like psychologist John Jost have shown how situations that represent a perceived threat to established systems trigger inflexible thinking. For example, populations experiencing economic distress or an external threat have often turned to authoritarian leaders who promise security and stability.

In ideologically charged situations, one’s prejudices end up affecting one’s factual beliefs. Insofar as you define yourself in terms of your cultural affiliations, your attachment to the social or economic status quo, or a combination, information that threatens your belief system – say, about the negative effects of industrial production on the environment – can threaten your sense of identity itself. If trusted political leaders or partisan media are telling you that the COVID-19 crisis is overblown, factual information about a scientific consensus to the contrary can feel like a personal attack.

COVID-19: Amid threats and political pushback, public health officials are leaving their posts

This is appalling. Via The Washington Post: Amid threats and political pushback, public health officials are leaving their posts. Excerpt:

For Lauri Jones, the trouble began in early May. The director of a small public health department in western Washington State was working with a family under quarantine because of coronavirus exposure. When she heard one family member had been out in the community, Jones decided to check in.  

The routine phone call launched a nightmare.  

“Someone posted on social media that we had violated their civil liberties [and] named me by name,” Jones recalled. “They said, ‘Let’s post her address . . . Let’s start shooting.’ ” 

People from across the country began calling her personal phone with similar threats.  

“We’ve been doing the same thing in public health on a daily basis forever. But we are now the villains,” said Jones, 64, who called the police and set up surveillance cameras at her home. 

Public health workers, already underfunded and understaffed, are confronting waves of protest at their homes and offices in addition to pressure from politicians who favor a faster reopening. Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, said more than 20 health officials have been fired, resigned or have retired in recent weeks “due to conditions related to having to enforce and stand up for strong public health tactics during this pandemic.”  

Although shutdown measures are broadly popular, a vocal minority opposes them vociferously. There have been attacks on officials’ race, gender, sexual orientation and appearance. Freeman said some of the criticisms “seem to be harsher for women.”  

Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said attacks on health officials have been particularly awful in California, Colorado, Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.  

This month in California, Nichole Quick, Orange County’s chief health officer, stepped down after she faced threats and protests at her home for requiring face coverings in many businesses as cases rose. The mandate, issued May 23, was softened to a recommendation a week later.  

Andrew Noymer, a professor of public health at the University of California at Irvine who is part of a county task force, said it was not the first time Quick had been undermined.  

On March 17, Quick issued a strict lockdown order; a day later it was amended to add exceptions.  

“It was couched as a clarification, but it was a walk back,” Noymer said, because of pressure from business leaders.  

Quick’s departure is part of an exodus of public health officials across the country who have been blamed by both citizens and politicians for the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.  

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody resign for the kinds of reasons we’ve seen recently,” Plescia said. “We are very concerned that if it continues to get worse it’s going to have major implications for who will be willing to have these jobs.”  

Ohio’s public health director, Amy Acton, shifted to an advisory role after enduring months of anger against the state’s preventive measures, including armed protesters at her home bearing messages including anti-Semitic and sexist slurs. One Republican lawmaker linked Acton, who is Jewish, to Nazi Germany; another called her a dictator.  

Georgia’s public health director said last month that she receives threats daily and now has an armed escort. 

Pennsylvania’s secretary of health, who is transgender, has come under fire for the state’s handling of the pandemic, including from a county official who resigned after saying at a recent meeting that he was “tired of listening to a guy dressed up as a woman.” 

Four public health officials in Colorado have left their jobs recently.  

A day after telling political leaders in Weld County, Colo. that their insistence on a speedy reopening despite a high case rate and widespread transmission was giving him “serious heartburn,” Public Health Director Mark Wallace got a 7:30 p.m. email: He had until 9 a.m., it said, to weigh in on guidelines for reopening businesses — “churches, salons, restaurants, etc.” They would go public an hour later.  

Wallace, who declined to comment for this article, retired soon after. 

Theresa Anselmo, executive director of the Colorado Association of Local Public Health Officials, said 80 percent of members had reported being threatened and more than that were at risk of termination or lost funding.

López Obrador has given up the fight against COVID-19 in Mexico

Via The Washington Post, an opinion piece: Lopez Obrador has given up the fight against the coronavirus in Mexico.

On June 13, as Mexico surpassed 17,000 pandemic-related deaths and the country’s novel coronavirus contagion curve showed no signs of turning downward, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador released a video with what he called “a decalogue to emerge from coronavirus and face the new reality.” 

The video, recorded in one of the grand hallways inside the National Palace, showed López Obrador at his most vacuous. There were no mention of serious public policies or new health measures to contain the pandemic, much less any announcement of urgent economic assistance. Instead, López Obrador offered a litany of banalities. 

In the video, the president suggested Mexicans should try “to be happy” and remain “optimistic.” They must “reject selfishness” and “consumerism.” They should go out, “be free” and “enjoy the sky, the sun and fresh air.” López Obrador also recommended eating beans and corn (“that blessed plant”) and tells citizens to consider raising chickens in their backyards, a custom he laments has been lost to modernity. Finally, he says, people should look for an ideal, “a utopia.”  

“We will only be happy if we are good,” he preaches, pausing on every word.  

This was not his first “decalogue.” In February, he reacted to growing outrage against gender violence with a similar list that included statements like “women should be respected” or “those who attack women should be punished.” But Saturday’s sermon should not be dismissed as just another ill-advised attempt to replace public policy with demagoguery. Behind López Obrador’s “respectful” advice to the Mexican people lies a darker truth: He has chosen to leave Mexicans to fend for themselves. 

This should come as no surprise. Over the last few months, López Obrador utterly abandoned his responsibility in the fight against covid-19. He irresponsibly downplayed the risks of the pandemic, much like others with similar populist dispositions. He also ignored the most basic social distancing and hygiene norms. 

In true Trumpian fashion, he still refuses to wear a face mask, even when others around him comply (Hugo López-Gatell, Mexico’s coronavirus tsar, has inexplicably also refused to endorse masks as mandatory). López Obrador dismissed his own health experts’ quarantine timeline to embark in a series of unnecessary public appearances. Perhaps under the messianic impression that he could end a pandemic by decree, he has repeatedly announced the end of the threat, even when Mexico’s caseload kept climbing. 

On Sunday, in a different video, he once again insisted the country had overcome the pandemic. “I think the worst is over,” he said, even when data suggests otherwise. López Obrador seemed impervious to the dangers facing the country. People, he said, should exercise their freedom and get on with their lives. “Now that we know how to take care of ourselves, we are able to go out on to the streets and safely carry on with our activities,” he said. “But now it’s up to us. We don’t need the authorities to issue recommendations.”  

López Obrador’s decision to encourage Mexicans to turn the page when the virus is still ravaging the country is immoral. He knows the country is flying blind. Epidemiological authorities have chosen to barely conduct tests. Efforts at contact tracing are barely discernible. Mexico even appears to be chronically undercounting the deceased. Roughly two weeks ago, when the country began reopening, López Obrador’s own health experts introduced a system of color-coded alerts to monitor progression. On the first day, all but one of the country’s states were painted bright red. Things aren’t much better today. 

López Obrador has no excuse for his impatience. If he were truly interested in economic recovery, he would have done more to help businesses ride the storm. He didn’t, and now millions of Mexicans are out of work. He does not have political urgency either. Mexico’s next federal election is a year away. That leaves two possibilities: either he thinks the country has really tamed the pandemic or he believes in the curative power of optimism and backyard chickens. 

Misinformed or just delusional, Mexico’s president has given up.

According to Worldometer, Mexico currently reports 165,455 cases and 19,747 deaths. Today saw 5,662 new cases and 667 new deaths.

'The country is adrift': Echoes of Spanish flu as Brazil's COVID-19 catastrophe deepens

Via The Guardian: 'The country is adrift': echoes of Spanish flu as Brazil's Covid-19 catastrophe deepens. Excerpt: 

As a child growing up in 1940s São Paulo, Drauzio Varella remembers his grandmother’s tales of how the Spanish flu ravaged the blue-collar immigrant community they called home.  

“So many people died that families would leave people outside on the pavements, and early each morning the carts would come by to collect them and take them off to burial in mass graves,” remembered Varella, who would go on to become Brazil’s best-known doctor. 

More than a century after the 1918 calamity, South America’s largest country is again being shaken by a devastating pandemic, and Varella is in disbelief.  

“Nobody thought this could happen. Perhaps they imagined it theoretically – that some kind of virus might come along,” said the 77-year-old oncologist, author and broadcaster. “But even when this virus did show up, we didn’t think it would cause a tragedy of such proportions.”  

The precise magnitude of Brazil’s Covid-19 tragedy remains unclear – but the story told by official statistics grows more wretched by the day. 

On Friday, Brazil overtook Britain as the country with the world’s second-highest death toll: 41,901 deaths since the first fatality was confirmed in São Paulo on 17 March.  

A University of Washington projection indicated another 100,000 Brazilians could die before August, possibly placing Brazil ahead of the US as the country with the most deaths. 

As the catastrophe deepens there is growing anger at the conduct of president Jair Bolsonaro, whose jumbled and dysfunctional handling of a pandemic he has called a “fantasy” has made Boris Johnson’s widely panned response look sober and efficient.  

“This is the worst public health crisis we’ve faced – and it has come at a time when we have the worst government in the world,” said Daniel Dourado, a public health expert and lawyer from the University of São Paulo who believes thousands of lives could have been saved by a swifter and less erratic response. “The country is adrift.” 

There are uncanny and painful parallels between the impact of the Spanish flu – which historians say killed between 35,000 and 100,000 Brazilians – and the harm coronavirus is now inflicting.  

Claudio Bertolli Filho, the author of a book on the 1918 pandemic, said Brazil’s then leaders had initially played down the unknown influenza – just as Bolsonaro has dismissed coronavirus as a “bit of a cold”. 

Then, too, authorities tried to hide the true scale of the disaster – just as Bolsonaro’s health ministry has been accused of doing – until, like now, the determination of Brazilian journalists made that impossible. 

Then, like now, doctors pushed untested and potentially dangerous remedies, just as Brazil’s populist leader has promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine despite limited scientific evidence of its effectiveness. Bertolli Filho said one São Paulo quack was famed for injecting Spanish flu patients with mercury. “He killed lots of people – and yet despite this many believed.” 

As the Spanish flu ripped through cities, from Recife to Rio, religious leaders also touted miracle cures just as powerful televangelists today promise followers Covid-19 salvation with holy water and supernatural seeds.  

And in 1918, as now, the mysterious malady prompted an explosion of rumour and conspiracy, including claims German submarines had secretly spread the infirmity along the Brazilian coast. (In fact, it arrived on an English merchant ship called the Demerara).  

But perhaps no parallel is more cruel than the way in which both catastrophes obliterated the idea pandemics chose victims indiscriminately. 

Bertolli Filho said the 1919 death of Brazil’s president-elect, Rodrigues Alves, from the Spanish flu was widely cited as proof epidemics were equal opportunity.

In fact, cemetery records showed most of São Paulo’s 5,000 dead hailed from working class, industrial districts such as Mooca, Ipiranga, and Brás, where Varella’s grandmother watched the corpse collectors at work. Today, the areas suffering most are blue collar communities such as Brasilândia, Freguesia do Ó and Capão Redondo where many do not have the luxury of social distancing or working from home.

Dr Amy Acton resigns amid backlash against Ohio’s lockdown after leading COVID-19 fight

Via The Guardian: Dr Amy Acton resigns amid backlash against Ohio’s lockdown after leading coronavirus fight. Excerpt from a discouraging report, and then a discouraging comment:

Dr Amy Acton, the health director who helped Ohio’s Republican governor earn glowing reviews for his pandemic response, has resigned after facing an intense backlash over her role in the state’s lockdown measures. 

Acton has been a high-profile figure in Ohio’s early and aggressive fight against the coronavirus, transcending the confines of the laboratory to appear daily on television screens during Governor Mike DeWine’s updates and issuing his administration’s health orders. 

“It’s true not all heroes wear capes,” DeWine said at the news briefing at which he made the announcement. “Some of them do, in fact, wear a white coat, and this particular hero’s white coat is embossed with the name Dr Amy Acton.”  

While Acton won widespread praise for her steady and detailed assessments of the pandemic, she also faced harsh and sometimes ugly pushback for her orders that contributed to the closing of businesses and kept people home for weeks. That backlash included lawsuits, a legislative effort to strip her of authority, and protests outside her suburban Columbus home that included some people carrying guns. 

Some demonstrations at the statehouse featured signs bearing antisemitic messages. Acton is Jewish, and one lawmaker referenced her with an antisemitic slur. More recently, organizers of music festivals and restaurant owners sued her as the slow reopening unfolded.  

The tactics used against Acton were not confined to Ohio, but the universal commendations from her peers contrasted perhaps more sharply than anywhere with the vitriol. 

DeWine shook the state to attention on 4 March, when he announced at a briefing with Acton that spectators would be banned from an international fitness festival whose visitors bring a lot of money to Columbus each year. The state had yet to confirm a single coronavirus case. 

Within a week, and on the advice of Acton, a former public health professor and researcher, he became the first governor to shut down schools statewide.  

Acton herself seized national headlines on 17 March when she called off the state’s presidential primary just hours before polls were to open, incensing critics who saw it as an overreaction.  

Nearly three months later, the number of confirmed or probable coronavirus cases in the state has topped 40,000, a milestone reached the day of her resignation. An additional 69 deaths were reported on Thursday, state officials said, bringing the total to 2,490. 

It might have been worse without the early measures. Ohio – no 7 among states in total population – ranks 19th in coronavirus deaths per 100,000 people and 35th in total virus cases per 100,000 people, according to an AP analysis of Covid Tracking Project data.

The Twitter feed for Amy Acton is also depressing. This would be inconceivable in British Columbia, where our chief medical officer,Dr. Bonnie Henry, is a hero.