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stickdog99 » Sat Mar 28, 2020 5:12 pm wrote:This post got no traction on the main COVID-19 thread probably because it is tangential to the primary controversy of whether entire COVID-19 crisis is manufacture hysteria. But I think it is important to delineate what we feel a rational and helpful response would be to the actual threat of a respiratory disease pandemic if only to help ascertain just far short our current responses have fallen, at least in the Unites States.
Thought experiment: Imagine that we did not live in an oligarchy in which every crisis, no matter how horrific, was always used as yet another means to transfer even more wealth from the 99.9% to the 0.1%. What would a rational response to COVID-19 from a representative democratic government entail?
1. Like all other first world governments, this government would have guaranteed healthcare to all its citizens decades ago in order to save trillions as well as to prepare the healthcare infrastructure necessary to respond to inevitable health crises such as flu pandemics.
2. This government would have moved to ramp up US production and manufacture of all necessary healthcare supplies such as masks, viral particle trapping air filters, gowns, and ventilators years ago. At the first sign of the COVID-19 pandemic, this government would have provided grants to develop and manufacture millions of tests and antivirals in response to an impending COVID-19 crisis.
3. This government would have utilized its vast military capabilities to do something useful for its citizenry for once by readying mobile MASH units to be deployed to any localities that experience spikes in COVID-19 victims that overwhelm these localities' hospital capacities. Strict protocols would have been put in place to test anyone who sees any healthcare professional for any reason. Those who test positive for COVID-19 would have been sent to an isolated field hospital equipped with all the necessary respirators for the duration of their infectiousness. Those who fully recovered and now enjoyed COVID-19 immunity would then be offered high paying jobs providing healthcare for the duration of the crisis.
4. Of course, it goes without saying that any "economic stimulus" package considered by our beneficent fantasy government would first and foremost provide immediate relief to all citizens whose lives are economically threatened by this crisis in the form of free food, free utilities, free rent, free internet access, and covered mortgage payments at least for the entire duration of the crisis. At the barest minimum, all evictions, foreclosures, and utility cutoffs would be immediately suspended. Businesses would be eligible for billions in monthly emergency relief only if they demonstrated that they were following best practices in all of their employee policies during the crisis and only if they could document that they used these bailout funds to pay and/or retain their current employees.
5. This government would quickly move to employ as many currently unemployed people as possible in socially useful jobs such as free grocery delivery to the elderly, free COVID-19 testing for anyone who wants it, and even socially useful projects such as community solar power installation, affordable housing construction, long overdue infrastructure repair, free internet installation, and free online computer training classes. As a condition of employment, all new government workers with any contact with the public or other workers would be continually tested for COVID-19 testing and would be required to wear free masks during the performance of any work requirements that force them to come into contact with others.
Please add your suggestions. I realize that I have only scratched the surface here.
To me, the weirdest thing about performing this thought experiment is that the oligarch handmaidens who currently govern the USA are so antithetical to benevolent democratic representatives that it has become almost impossible even to attempt to conceive of how different things would be if were instead to have governmental representatives who actually cared about their constituents.
stickdog wrote:"This post got no traction on the main COVID-19 thread"
MacCruiskeen » Wed Mar 25, 2020 11:49 am wrote:Dr Evil:
1. Insist on the immediate requisition of hotels (all now empty anyway) as emergency hospitals.
2. Call on all medical and nursing students,l (all now idle anyway) -- esp. those in their final year of study -- to report immediately for short intensive training in emergency medicine, esp. the treatment of acute respiratory crises, geriatric care, and the operation of medical respirators.
3. Step up the production of such respirators and any other medical equipment urgently needed. Issue a public appeal for people who may still have respirators at home to hand them into hospitals if they or their deceased relatives no longer need them.
4. Demand full and immediate and transparent data about which social groups are most at danger -- age, existing comorbidities, social class, housing situation, etc. (No one is asking for anyone's ID, ffs)
5. Call on advice and practical assistance from Cuban medics, who have decades of invaluable practical experience in such matters.
Etc.
Just for a start. All this was obvious weeks back. Any govts that truly cared about their people's welfare would have taken such steps long ago.
MacCruiskeen » 29 Mar 2020 00:32 wrote:No one who matters is really worried abt any goddam virus. Only actual human ppl who have beloved family or friends who are already v. old or v. sick. Or of course poor, the losers. Public healthcare has been ruined and run down worldwide for decades now by the same ruthless smirking cackling chinstroking solemn-silly timeserving careerist spacewasting selfworshipping zilionaire masters of the universe now pontifiicating on the world's tv sets, the same shits ppl are now begging for guidance + Strong Leadership from.
"Bernie", ffs
rachel fucking maddow
netflix n kill
MacCruiskeen » 28 Mar 2020 23:36 wrote:From yet another merged/ruined/ locked-down thread:MacCruiskeen » Wed Mar 25, 2020 11:49 am wrote:Dr Evil:
1. Insist on the immediate requisition of hotels (all now empty anyway) as emergency hospitals.
2. Call on all medical and nursing students,l (all now idle anyway) -- esp. those in their final year of study -- to report immediately for short intensive training in emergency medicine, esp. the treatment of acute respiratory crises, geriatric care, and the operation of medical respirators.
3. Step up the production of such respirators and any other medical equipment urgently needed. Issue a public appeal for people who may still have respirators at home to hand them into hospitals if they or their deceased relatives no longer need them.
4. Demand full and immediate and transparent data about which social groups are most at danger -- age, existing comorbidities, social class, housing situation, etc. (No one is asking for anyone's ID, ffs)
5. Call on advice and practical assistance from Cuban medics, who have decades of invaluable practical experience in such matters.
Etc.
Just for a start. All this was obvious weeks back. Any govts that truly cared about their people's welfare would have taken such steps long ago.
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