New on the Covid front

 The news is not good on the Covid front. Daily deaths are spiking, and I am hearing more and more news of people in my family who are falling sick. Trump is crowing about being responsible for the successful development of the Pfizer Covid vaccine, when we all know he had absolutely nothing to do with it. Not only did he deny the threat posed by this virus, he also encouraged people to defy the recommendations given by health authorities to combat this disease, by not wearing facemasks, by supporting those who defied state orders to shelter at home and wear them, and even by mocking president-elect Biden for always wearing facemasks during one of the presidential debates. Of course, he (Trump) came down with Covid a few days after the debate, and there was an outbreak at the White House where observance of Covid protocols was lax. And the hypocrite still demanded sympathy and tried to milk it to get more votes in the election. Trump created a public health catastrophe, and it is a runaway train now.

Here are the totals. There were over 2,800 Covid-attributable deaths in the United States alone today, Thursday, Dec. 24th. Last week, we were at over 3,000 deaths per day for a long stretch. We are at over 330,000 Covid deaths this year alone. And there is every reason to believe that these are undercounts, because not all deaths are properly confirmed to be attributable to Covid even if they present most (if not all) of the symptoms. And yet, the anti-maskers are still out there, they are maybe even more energized because they are angry about Trump's loss in the elections. They are defiant, and they are engaging in stunts, such as the one by has-been actor Kirk Cameron (an ostensible Christian) who arranged to gather about a hundred people, most without face masks, to sing at an event in a coastal city in California. 

This news is personal, too. My mom was crying because she received news that her elder sister is dying in Mexico. Her brother-in-law (who was named Porfirio) died last week, with all the signs of having had Covid, but was quickly buried and no tests were conducted to see if he had had the disease. Apparently he was weak and could not breathe, and towards the end, could not even eat. And my aunt, who is in her 80s, fell sick just a few days after, and is apparently on her death bed. They don't expect her to survive.

It has all the earmarks of Covid, and while I don't blame Trump for the failed government response in Mexico, where another populist president (Andrés Manuel López Obrador, AMLO) has not taking the crisis seriously (apparently because of fear of even greater economic damage to the country, knowing that Mexico's economy was also in crisis), still, I blame Trump for a failed response in this country, and for not leading the world. 

American exceptionalism indeed. This virus is so serious that even countries that were faring well, such as Germany, are experiencing gigantic increases in daily Covid deaths. And, the rollout of the vaccine is very, very slow. They are expected to administer hundreds of millions of vaccines, only to those who will accept them (of course, we know we have an entrenched, paranoid faction of people in the United States and other developed countries who will refuse them), and yet, it is a very slow process. I read an article today that maybe it might take a whole year. Can you image that! All the way through the end of 2021, and even then, reports say that the virus is mutating. Let's just hope that the vaccine will be effective against the mutant strains, especially that which has emerged in Great Britain.