At the time of this writing, the first wave of the checks outlined and made into law as the CARES act have been sent to the American people. These checks are intended for all American citizens who live under a certain income level. How much money you may be wondering? It goes; $1200.00usd to single adult citizen, each child is $500usd per and $2400usd for couples. People have been coming up short on their means of survival. Companies closed down for a while, some operating on a skeleton crew. Many of the stores and retail outlets will be found to be obsolete in one instance and do not go back to the old way that included human involvement instead it opts for tolls of automation take charge. This will take place in just about every company that wants to survive the chaos of the present time by cutting staff and reducing payroll. There will be a tremendous Job loss across the nation. The White House knows that is will be a world-class balancing act, on one hand getting rid of some of our best people and that are being replaced by a million-dollar machine that you do not have to pay in order to speak with people on behalf of your company and finding employment strategies for the look and functionality of business relationship in order to keep them in good working order. At the time of this writing, the IRS has sent out 80 million checks to Americans with another 80 million set to be distributed the week of April 20th. The IRS has launched an effort to help people track their payment through Get My Payment at https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/get-my-payment.
People who have an active bank account and choose to have the money direct deposited into their account will get their payment sooner than those who will be getting a paper check. Another misnomer is that the economic impact relief checks are for people that filed taxes in 2018 or 2019, to be clear the eligibility requirements are 1. Have a social security number 2. Be a U.S. citizen living in the United States. These monies are for all Americans that make under a set limit to prevent people that don't need any money to receive a check. The people who qualify have to sit tight and wait, the check is in the mail.
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Covid19 is Trump to Blame ?
At this point it's clear: The Trump Administration has failed. The United States has so far incurred 26,000 deaths, 79 per million; South Korea, in contrast, has incurred 225 deaths, just 4 per million. Taiwan's death toll stands at just 6 deaths (0.3 per million) and Singapore's death toll stands at 10 (2 per million). ( https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/opinions/trump-admin-coronavirus-investigation-opinion-sachs/index.html )
On
the basis of the reports from China, on December 31 Taiwan immediately
began to screen flight arrivals from Wuhan, where the coronavirus
emerged,
without waiting for WHO guidance or any other advice. South Korea began
to screen flights from January 3rd. The
US screening that began on January 17 was haphazard at best,
nonexistent in many places at worst. Why didn't the US government follow
the lead of Taiwan, South Korea and others on flight screenings? It
becomes disturbingly clear that
President Donald Trump was unable to process the information he had
access to early in the pandemic in order to develop an effective plan of
action in order to protect the American general public. December 31st
is the date given as to when it was being reported by official channels
that potential for the Covid19 virus spreading unchecked into other
nations was very high.
From December 31st until January 17th nothing was being done to monitor entry points into the United States to at least record who was coming into the country that may be at risk of having had come in contact with Covid19.
On January 23, the WHO Emergency Committee declined to declare Covid19 a global health emergency, an action that it took a week later, on January 30. The Centers for Disease Control sent out faulty test kits around the United States in early February. Red tape prevented the issue from being resolved as quickly as possible. Other nations developed test kits and went into large-scale testing weeks before the United States. Early on in the outbreak, Trump repeatedly asserted that the pandemic was not a great threat in the United States. On January 22nd Trump told the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland " We have it totally under control" and with those words tried to build a false sense of confidence in people in the United States and in the world. In February, Trump asserted that with the warm weather of April, the virus "miraculously goes away," again misaligning the truth and the reality of the situation. There happen to be a number of such inaccuracies spouted out by President Trump. The federal government and many states have been in a nonstop battle over scarce and urgently needed supplies including personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, test kits and other medical basics. Trump long-delayed invoking the authority of the Defense Production Act, causing governors and mayors to scramble desperately until now for these missing supplies. What was the purpose of the delay at such a critical time?
There is no national strategy to reopen the economy with many Governors in open conflict about the best plan of action to reboot the economic life of the world's leading economy. The president has stated that the Coronavirus has passed its peak with the 632,000 confirmed cases in the United States, “The battle continues, but the data suggests that nationwide we have passed the peak on new cases” Trump stated Wednesday.
Donald Trump has suspended funding of the World Health Organization. The U.S. is the biggest donor to the WHO giving 400m a year to the organization. “It’s a bizarre decision that would be profoundly detrimental to global public health,” said Gavin Yamey, the director of Duke University’s center for policy impact in global health. “He’s trying to distract from his own errors that have led to the worst government response to Covid19 on Earth.” It looks like Trump wants to play the blame game instead of cooperating and making decisions based on professional research and data from the WHO. Trump and his supporters have focused on a 14 January WHO tweet reporting the findings of preliminary Chinese studies suggesting “no clear evidence” of human-to-human transmission. On 23 January the WHO updated its account of the coronavirus threat, confirming human-to-human transmission and warning that the global risk was high. One week later it formally declared a global emergency. It is unfair for the president to point to one tweet to asses the reliability of the information coming from the WHO. The whole point of science is that we have initial hypotheses and initial ideas, and we update those ideas as more and more data emerges.
Announcing the cut in funding on Tuesday, Trump accused the WHO of failing to send its experts to the source of the outbreak to gather samples. That failure decisively set back the effect to contain the pandemic, he claimed. In fact, Beijing blocked a WHO delegation from visiting Wuhan in the first weeks of the outbreak. In many ways, it is China that is responsible for the delayed response and slow reactions of countries like the United States. Trump attempted to praise the hard work of the Chinese in containing the outbreak on Jan 24th only 5 days before the director-general of the WHO was compelled to fly to Beijing to meet with Xi Jinping to negotiate entry and information sharing between China and the WHO.
While virtually no testing was underway in the US throughout February, Trump assumed the consequently low number of confirmed US cases meant that his country had somehow escaped. “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA,” he boasted on 24 February, nearly a month after the WHO declaration of emergency. Trump’s turn against the WHO only gathered pace over the past week, as more and more reports emerged of the administration’s own lethargic and dysfunctional response. Former President Jimmy Carter had this to say "I am distressed by the decision to withhold critically needed U.S. funding for the World Health Organization, especially during an international pandemic," Mr. Carter said, according to a statement from The Carter Center. "WHO is the only organization capable of leading the effort to control this virus."
Tidal waves of negative propaganda, social media misinformation and fake news tweets will offer no help to this nation as we are within a whirlwind of social change and uncertainty. The next year will define a generation and write the history of how the modern world deals with a pandemic with all of our technological mastery and devices of instant gratification. It is very frustrating to see the president of the United States unable to work cohesively with entities that have the resources and personnel to navigate a pandemic. This administration has been an interesting example of poorly qualified people holding positions they have no idea of how to administer justice or deliver an honest statement about the state of anything.
From December 31st until January 17th nothing was being done to monitor entry points into the United States to at least record who was coming into the country that may be at risk of having had come in contact with Covid19.
On January 23, the WHO Emergency Committee declined to declare Covid19 a global health emergency, an action that it took a week later, on January 30. The Centers for Disease Control sent out faulty test kits around the United States in early February. Red tape prevented the issue from being resolved as quickly as possible. Other nations developed test kits and went into large-scale testing weeks before the United States. Early on in the outbreak, Trump repeatedly asserted that the pandemic was not a great threat in the United States. On January 22nd Trump told the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland " We have it totally under control" and with those words tried to build a false sense of confidence in people in the United States and in the world. In February, Trump asserted that with the warm weather of April, the virus "miraculously goes away," again misaligning the truth and the reality of the situation. There happen to be a number of such inaccuracies spouted out by President Trump. The federal government and many states have been in a nonstop battle over scarce and urgently needed supplies including personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, test kits and other medical basics. Trump long-delayed invoking the authority of the Defense Production Act, causing governors and mayors to scramble desperately until now for these missing supplies. What was the purpose of the delay at such a critical time?
There is no national strategy to reopen the economy with many Governors in open conflict about the best plan of action to reboot the economic life of the world's leading economy. The president has stated that the Coronavirus has passed its peak with the 632,000 confirmed cases in the United States, “The battle continues, but the data suggests that nationwide we have passed the peak on new cases” Trump stated Wednesday.
Donald Trump has suspended funding of the World Health Organization. The U.S. is the biggest donor to the WHO giving 400m a year to the organization. “It’s a bizarre decision that would be profoundly detrimental to global public health,” said Gavin Yamey, the director of Duke University’s center for policy impact in global health. “He’s trying to distract from his own errors that have led to the worst government response to Covid19 on Earth.” It looks like Trump wants to play the blame game instead of cooperating and making decisions based on professional research and data from the WHO. Trump and his supporters have focused on a 14 January WHO tweet reporting the findings of preliminary Chinese studies suggesting “no clear evidence” of human-to-human transmission. On 23 January the WHO updated its account of the coronavirus threat, confirming human-to-human transmission and warning that the global risk was high. One week later it formally declared a global emergency. It is unfair for the president to point to one tweet to asses the reliability of the information coming from the WHO. The whole point of science is that we have initial hypotheses and initial ideas, and we update those ideas as more and more data emerges.
Announcing the cut in funding on Tuesday, Trump accused the WHO of failing to send its experts to the source of the outbreak to gather samples. That failure decisively set back the effect to contain the pandemic, he claimed. In fact, Beijing blocked a WHO delegation from visiting Wuhan in the first weeks of the outbreak. In many ways, it is China that is responsible for the delayed response and slow reactions of countries like the United States. Trump attempted to praise the hard work of the Chinese in containing the outbreak on Jan 24th only 5 days before the director-general of the WHO was compelled to fly to Beijing to meet with Xi Jinping to negotiate entry and information sharing between China and the WHO.
While virtually no testing was underway in the US throughout February, Trump assumed the consequently low number of confirmed US cases meant that his country had somehow escaped. “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA,” he boasted on 24 February, nearly a month after the WHO declaration of emergency. Trump’s turn against the WHO only gathered pace over the past week, as more and more reports emerged of the administration’s own lethargic and dysfunctional response. Former President Jimmy Carter had this to say "I am distressed by the decision to withhold critically needed U.S. funding for the World Health Organization, especially during an international pandemic," Mr. Carter said, according to a statement from The Carter Center. "WHO is the only organization capable of leading the effort to control this virus."
Tidal waves of negative propaganda, social media misinformation and fake news tweets will offer no help to this nation as we are within a whirlwind of social change and uncertainty. The next year will define a generation and write the history of how the modern world deals with a pandemic with all of our technological mastery and devices of instant gratification. It is very frustrating to see the president of the United States unable to work cohesively with entities that have the resources and personnel to navigate a pandemic. This administration has been an interesting example of poorly qualified people holding positions they have no idea of how to administer justice or deliver an honest statement about the state of anything.
Monday, April 13, 2020
Covid 19 when will it end ?
The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin.
Although there is no universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide from 1918-1919. In the United States,
it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918. It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was
estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000
occurring in the United States. ( https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html )
I recall this sliver of information to draw attention to the last time a global pandemic struck. To contrast and compare; at the time of this writing Covid19 cases worldwide topped 1.8 million on Sunday and the global death toll rose above 110,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. U.S. deaths passed 22,000. So as we hunker down and shelter in place it becomes a recurring question in many of our minds as to when will this all be over? So things can return to whatever normal for you is. Well, the answer to that may not be so easy to determine but we can look at the past to create conjecture about the future.
In the 1918–1919 pandemic, a first or spring wave began in March 1918 and spread unevenly through the United States, Europe, and possibly Asia over the next 6 months. Illness rates were high, but death rates in most locales were not appreciably above normal. From September to November 1918, a second more deadly wave spread globally killing many more than the first wave. A third wave occurred in early 1919. Scientists cannot explain the 3 pandemic waves of 1918–1919, which occurred in the spring-summer, summer-fall, and winter (of the Northern Hemisphere), respectively. The first 2 waves occurred at a time of year normally unfavorable to the flu virus being spread. The second wave caused simultaneous outbreaks in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres from September to November. Are we now facing such an event? The world was in the midst of a war in Europe in 1918 that helped to promote infection in the early stages of the flu virus but there are many questions about how and why there were successive waves. I am not a scientist nor do I hold any doctorates, I am a regular American with the ability to read and write to whatever degree. With that being said as I examine the past and listen to the people with doctorates and scientists I fear we are in for a rather long period of the pandemic that will most likely ebb and flow until it burns itself out. Life will be forever marred and it will be looked upon as life before Covid19 and after Covid19.
We will witness the restructuring of many industries and a revolution of technological support systems to help cope with the crisis. Of the 17 million jobs lost and more to come, there is no way to predict how many of the people who become job displaced during the pandemic will return to work when we recover from the critical measures being taken by the government and industry. This is a time of certain uncertainty and from day to day we see more and more of what we have never seen before. It will certainly not be a rose-colored outcome, there will be long-lasting change and much of it for the worst. The original and focus of the essay is "How long will it (the contagious period of the Covid19 virus) last and when will things return to normalcy? Odds are, at least a year and in that year how many things will change so drastically and affects the livelihood change causes challenges so drastic that all of those involved begin to incite and instigate unrest in the peer group they circulate within and the same dynamic is repeated layer upon layer? Something about all of what is happening feels calculated. Probably spit out of one of those quantum computers with advanced AI. And its long-range goal is to drive the society quickly into the coup de ta of corporations to usurp the power of the workers by replacing them with robots and Kiosks. undoubtedly a new form of economic lifestyles of Americans will by force be changed willingly and how resources are exchanged because the present money system and way of doing business will create the largest gap between the rich and the poor witnessed since serfdom was in practice. Until my next editorial, I ask that you stay at least six feet from anyone in public and wash your hands, please. The dragon has drawn and exhaled that hot fiya !!! I write because I can. [Christar4]
I recall this sliver of information to draw attention to the last time a global pandemic struck. To contrast and compare; at the time of this writing Covid19 cases worldwide topped 1.8 million on Sunday and the global death toll rose above 110,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. U.S. deaths passed 22,000. So as we hunker down and shelter in place it becomes a recurring question in many of our minds as to when will this all be over? So things can return to whatever normal for you is. Well, the answer to that may not be so easy to determine but we can look at the past to create conjecture about the future.
In the 1918–1919 pandemic, a first or spring wave began in March 1918 and spread unevenly through the United States, Europe, and possibly Asia over the next 6 months. Illness rates were high, but death rates in most locales were not appreciably above normal. From September to November 1918, a second more deadly wave spread globally killing many more than the first wave. A third wave occurred in early 1919. Scientists cannot explain the 3 pandemic waves of 1918–1919, which occurred in the spring-summer, summer-fall, and winter (of the Northern Hemisphere), respectively. The first 2 waves occurred at a time of year normally unfavorable to the flu virus being spread. The second wave caused simultaneous outbreaks in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres from September to November. Are we now facing such an event? The world was in the midst of a war in Europe in 1918 that helped to promote infection in the early stages of the flu virus but there are many questions about how and why there were successive waves. I am not a scientist nor do I hold any doctorates, I am a regular American with the ability to read and write to whatever degree. With that being said as I examine the past and listen to the people with doctorates and scientists I fear we are in for a rather long period of the pandemic that will most likely ebb and flow until it burns itself out. Life will be forever marred and it will be looked upon as life before Covid19 and after Covid19.
We will witness the restructuring of many industries and a revolution of technological support systems to help cope with the crisis. Of the 17 million jobs lost and more to come, there is no way to predict how many of the people who become job displaced during the pandemic will return to work when we recover from the critical measures being taken by the government and industry. This is a time of certain uncertainty and from day to day we see more and more of what we have never seen before. It will certainly not be a rose-colored outcome, there will be long-lasting change and much of it for the worst. The original and focus of the essay is "How long will it (the contagious period of the Covid19 virus) last and when will things return to normalcy? Odds are, at least a year and in that year how many things will change so drastically and affects the livelihood change causes challenges so drastic that all of those involved begin to incite and instigate unrest in the peer group they circulate within and the same dynamic is repeated layer upon layer? Something about all of what is happening feels calculated. Probably spit out of one of those quantum computers with advanced AI. And its long-range goal is to drive the society quickly into the coup de ta of corporations to usurp the power of the workers by replacing them with robots and Kiosks. undoubtedly a new form of economic lifestyles of Americans will by force be changed willingly and how resources are exchanged because the present money system and way of doing business will create the largest gap between the rich and the poor witnessed since serfdom was in practice. Until my next editorial, I ask that you stay at least six feet from anyone in public and wash your hands, please. The dragon has drawn and exhaled that hot fiya !!! I write because I can. [Christar4]
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Covid 19 Strikes the Windy City
In January 2020 the television news reported that at least one individual has tested positive for the Coronavirus in the western suburbs. The Individual traveled from the region that at the time was a hotspot for the virus. Wuhan China is the location the traveler came from. Pictures being shown on the evening news showed us images of the barren streets of the far away Wuhan, China. In the next few weeks, the news began to report more and more about the Coronavirus until one day a few months after the initial report I was riding with my Father to the store and he says to me" You know they closed all of the schools in Michigan." I was not aware of the dramatic measures taken by that state at the time but when I turned on the television later it seemed the infection had made significant progress in the eyes of the lawmakers and things were changing in real-time. Day to day life would be affected in short order after I received the information about the schools in Michigan. The next gigantic indicator of how serious things where getting is that the president and Congress created a stimulus package to distribute money to ALL Americans.
Whoa !! This was unprecedented, the Government passing out money to everyone who is a citizen of the U.S. in order to create commerce during a time when commercial business was being asked to shut down. In a city like Chicago with its 50% unemployment for its Black population. To ask people who are accustomed to making ends meet by hook or by crook, now have to navigate a landscape in which people are ordered to stay at home. How do you hustle when you cannot move? It is now April and Chicago has had the steepest spike in new infections in the country. Cook County Jail one of the largest single-site correctional facilities with aprox. 3000-5000 inmates on any given day, has been invaded by the contagion. The implications are alarming for people being held in the tightly packed spaces for hours on end now have a virus being spread among them. A killer who is unafraid of the courts who takes the old and infirm without consequence. Efforts are being made to release those people charged with low-level offenses and find locations for home monitoring for others. Courts are now having hearings for people who have committed serious crimes that want to be released due to the virus sweeping through the jails. Robert Kelly aka R Kelly who is being held in federal custody asked the courts to release him due to the Coronavirus and he was quickly denied. Bill Cosby is another celebrity who has asked for consideration for release recently and has also been denied. Many people in custody on all levels will have to face this head-on, let us pray for them.
I have heard several different accounts of how people speculate this so-called novel-virus came to be. Everything from it being created in China a weapon to some type of secret military games that included a contest of germ warfare agents where one of the contestants broke confinement and spread quickly throughout Wuhan, China. Whatever it's beginning it is now present in the lives of the American general public. We are in the early stages of the pandemic and our lives have all been shifted in a direction none of us expected. A sector of society where black Americans are traditionally underserved is education and now that schools are closed many school districts have started remote classes when that is possible. In a demographic where Black Americans find themselves at the bottom of the equation not enough of the students who are served by Chicago Public Schools has access to Wi-Fi and /or a computer, so remote instruction is a challenge. The effort is being made by CPS to accommodate students with devices to connect to the internet in order to take part in remote learning programs. In the midst of a global pandemic, administrators are scrambling to come up with solutions. I think it is a noble gesture to give students devices to connect to the internet in hopes that they will take part in some model of remote class instruction so let us hope students will benefit from the generosity and quick thinking on behalf of CPS. An educator who instructs at the highest level for major universities in California confided in me that she believes we are seeing the face of education change and that it will never be the same after the smoke settles. Institutions will adapt to change by force now and during the smoothing, out process will most likely see that brick and mortar schools are a costly burden that they will want to shed in order to take advantage of the efficiency and elegance of computer-aided remote instruction. This will be another way that technology will remove people from the workforce in the information age or the age of automation.
Its been suggested that the move towards widespread automation will push the divide between the haves and have nots towards and unbearable margin and spur public unrest that will provide a motive for the people to dissolve by force the fascist capitalist government we have overseeing our lives today.
I have heard several different accounts of how people speculate this so-called novel-virus came to be. Everything from it being created in China a weapon to some type of secret military games that included a contest of germ warfare agents where one of the contestants broke confinement and spread quickly throughout Wuhan, China. Whatever it's beginning it is now present in the lives of the American general public. We are in the early stages of the pandemic and our lives have all been shifted in a direction none of us expected. A sector of society where black Americans are traditionally underserved is education and now that schools are closed many school districts have started remote classes when that is possible. In a demographic where Black Americans find themselves at the bottom of the equation not enough of the students who are served by Chicago Public Schools has access to Wi-Fi and /or a computer, so remote instruction is a challenge. The effort is being made by CPS to accommodate students with devices to connect to the internet in order to take part in remote learning programs. In the midst of a global pandemic, administrators are scrambling to come up with solutions. I think it is a noble gesture to give students devices to connect to the internet in hopes that they will take part in some model of remote class instruction so let us hope students will benefit from the generosity and quick thinking on behalf of CPS. An educator who instructs at the highest level for major universities in California confided in me that she believes we are seeing the face of education change and that it will never be the same after the smoke settles. Institutions will adapt to change by force now and during the smoothing, out process will most likely see that brick and mortar schools are a costly burden that they will want to shed in order to take advantage of the efficiency and elegance of computer-aided remote instruction. This will be another way that technology will remove people from the workforce in the information age or the age of automation.
Its been suggested that the move towards widespread automation will push the divide between the haves and have nots towards and unbearable margin and spur public unrest that will provide a motive for the people to dissolve by force the fascist capitalist government we have overseeing our lives today.
Technology has made leaps and bounds in the last decade in moving towards artificial intelligence and we are at the cusp of automation replacing an estimated 47% of the American workforce. This number was derived by Oxford University in the study they did to evaluate how automation will impact the American workforce. Women and especially women of color will be replaced en masse due to the type of work they do. Cashiers, telemarketers, customer service reps, and banking all have heavy representation by women and have been slowly seeing automation push people out of the workforce will now move in double time into the automated models that have been trickling into the superstructure of the American infrastructure. How will people survive this type of unemployment? The 6.6 million claims filed last week set a record going back to 1967, when the Labor Department’s data series began.“ This is a catastrophe,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), vice chairman of the congressional Joint Economic Committee, in a statement. “Nearly 17
million Americans have lost their jobs and they likely won’t find
another one until the contagion is under control — and that may be a long way off.” On
CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Chicago's Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Chicago’s
economy can’t reopen until there’s more widespread testing and decried
the disproportionate number of African American deaths from coronavirus,
saying the disease is "devastating our community.” Nearly 70% of the city’s COVID-19 deaths have been African Americans, who make up only about 30% of Chicago’s total population. The fact that the Black community in Chicago is being hit harder than others is not anything new it was said back in the 60's or 70's that if America gets a cold the Black American gets the flu. So here we stand, a city of nearly 3 million people asked to stay in the house, businesses shut down, schools closed and people dealing with life as it comes. In a city that has one of the highest death tolls from violent crime struck by a virus that is complicating an already challenging place to live. You have to strong and courageous to live on the south or west side of Chicago. Danger is footsteps away and around every corner, in many communities, we live in here in Chicago. We will see this attack by an unseen enemy burn its way through the city, state and country and endure whatever constraints placed upon us but let us do this with vigilance and when its necessary aid one another in the spirit of community as we have done since being delivered here as chattel in the 15th century. As the diaspora has survived all of the atrocity and inhumane behavior presented to us and again we shall prove to be resilient and strong. We shall overcome, One love beloved.
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