Have you seen this headline?
Tulsa Officials Plead for Trump to Cancel Rally as Virus Spikes in Oklahoma
President Trump will hold his first campaign rally in months on Saturday in Oklahoma, where infections are rising, and officials there are pleading with him to cancel or hold it outdoors.
By Noah Weiland, Updated June 17, 2020,WASHINGTON — Officials in Tulsa, Okla., are warning that President Trump’s planned campaign rally on Saturday — his first in over three months — is likely to worsen an already troubling spike in coronavirus infections and could become a disastrous “super spreader.”
They are pleading with the Trump campaign to cancel the event, slated for a 20,000-person indoor arena — or at least move it outdoors.
“It’s the perfect storm of potential over-the-top disease transmission,” said Bruce Dart, the executive director of the Tulsa health department. “It’s a perfect storm that we can’t afford to have.”
Will President Trump listen to these concerns? Perhaps. As of this writing, he has not. There is a way he can have his rally and not kill people.
But first:
This is what will not work:
Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images
It won’t work because of human psychology and because of the way COVID-19 is spread.
1. Washing hands helps. But the vast majority of COVID-19 cases are not touch-related. COVID-19 is primarily spread via inhaled droplets.
Also, washing hands thoroughly after each potential exposure is quite inconvenient and unrealistic. You go into a public place — say a grocery store — and touch a package.
Will you now wash your hands — where? Then you touch another package and another.
How often each day will you do this as you travel about? Will you remember to clean your car steering wheel, door handles, and seats after each potential exposure? Your house doorknob?
2. Coughing into your elbow helps, but not nearly enough. COVID-19 not only is spread by coughing and sneezing. It is spread by talking, laughing, and just plain breathing.
Will you really walk around with your face buried in your elbow?
3. Not touching your face helps. But researchers have shown that humans are compulsive face touchers. We do it many times a day without even realizing it. Breaking that habit would be harder than quitting smoking.
4. Social distancing helps, though 3-6 feet is far too little (is it 3 feet or is it 6 feet?) but microscopic droplets can travel much farther.
And it simply is not possible to avoid coming close to people who are breathing out these droplets. And if you work in a large elevator-building, you’re doomed. There is no way realistically to social distance.
5. Staying home helps, but over the long haul, it makes people insane. We’ve tried social distancing for only 3 months, and already people are refusing to abide.
Further, businesses cannot survive that way. Social distancing is crashing the economy.
All of the above do help, but not nearly enough.
So what will work?
UNIVERSAL MASKING
When you wear a mask, even a simple cloth mask, your emission of COVID-19 droplets is drastically reduced. You can cough, sneeze, talk, and breathe, and your germs mostly will be caught by your mask.
And if the other person is wearing a mask, whatever droplets evade your mask will be caught by his mask. In short, you both will have double protection from each other.
The only realistic method for stopping the virus, until (if ever) a cure or a vaccine is developed, is universal masking.
See: The surprisingly simple way to open America in 14 days and avoid a depression.
The states are anxious to “open up,” and Trump is an is anxious to have his rallies, both of which could be done if universal mask usage is mandated.
Universal masking is like herd immunity in that prevents so many people from transmitting the virus that the virus is stopped in its tracks.
Finally, I’ll leave you with this:
Hundreds of doctors call for statewide mask requirement in Arizona
Max Gorden“I know some people view this as an issue of personal freedom, or political freedom. It shouldn’t be viewed in that regard,” said Arizona Rep. Greg Stanton.
“We are fighting the worst pandemic in over 100 years, and wearing of the mask, the mandating of the mask, is a common sense thing to do to fight this terrible virus.”
Contact your mayor, your governor, and your Congressperson. Demand that universal masking be mandated.
Save your life. Save my life. Save the economy. Save America.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.
The most important problems in economics involve:
- Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
- Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics. Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps:
Ten Steps To Prosperity:
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone
3. Social Security for all or a reverse income tax
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
5. Salary for attending school
6. Eliminate federal taxes on business
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually.
8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.
9. Federal ownership of all banks
10.Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9%
The Ten Steps will grow the economy and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
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Much of the virus is transmitted by aerosols (much smaller than droplets) while we breathe. That can limit the effectiveness of masks if social distancing and proper hygiene are not also practiced. Here’s an excellent (and LONG) article by a welknown, world-class epidemiologist: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/sites/default/files/public/downloads/special_episode_masks_6.2.20_0.pdf
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Thank you, Filipe.
Masks don’t need to be 100% effective, in the same way herd immunity is not 100% effective.
They are much more effective than social distancing (How far is far enough?) and hand-washing (how much, when?), and importantly visibly help protect the wearer and everyone else. (You can’t easily look at a room and tell if everyone is hand washing or if the distancing is continuously enough. Moral persuasion is easier with masks.)
Now all we need is for the President to set an example.
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Indeed, Rodger. If we make the perfect the enemy of the good, we ultimately end up with neither.
And two distinct though related concepts seem to be conflated in the colloquial use of the term “airborne”. It seems that large ballistic droplets rather than small aerosol droplets are the dominant means of transmission for this particular virus, making masks highly (albeit imperfectly) effective in that regard.
For small aerosol droplets (i.e. truly airborne), that may be true to an extent for this virus as well, but unlikely to be dominant. Social distancing is unrealistic for the latter case, and masks are less effective (though still not entirely useless) than for larger droplets, while improving ventilation and prioritizing outdoor settings would make more sense.
https://quillette.com/2020/04/23/covid-19-superspreader-events-in-28-countries-critical-patterns-and-lessons/
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Good article
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America already is well past the limits of stupidity, and now is seeing the light. The real Trump stands there, naked and afraid, left trying to criminalize the publishing of yet another tell-all book.
He is shown to be a psychopathic con artist, of no use for anyone except for America’s bigot minority. His hate-mongering, angry child act has grown tiresome.
Read some examples:
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