Lockdown or Economy, a false choice

Have you heard people say that lockdowns are destroying economies? The argument is that we should open up, let the virus run its course, and build herd immunity (now that it seems only old people die, and that only a tiny percentage of overall cases result in death). Yet the assumptions seem to be that there is an either-or choice. The reality is much different. 

(Twitter: 27/12/2020 – the very voice and face of evil)

Locking down has enormous consequences for economic activity and mental health; this is true. This is balanced by a reduction in the mortality based on a lower or slower spread of the virus. A slower spread of the virus should ensure that the medical system, hopefully, can cater for the load that sick people place on the system. There are only so many hospital beds, and only so many medical professionals. Overload that system, and people will not receive required care, fatalities will rise, and the pool of available healthcare professionals will shrink as they are removed, hopefully temporarily, as they become sick and burned-out. There is also an element of trying to keep the sick-load down until effective interventions are available, and vaccines are available in volume. 

Remove lockdowns (or more accurately, do not impose lockdowns), and the benefits of fewer people becoming ill, dying, and overloading the medical system, will disappear. Now factor in the social impact of a visibly collapsing health system, mounting deaths and infection lurking around every corner and in every shop. There would be no need for a lockdown to stop people from flying. Bars could remain open, generating income for bar owners and employees. Shops and offices could stay open, and the economic activity would reduce unemployment and economic loss. Small investors leveraged to build businesses and futures would have these protected by an economic system that would continue apace, continuing employment and continuing the turnover required to service business (and personal) loans and build assets.

That is the argument. And it is dead wrong.

Mass illness and death have a way of seeping into the soul of a society, and fear is a dampener on economic activity. Trauma begets behaviours (and is caused by behaviours). So, tourism would come to a sudden stop. Likewise, while shops may remain open, economic activity in the shops would have come to a virtual halt. Yet wages would continue to be due, and as revenue collapsed and staff were fired, it would not be long before the markets themselves would begin to ‘price in’ the future impact of collapsing economic activity.

In the US, with a for-profit healthcare system linked to individual employment, the double threat of losing a job while at the same time being forced to work in environments that were clearly advantageous to the spread of the virus could not have anything other than a negative impact on workers' productivity. Worse than worker productivity, worker health will suffer through institutional failure to implement health-saving policies. The only policies that will matter will be wealth-saving policies. We’ve already seen the impact.

Earlier this month in Douglas County, one person who was sick went to work, and later tested positive for the coronavirus.

Within two weeks, that one action led to two subsequent outbreaks. The first killed at least seven people, nearly 20% of the county’s total COVID fatalities since the pandemic began. The second forced more than 300 people into quarantine.

Working from home would become a desirable option for workers (if they can), regardless of the ‘lockdown’ situation.

And the higher death rate among the elderly would drag workers away from the office for funerals and grieving, further impacting the social fabric. The higher death rate would also cause a national grieving significantly greater than the current numbing effect of the virus.

The question of “save lives or save the economy” is a false question. If society did not set out to save as many lives as possible, there would have been no economy. It would have stopped.  

Throughout the pandemic, modelling has included expected cases and mortality based on various levels of a lockdown or other social distancing measures. By early April deaths were climbing quickly, and projections looked pretty scary. The CDC’s site included its historical projections. Below is the 13 April 2020 projections of potential cumulative deaths in the US through July 2020, based on various levels of restrictions.

With the minimum “contact reduction” of 20%, deaths would have reached a range of between 130,000 to a horrifying 350,000. That range itself is horrifying, and reflects the dearth of information available at that time for modelling. It is scary to note that total US deaths passed 125,000 in June, not far off an extrapolation of the 40% contact reduction line above. 300,000 cumulative deaths in the US was reached in December, and current projections are for more than 420,000 deaths by inauguration day on 20 January 2021. 

Imagine 200,000 deaths by May 2020. Who would leave the house? Who would even consider going to work? Would there be an economy?

So while the modelling of total deaths took place, there was not an associated modelling of the potential impact on economic activity based on those deaths.  The comparison should have included not just vague statements about the health system being overloaded, but should have quantified the potential impact of health and economic activity.

The trauma of people being forced to continue to work in offices, factories and shops would be significant. The London Underground provides an example. Even under ‘normal circumstances’ the Tubes are packed, and people are surly and uncommunicative. There are unwritten behavioural rules, such as you don’t talk to others (or if you do, it is either boisterous groups, or quiet individual conversations) and do not make eye contact with strangers. Now imagine that in a pandemic in which everyone is expected to go to work, and the Tube is still crowded, but now there are people with fevers and coughs as well. 

In non-pandemic times, others are tolerated because an unwritten code says ‘we are all in this together’, as long as being together will not kill us. In normal times the unwell person on the train is requested to get off at the next stop and stay on the platform until they feel better or ask for assistance from station staff. 

In a pandemic, station staff are suddenly required to act as front-line medical responders. The infection will spread to them quickly, and the numbers of staff unavailable due to illness will rise. As the London Underground workforce is well unionised and protective, strike action should be expected and would effectively shut down the Underground. So as the pandemic spreads (in a no-lockdown situation) the number of train services will fall, cramming more people into fewer trains, increasing infection rates. 

At some stage, people will simply refuse to take the Tube.

That needs to be figured into the economics of the pandemic, and the ‘stay open’ arguments. Does NYC continue to function if New Yorkers refuse to take the Metro? Does the Metro still function is staff are out on strike or there are too few staff due to sickness?

Then consider the psychological effect of an infection rate climbing quickly, yet with a demonstrably deaf governmental and business community. If we (well, I) have been shocked by the level of conspiracy thinking that has happened with lockdowns, imaging the level of conspiracy thinking that would take place in an “everything should continue as normal” scenario.

I would imagine that business would be even more reviled, and all faith in government to protect people, or even to have the people’s interests in mind would evaporate. Covid-19 would be seen as a tool by which the government was ridding itself of the elderly to avoid pensions and healthcare obligations to the elderly, returning the economy to longer-term demographic stability. Kill off the old, and Social Security costs will fall, and taxes won’t need to rise, allowing more tax cuts for the rich.

And about the ‘rich’. Clearly, THEY are taking this seriously, and are able to distance and protect themselves and their families while the workers who create their wealth must continue to work, be exposed, get sick, and lose everything to the illness. The current anger (yes, there really is anger) at the wealth accumulation by higher earners and the extravagant increases in wealth at the very top through the pandemic will have repercussions. A ‘wealth tax’ cannot be ruled out.

Now imagine a ‘no-lockdown’ scenario, with mounting deaths, raging illness and (in the US in particular) the stripping of families of what meagre assets they have, impoverishment of the newly unemployed (after all, if there is no lockdown there should be little need for a stimulus package). Remember that even those who are benefiting from stimulus are seeing assets diminished and poverty approaching. Renters are falling behind with no associated equity assets to rely upon to provide financial depth. Homeowners are finding mortgage payments difficult or impossible to make. Banks will allow loans to extend only so long.

This is happening with stimulus and with lockdowns. Without lockdowns, the higher infection rates and higher death rates due to crippled health systems will exacerbate the economic problems.

Anti-lockdown advocates also make the spurious claims that ‘more people will die from suicide than will be saved by a lockdown’. This is complete bollocks. The suicide rate will be the same or higher, as large numbers of people are pushed into extreme poverty through economic collapse (which will happen simply because too many sick and dying people will mean too little shopping and too little working). In addition, those that suffer from depression due to the visible increase in illness all around them will have no services available to assist them, as those services will also be impacted by increased employee illness and absenteeism. Volunteers will become fewer as they deal with issues of their own at home and in their families.

Long-Covid

Missing from the discussion has been the economic impact of "Long-Covid" on more general health, and the psychology of returning to work in an "open economy". Long-Covid refers to those patients who continue, sometimes months later, to have Covid-19 related symptoms and in some cases, significant disabilities. 

A core element of a thriving economy is the confidence that the structures are in place to ensure that long-term aspirations will be achievable by "playing the game" of work hard, gain rewards, live a comfortable life. Curtail the probability of a quick recovery and a "back to normal", and expect an even slower recovery. That is the simple psychological impact that will hinder a full return to normality.

Then there is the associated economic impact of a potentially large cadre of individuals who will be unable to fully return to their pre-pandemic jobs and lives. They will "contribute" less to the economy, while likewise increasing the cost of the economy. Societies are expensive to run, and taking care of the weak and the sick to a standard that provides opportunity and enables a quality of life is part of that cost. It is the insurance policy that we all de facto pay for.

Long-Covid will result in untold individual and family suffering, and will be a drain on the economy that is so loved by those with assets. 

While the skyrocketing sickness and death rates in an "open economy" will effectively close that economy regardless of the wishes of politicians and oligarchs. Long-Covid will make create further drains slowing further the recovery of that much-worshipped economy.

Summary

“Open the economy, Now!” Lockdowns cause more harm than benefit. This is true, but only if there is no pandemic. When society is being ravaged by a highly contagious illness, the impact is far beyond the economic. And ignoring the pandemic in the pursuit of continued profit will backfire. More will die, and business will still fail, and prospects for a speedy recovery will wither. 

This is not a Covid-19 travel ban (EU & Europe)

I am prefacing this with the disclaimer: I am NOT a conspiracy theorist, and do not like conspiracy theories. But sometimes you have to wonder. 

So much of Europe is closing its doors to the UK, completely. No air or rail traffic to or from the UK from the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France and others. Greece has imposed a 7-day quarantine on any traveller from the UK. The “new strain” of Covid-19 is supposed to be 70% more infectious. This number feels a bit ‘made up’ but I’ll go with it. I’ve seen that it spreads 70% faster, or that it spreads within the body 70% faster. Whatever the situation, Europe has panicked and is shutting down all access to the UK. 

This is, frankly, silly.  The new variant was identified in September, and therefore there is not a country in Europe that has not had travel to and from the UK in the three months since. And in those three months, there can be little doubt that if it is that much more contagious, it will have spread outside the UK already. I almost wonder if there isn’t a little bit of politics going on here also, a gentle reminder to the UK government what Brexit will look like without a deal. Miles of lorries unable to deliver food to the UK because of blockages in the ports. All a good preview of Brexit. 

And they do not need to explicitly say this is what a ‘no-deal’ Brexit will look like; it’s a given.

So while we are told that there is a new strain of Covid-19 out there, and we should worry, the fact is that if it has been around since September, then there is no country that it has not already arrived in (except of course New Zealand).

The Black Death took from 1347 to 1351 to finish its march from the Crimea through Southern Europe, up to France and across to England and north and east to Germany. The plague travelled at the speed of a sail-driven ship, or the speed of a merchant walking their cart from village to village. The dates of arrival of plague in cities across Europe matched the speed of travel by foot (or ship) nicely. Indeed, word of the plague travelled faster, because couriers rode at some speed to deliver regal and ecclesiastic news. But infection travelled in the merchant’s cart.

In such a situation, a new variant of plague identified in September would still be on its way from England to Italy by December, with its arrival at each city along the way being identifiable by increased cases in those cities.

Covid-19 travels at the speed of a jet-liner. So any variant anywhere in the world, if the mutation is hardy enough and supportive of replication without killing the host, will travel around the world in days, maybe a couple of weeks. Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted is one thing; shutting the stable door a month after the horse meandered out is quite another. That horse is not only long gone, it also wandered through all your neighbours' pastures and paths. 

Locking down all travel from the UK two and a half months after a new variant of Covid-19 has been identified is not only silly but ineffective in the extreme. Add to that the argument that this is a more contagious version. Well in that case, and with the speed of spread of ‘Covid-19 Classic’, a more virulent version should be spreading even faster. And we know that Covid-19 spread in a matter of a few weeks, not months. We also know that the initial spread was faster, but not identified because of the latency period between infection and manifestation of the decease. 

This version has not only had the time to spread, if it is actually more virulent, then it is already spreading rapidly through all of Europe. 

The closing of UK borders is not due to a Covid-19 variant unless this is for show only. And if it is for show, then the EU might as well use that show for alternative and additional messaging. We’re all in this together, or look what happens when you are locked out.

And possibly not a surprise, France has announced that it may open the border to traffic again as soon as 48 hours from now. They certainly will not have the new strain under control or even limited by then. But the main message will have been sent and received.

Good news, bad news, good news, bad news

It has been a day of Good News, Bad News, Good News and Bad News, all depending on the country. 

UK

In the UK this morning, a 90-year old has become the first person to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in the sanctioned roll-out (as opposed to the clinical trials). This marks the beginning of a vaccination programme that should, by late spring, see enough people vaccinated if not declare the pandemic over, at least to declare that the risk is contained. “Normal life” will be able to resume.

The anti-vax community will avoid vaccination, and will find that they are enjoying ‘stay-cations’ for the coming year. I expect no country will allow them entry (and many airlines will refuse to fly them) if they cannot demonstrate vaccination. That is their right, and I fully support it. But decisions come with consequences, and the result of their stand will be that they will not be allowed to put themselves and others in harm’s way – mostly put others in harm’s way. But it is also to keep them out of harm’s way and reduce their potential burden on the rest of society. If they refuse the vaccine, and then go on holiday and catch the virus, they put others at risk, but they also create an additional unnecessary drain on stretched health services.

Still, this has to go down as a great day. Not the first vaccine day. The Chinese and the Russians are already vaccinating their people, but as they are “not us” then they and their vaccines don’t count. So goes the logic; their vaccines have not been through our testing and trial regimes, and we have not had adequate oversight, so we will not certify, or count their vaccines as safe or acceptable. So, ours is first, yeah.

Amerika

Meanwhile, the US daily new cases have reached a seven-day moving average of over 200,000. And the president, Trump, still doesn’t care, and his people still have rallies and gatherings of hundreds or thousands of people with limited or no masks or distancing. Giuliani is sick, and infected how many people as he stood in courtrooms and posed for selfies with people across Amerika? Now that buffoon is ill and receiving the best care that Amerika can provide. In a civilised society, he would be facing charges of endangerment. Even in Amerika is it illegal for someone to knowingly put others at risk of contagion for deadly deceases. Did he know he had it? Possibly not, but his behaviour represents recklessness at the very minimum. He should be in jail. Well, he should be in jail after he recovers.

Even if he did not know he was infected, he certainly knew his behaviours were dangerous. He knew he had been in contact with infected people (at various Trump events) and therefore should have been taking greater care. Instead, there is video of him, in a courtroom, asking someone sitting next to him to remove her mask “so we can hear you”. 

Yesterday was Pearl Harbor day. More than 2400 Americans were killed In the Japanese attack, and the United States declared war on Japan and Germany. Yesterday the US seven-day moving average number of deaths from Covid-19 reached 2300. Yesterday’s and the day before yesterday’s raw numbers were lower than that, but they were the Sunday and Monday numbers, and we expect those to be lower. 

Meanwhile, there is reporting today that Pfizer actually offered to sell the US government 100 million additional doses of their vaccine last summer. The administration turned them down. Now the US will have the 100 million that it pre-ordered from Pfizer, and the 100 million from Moderna, and will not be able to source additional Pfizer vaccine doses until Pfizer’s existing orders from other clients have been filled.

So between the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine doses, there should be enough to vaccinate around 100 million Amerikans (at two doses per person vaccinated). That is just under a third of the population. 

Instead of focusing on sick and dying Amerikans, Trump rang the governor of Pennsylvania to ask him to overturn the election result and select a republican set of electors. The governor said “no”. The governor of Georgia gave him the same answer. Outside the house of the Michigan Secretary of State, the official who certifies the election for Biden, armed groups gathered and shouted threats. And the president said nothing to stop them while continuing to encourage the lie that the vote was stolen and that there was massive fraud. Fraud that they cannot prove in any court. 

Biden is said to be against pursuing Trump; that it would be bad for the country and would stop the healing that needs to happen. He is wrong. Trump and those that enable him, and those that follow his thinly veiled suggestions to “Liberate Michigan” (from lockdowns, but really from a Democratic governor), they must all face the courts. 

Reuters reports “Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said dozens of armed protesters gathered in a threatening manner outside her home on Saturday evening chanting “bogus” claims about electoral fraud.”

Thugs with guns outside someone’s house protesting the electoral outcome must see consequences. As above, it may be their right, but with the practice of those rights comes consequences. I hope the faces and names of all those ‘protesting’ outside the Secretary of State’s home are published and spread widely. Let them learn that participation in a free society also requires compliance with the norms of that society.

Those that have committed crimes of intimidation should be prosecuted. Those that have smeared the names of good people should be prosecuted. Democracy is not free, and to forgive and forget the actions of those who seek to undermine it will only embolden them for the next time, until they are shooting in the streets; until they are armed at the polling stations, demanding proof that citizens are authorised to vote, and telling people that if they vote the wrong way, they will be visited afterwards.

We’ve seen this before. And it must not be allowed to happen again.

Greece

Thankfully here in Greece, the numbers continue to fall. 

Yesterday there were under 1000 cases for the first time in over a month, and today there were 1250 new cases (well, actually the day before yesterday, and yesterday, but today with when I can see those numbers). Watching them every day can be depressing and frustrating, so it is good to leave it for a few days, then come and take a look, to be either heartened or concerned. Today, heartened is the word.

The seven-day moving average is now at around 1600, down from 2600 two weeks ago. There is a long way to go, but it does seem that things are moving in the right direction. Does this mean opening for Christmas? I’m not confident. They have opened the “Christmas decoration” shops, to allow people to buy the trappings, light and decorations of Christmas, no doubt to give people some hope and happiness at this time. Without that, it would be a very grim Christmas indeed, and that would add to the depression that will be felt by many as January bites. 

Panama

In a blow to progress in Panama, the "Dry Law" has been brought back in for the Panama Province, covering the city and surrounding suburbs. Arijan apparently is the new epicentre of Covid-19 cases. This not a huge surprise, as workers commute from Arijan into the city, often spending 1 to 2 hours on crowded busses. If they are lucky (and 'wealthy') they travel in air-conditioned buses, trapping the air and the virus inside. If they are not, they travel in crowded buses with the window open enjoying the heat and humidity.

Panama cases have climbed back above 2500 per day. This is as bad as its been, and the hopes that the pandemic had passed are shattered with this. 

I guess the summary for the day is that there is bad news, good news, and bad news, with a weighting toward good news.

The DOW and Pandemic disconnect

The DOW Industrial Average stock index reached 30,000 yesterday, a new record high. Trump claims credit, of course. 

The markets are a good forward-looking indicator of the economy (or they were) and as such, any immediate movement is a reflection of near to mid-range expectations, and trends provide a forward-looking expectation of medium to longer-term economic performance. A rising market used to indicate an expectation of a generally growing economy.

And yet we know that the US economy is in deep trouble. Pandemic trouble coupled with long-term small to medium-sized business trouble. The promised V-shaped recovery is petering out and will return to a more 'normal' recovery. Wall Street and Main Street have rarely been so out of sync.

So why the jump to record-level valuations?

Of course, the stimulus that has been and continues to be pumped into the markets to avoid a crash decoupled Wall Street from Main Street some time ago. So the significant jumps over the past two weeks can and should be seen as market (and therefore the investing class) expectations that there will be greater certainty under a Biden administration, and therefore medium to longer-term plans can be made, and investment programmes confirmed.

It begs the question of why, with the need for ongoing stimulus and 8%-10% federal budget deficits, the markets think the future is so bright. 

The answer is that the US economy has passed the point of being able to fix its systemic debt problem, and any attempt to do so will simply destroy the markets, killing large and medium-sized companies (the small companies are barely holding on already) and that will wipe out any hope of an employment recovery, plunging the US into a multi-year depression. Therefore with an adult in the White House, and an economic team that is willing to tell him hard truths, the markets are betting that the stimulus will keep on rolling.

It begs the question of where the markets would be today without the constant meddling-by-tweet and bogus trade wars of the past four years? 

Still the pandemic continues to build. 

There can be no doubt, and history will declare (and so will any who are looking at this even now and into the coming year) that Trump’s personal response and the craven enablers in the Republican party, and directly contributed to a disaster in the US. 

Meanwhile, US Covid-19 deaths are at a seven-day moving average of 1640 deaths, a number that was last seen on May 12th (as a seven-day moving average). The first time that the rate was that high was as the pandemic was building force (as it is again) on April 7th. There were 34 days between the first time the average was above 1650 and the first time is dropped below 1650. 

If those numbers provided a pattern and an expectation for now, then we will not see the numbers reach this level again for another month. Certainly the numbers could already have peaked, but that is not what the seven-day moving average is telling up. With up/high days and lower/dropping days, the seven-day moving average continues to climb.

The same is happening with new cases. The seven-day average is still rising, at 176,000, even though there are occasional ‘down’ days, usually at the weekends. The three-day average is on another downward wave, but the latest number are not encouraging. Hospitals are becoming overloaded again, and National Guard troops are being called in to deal with the numbers of corpses in Texas.

 

Across the country, the cases are still growing and growing fast. And we are being warned that the coming winter will make matters even worse, with people being cramped inside, and when they go to places where others are or have been, the need to retain the heat will necessitate recycled warm air, increasing the risk of contagion. So for the US, there is little hope that the next weeks will see any actual peak in cases, and certainly little hope that there will be any sustained drop in the number of new cases. Unless, of course, Trump is able to continue to reduce the total number of tests being performed, and thus artificially holding down the number of cases.

Yes, still there is no meaningful response from the Republicans.

All they can do is look on now, still afraid of Trump and his ability, they believe, to destroy their political futures, by calling them out as disloyal. Even now. 

So Amerika has to wait, and hope that Biden and his team will be ready on day-one to implement effective measures. Certainly, the roll-out of vaccines will already be underway before Christmas, but the general population will not be seeing vaccinations until mid to late-January. First will be the front-line workers in healthcare, and then their families, and then the elderly, and then those at most risk. Only after those have been vaccinated will the general population be able to be vaccinated. That will probably not happen until February or later, depending on how fast the Biden team can push, or how much of their programme can start before he is sworn in. (By stealth of course, because Trump will “burn it down” if he sees any tangible support for Biden that is actually is able to interrupt).

Here in Greece things seem to be moving in the other direction, though it will take another week before we can have any confidence. 

The bad news is that the seven-day moving average number of deaths continues to rise, and is over 80. There was a high last week of over 100 deaths in a day. The hospitals are overwhelmed, and in Thessaloniki and the north, 99% of ICU beds are occupied. The military is building a field hospital on the grounds of the Military Hospital here in Thessaloniki, providing an additional 50 (ICU?) beds at least.

Two private clinics have been requisitioned, adding 200 beds to the total available in the public system in Thessaloniki. Hopefully, these will be enough, but I very much doubt it with the steep rise in cases through November. 

Thessaloniki is the epicentre, with over 600 new cases yesterday, reaching more than 14,500 cases in Thessaloniki in total, in November only.

Characteristic of the rapid growth of the virus is the fact that in October - the month in which the spread of the coronavirus had already begun - Thessaloniki had recorded 4,027 cases while in September it had only… 422 cases, a number that is now exceeded daily by the city. In less than two months, Thessaloniki jumped from 422 cases to 14,517, proving the aggression of the new virus. It is noted that in total, since the beginning of the pandemic at the end of February in Thessaloniki, 20,334 cases have been recorded.

https://www.typosthes.gr/ygeia-epistimi/covid-19/234679_koronoios-paramenei-ypo-piesi-me-607-nea-kroysmata-i-thessaloniki

Across Greece, the numbers of new cases are coming down, which if a good thing to see. However, this may be illusory for the same reason as the US, we are entering ‘real’ winter. The article also said that the optimum temperature for the virus is 8 – 10 degrees Celsius (of 48 – 50 Fahrenheit). 

If there is good news it is that the seven-day moving average of new cases is heading downward. Not much yet, but definitely, a peak, if only a week old. We will need much more time to see that it is a real peak and fall, which will be problematic with the winter conditions. But the lockdown here is in its third week, and that is about the time it takes for the asymptomatic contagious cases to spread as far as they can, then begin to die off. After all, if the virus cannot reach someone, then it cannot infect them.

So while cases continue to rise rapidly, the speed of rise has slowed down a little. But the numbers are still increasing, and that continues to drive the need for more beds.

The latest news this morning is that we will be in lockdown at least until December 6th, which is another two weeks. I would not be upset if it were another week after that, to really limit the potential spread. 

The spread cannot be halted by the lockdown; we still need to buy food and go and feed the stray cats. And we are not alone. The entire city must have some limited interactions, even if more limited than ours. And our interactions are limited. We do not move more than about 100 meters from the building, and even then we enter any building with caution, checking that there are not many people inside and that there is plenty of ventilation via open window and doors. The pet-shop is a good example. The front door is open all the time, and upstairs there is a pet grooming station with its window open. Hopefully, this is providing enough airflow to reduce the risk of spread. 

And masks are obligatory, and for the most part, are now being worn property. For the most part. There are still too many people who think that they cannot speak through a mask, so pull the mask down to talk, and then usually to talk too loudly.

But lockdowns work, and this one is already reaping some rewards in peaking infections. I hope. 

Coup or Grace?

Monday of Thanksgiving week.

In the US, one of the Trump lawyers has been fired, after pushing a conspiracy theory that the maker of the software provider for the vote counting was somehow in cahoots with Chavez of Venezuela, who died over a decade ago. This seems to have been too much even for Giuliani, who is trying to push ‘reputable’ conspiracy theories such as a massive plot to commit voter fraud, stuff ballot boxes, and ignore votes for Trump, or that individuals errors in counties should be adequate justification for throwing out all the votes in those counties.

They are melting down, and it is ugly to watch.

We also have seen almost nothing of Pence, Barr or Pompeo, or any of the other enablers of Trump. 

It makes me think that either they are hiding to avoid being smeared (too late) or there is something brewing. I have a hard time thinking what it is, though civil unrest on a massive scale remains possible. That would then require the intervention of Federal law enforcement (as in Portland earlier in the year) but with the goal of intimidating states to select Electors that will vote for Trump. I have no idea what it will take. There may even be a simple attempt to stop some states from ending Electors at all, and in doing so, put the election into the House of Representatives.

Too much quiet from the White House is scary at a time like this. I don’t actually think that Trump and his minions are simply watching TV and playing golf. That is not plausible. Hiding from what’s coming is possible, but unlikely.

So what the hell is going on?

A Thanksgiving-Day Coup?

…

If Trump calls on the Pentagon to send troops to a city, any city, will the generals refuse? If he (or his installed and presumably loyal new [acting] Secretary of Defence) issues a completely legal order, then a borderline order, and then an outright illegal order, at what stage will the generals say “no”?

Will there be an attack on Amerika, say a terrorist attack or other false flag attacks that gives Trump his opportunity to do what Giuliani tried to do after 9/11; delay completion of the election process?

Will he start a war on the way out? But how can he use that to seize power? It will need to be a war in which he can, quickly, smear key members of the Biden camp as traitors and lock them up. Who would let him get away with it?

Will he use the Supreme Court to support the rejection of some ballots in Pennsylvania, and use that as an excuse to exclude all ballots in Atlanta or in a state such as Wisconsin? 

I don’t know, but I cannot believe that he is simply sitting there doing nothing.

----------------

Equally, is it possible that he has just “given up”? That he is simply sitting in the White House waiting for the final call that all options have been exhausted. Sitting in the bunker, so to speak. 

He lost the popular vote twice in a row. The first time the distribution of Electors as defined by the Constitution favoured him. This time that same distribution worked against him. He also lost the popular vote by a greater margin this time. He won more votes in total than he did in 2016, but far more people voted, and the votes were against him. 

So is he simply waiting, playing golf, and preparing to go into internal or external exile, picking the safest place to go to avoid extradition, if it comes to that? And preparing himself for a continuation of the Trump Survival Program from before 2016 – stall in the courts, sue anyone who says anything against him, and keep appealing, all the while looking for a deal that will keep him out of jail and keep most of his assets intact. 

Is he right now negotiating deferrals and changes to the loans that he owes? Is he looking at how to kick-start a media empire to crush Fox?

As a president, he has been a complete failure, with his only wins being the provision of tax cuts for the wealthy and destruction of the social and environmental protections that have taken so many years to implement. 

But will he go quietly?

The Washington Post reports: “Sarah Matthews, a White House spokeswoman, said the president is “hard at work fulfilling the promises he made to the American people and building on his unprecedented accomplishments as he works to rebuild our economy, lower drug costs, end the endless foreign wars by bringing our troops home, and deliver on his ambitious goal to have a safe and effective covid-19 vaccine before the end of the year.””

Not only is all of that bullshit, but everyone seems to know that it is bullshit. Each and every one of the claims in that paragraph is false, and he has accomplished none of them, nor will he. Nor could he even if re-elected.

Yet still, his minions continue to lie for him, afraid of the end of their own careers and hopes if they cross him. They are linked to him, and their only hope is for a successor Trumpist to be identified, and for that successor to recognise their ability to be loyal no matter what.

Meanwhile, he is silent, and that still scares me.

The Interregnum

There is so much going on, while at the same time it seems ‘quiet’; the interregnum between the almost-dead but not quite king, and the usurper waiting for the body to be declared cold.

The party of the king knows full well that its time is up, for now. They also do not expect the king to survive exile. So the ‘game’ being played now is to continue to demonstrate ‘loyalty’ to the king so that he does not have a reason to disown any individual. That is happening, to those that he thought were either disloyal or inadequately obsequies.

The sons (and daughter) of the king can be disposed of later, and that is lurking in the minds of those that are positioning themselves to take the mantle. None know how long it will take, but the king is finished. Armies are gathering that will sweep him away, and their own RINOs are deserting the flag in droves. Exile awaits. But where? And how soon? How to manage the process of going into exile without appearing to be routed.

But the king retains a huge following in the peasantry. They will be loyal. As long as you tell them that they are better than the other peasants, they will follow. As long as you protect anyone who kills those that are (God’s own preachers reinforce this) lesser people, then all is good. Those non-white, those educated, those working, those simply not like them but wanting to build better lives; they are the threat. And the under-educated whites will rally to the cause of anyone who will ‘protect’ them. If everyone’s life become marginally better, or even a little worse, as long as it is the others that suffer more, all is good. And if the others progress in any way, then it was not through work, not through education, and not through any effort, they succeeded only because the ‘system’ supported them, smoothed their path, gave to them.

And the peasantry is easy to lead. Just keep reminding them that God loves them alone, and therefore all sins are forgiven. All. That includes the (not-sin) of arming themselves to the teeth to protect the constitution, a document 95% of them have never read, do not understand, and couldn’t really care less about – except that part that says that a black man counts as only 2/3 of a white man.

The other side is gathering, and are simply waiting for the coronation. That will come, but for now, it is important to appear as the king-in-waiting, and not to like another wanna-be princeling. And it is working. The unasked, and unanswered question is what retribution will be visited upon those who stayed loyal to the old king (not that the new king is a young man, so exactly the same games are being played on that side).

Some, like me, hope there will be public beheadings, and that the king’s children will be stripped of everything, loaded into an oxcart, and paraded to the guillotine. They deserve it. That won’t happen of course, because only the mob can actually convict the children. Regicide is one thing, murder of the entire family is Ottoman.

But the incoming king’s party is looking at how much they can extract from the current king’s adherents, and how they can break his party fully.

Of the remaining loyalists, the toadies such as Cruz and Jordan, and the newcomers like Getz, are all continuing their spouting of loyalties, rallying the fodder for one last battle. Lindsey Graham is playing the dog who knows just how hard he will be kicked if he doesn’t play the game, bark in the right direction, and lick his master’s boot. All see it. All are revolted by it. All, that is, except for his own limited power base. He is someone upon whom history will not look favourably, if he is more than a footnote as the demonstration of the pandering sycophant that he is.

Meanwhile, plague ravishes the land, and the king and the king’s men ignore it, blame the opposition. No compassion, no national grieving, no acknowledgement at all. They will pay for that also. A year from now, when there is a national memorial service, I want them excluded. Let them stand in the rain, just as they happily are allowing the virus to rain on their followers. They are evil people.

And that is the core of Amerika today. A land possessed by evil, in the middle of an interregnum in which the evil king is looking for a safe exile from which to plot a return. Meanwhile, his toadies and sycophants manoeuvre to avoid any appearance of being ready to do a deal with the king-in-waiting, and hoping for one more flicker of approbation from the king. They also know that the king, while plotting a return, will die in exile. How to handle that?

Loyalty, of course. Because only one of his minions will be able to claim the mantle of the True-Trumpist. So watch them fight each other, tearing the Trumpist party apart, slandering each other. All but one, of course. Graham will not join the fight. He is not a leader. He has the power of a Hugh Despenser, able while being rogered by the king, to still whisper to the king who should go to the gallows. But he will never be king. He is waiting to see who the king hands the file containing all that he has been blackmailed with. And he will then transfer his loyalty, and his troops, to that person.

The problem is the kingdom. It is still divided between the overthrown king and the new king. And civil war remains highly possible. It would be short-lived. The Army, the real one, is transferring its loyalty to the new king already, or at least preparing to do so smoothly. And the Army will crush anyone silly enough to declare a real rebellion. Peasants do not perform very well against mounted knights. And while too many of the old king’s mob might know how to pull a longbow, not one of them has the discipline to stand up an army that can even begin to match the real one.

The question still remains, however, what will the incoming king’s party do, and how will they undo the damage done to the kingdom.

International relations have been destroyed. No one trusts Amerika any longer. An alliance with them is good for four, maybe six, maybe 50 years. Or maybe only four. Can they be trusted to play their part in the world? That remains to be seen. What has become very clear is that almost half of Amerika truly does not care about anything or anyone outside of Amerika. And their God, speaking through their preachers, tells them that they do not need to care about others.

Amerika will re-join the Paris Climate Accord, but will not have a real seat at the head table. They will be invited to the table, and leaders will look approvingly on the words of the new king or his emissaries. But this time they will wait to see action and money, not words. Amerika’s word is no longer worth the noise its utterance makes.

The real question is how much pain is the new party willing to impose in order to stamp out the Trumpists? Too little I fear. And this will allow the Trumpists to work in the shadows to rebuild, and in two years, they will roar back, emasculating the new king, and plunging Amerika back into a period of a failed government unable to make any real progress.

To actually fix Amerika will require the parking of mercy at the door for a while. QAnon must be hunted down, exposed. There are already murmurs that QAnon is a Russian operation. If so, then that should also be exposed and people brought to court.

The “Proud Boys” and other neo-fascist groups need to be disbanded, and their guns taken from them. Their acts of intimidation should be tried in court for what they are, acts of intimidation. Push them back underground where they belong. Let former membership (and certainly current membership) be a mark that makes them unemployable.

Black Lives Matter. And the police must have their “Qualified Immunity” removed. This can only be done by the central government, and that will require strong action. Unpalatable action. Police must not be allowed to kill black people with impunity. I’ve seen calls for the turning off of a body-cam being a sackable offence. I support that. But that is only the beginning. Don’t “defund” the police, but force them to allocate their funding differently. If the police have taken over as the social workers of last resort, then make them fulfil that role. They are funded certainly.

There is so much to fix, and I fear that Amerika, or the Amerika of the new king’s party, does not have the stomach for what it must do. Mercy can be a weakness, and in Amerika today, I fear that weakness will be turned against the rest.

But we are in the interregnum. There is much yet to do. Positions are begin taken. The old king’s loyalists are playing survival games. They all know that their game now is to survive exile and either take the mantle from the dying hands of Trump (fuck his family, they will be crucified and used as martyrs for the newly anointed) or to identify who will seize the mantle and demonstrate alliance to that new Trumpist.

It is going to be much less messy than it could be, or that it should be.

 

Traitors to Two Countries

Living in Greece, and being connected to a number of Greek/Americans, I am becoming more and more frustrated that there are Greek/Americans who actually support Donald Trump. That there are many Greeks who support DT should not be a surprise; Greeks love strong heroes, and too many Greeks did support the Junta (though they would never admit it today).

Greek/Americans who vote for Trump are traitors to two countries. To Greece they are traitors selling their souls to a man who has made no secret that he supports Turkey, does not care that the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is now a mosque, and has admitted that he takes calls from Erdogan weekly. They are traitors to their other country, the US, by supporting a traitor in the White House, who has engaged in High Crimes and Misdemeanours, who attempts on a weekly basis to implement policies that are anti-Constitutional, and who is actively setting Amerikan against American with no regard for the impact this is having on the country or its citizens. A President who has said that he should be allowed a third term, in direct violation of the Constitution.

By their support for Trump, they accept and support turning the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. They support Turkish jets violating Greek airspace multiple times per week.

They support the very people who suppressed and excluded their own Greek ancestors in their early years in Amerika. They soil the memory of Greeks who worked so hard to become Amerikans, supporters of the Constitution and the greatness that Amerika already was.

They are traitors to their families, saying that they support a man who would happily grab their daughters by the pussy, kiss them whether they like it or not. These supporters of Trump are in effect offering up their own daughters to be raped by the man they adore. Shame.

A country and a people for whom family is so important are being betrayed by people who would sell their families, sell their country, sell or give away their daughters. And for what? A RED hat.

If you are a Greek/American and you vote for Trump, you are neither. You are no longer Greek. You are no longer American. And you will be dead to your children and grandchildren. What did παππούς do in the “Time of Trump” will be asked, and everyone will pretend they do not remember that you helped make that time. What did γιαγιά do in the “Time of Trump”? Well, she prepared her daughters and granddaughters to be raped on the altar of Trump.

So on Election Day, go to the polls. Take your ballot. Go into the booth.

When you are in there, remember how the Junta let your παππούς and your γιαγιά vote; by giving them a red card and a green card. Green to support the Junta, and Red to reject them. Put your vote in the ballot box, and drop the other one onto the floor. And heaven help you if you drop the wrong card onto the floor.

Remember that this time, you don’t have to drop the card, you can simply soil your ballot. You don’t have to brave, but you can uphold your honor and dignity. You can just – not – vote.

But if you do vote for Trump, then have the decency to step out and say that you did (if he wins or loses) and say that you are proud to have betrayed both of your countries.

Not everyone should be an Internal Auditor

Sometimes Internal Auditors shouldn’t be Internal Auditors. Sometimes the role can be, no matter how much effort is expended to avoid this, confrontational or with the potential for conflict with the auditee (and others). This is particularly the case when there are strong personalities on the ‘other side’ of the audit process. I ran into exactly such a situation, as I’m sure have most of us. Remember, however, that just because someone is not appropriate for Internal Audit that does not mean that they may not have a lot to contribute to the business.

A number of years ago, I was engaged by a bank to perform a number of IT Audits. The bank had a full Internal Audit function but only three IT Auditors. The audit programme, however, included too many audits to be completed by the team that was available (for various reasons, only one of which was to too much work for the available resources).

After cutting my teeth on a couple of simple reviews, the Audit Director asked me to take a look at the implementation and use of the Project Management Methodology in a couple of the major projects that were in-flight at the time. These were significant projects, being run by and for different parts of the bank. Each had external project managers, and each seemed to be running to time, budget and promised deliverables. There were no particular reasons to worry about the projects.

Enter Bob (not his real name), a somewhat meek Internal Auditor, who chanced into IT Audit from a role as a bank branch auditor. I had worked with Bob before at another institution, and knew some of his strengths and weaknesses.  The Internal Audit Director said to me “I’d like Bob to work with you on this audit”. Really? Well, okay. “It will be good for him. He’ll learn something, and hopefully will become a better auditor.” He saw the horror in my face.

“I really need you to do this, but let me know how it goes”.

So the audit began. Each project provided all the requested information, and both were open allowing interviews with key project personnel and the projection managers. The project sponsors were comfortable the progress, and the user communities were looking forward to the new systems and processes, even though these were months away.

The projects were running smoothly, and the audit did not find any unreasonable budget to actual variations, or undue and unexpected slippages in estimated deliver dates, resource requirements, etc. Risks were documented (inadequately, but there was some consideration of risks). Of course, the primary purpose was to confirm the implementation and use of the corporate-mandated project management methodology.

While everything is going smoothly, a finding that process is not being followed can be a difficult finding to make and defend, especially when the processes will add effort and probably increase the resources and costs required to accomplish the project or set of tasks.

Add to that the personality trait of many good project managers – a straightforward manner and an air of confidence that can be used to ‘encourage’ focus on goals. They are confident, and they exude confidence, and that is one of the ways that they provide comfort to stakeholders, encourage teams, and deflect or reduce potential conflict or disagreement. This sometimes can manifest itself as arrogance and bullying.

And we faced two of these individuals. They had the backing of their respective General Managers, they were confident, they were delivering, and they really didn’t need Internal Audit second-guessing how they were going about achieving their missions.

I sent Bob to carry out some interviews, collect documentation, read it and summarise his thoughts. We talked through what he was seeing. We combined our work and work papers, and we arrived at our conclusions. We wrote up the draft report, and prepared for the exit-interviews with the two Project Managers. 

As the fieldwork progressed, Bob became more and more agitated, and at times seemed distracted. Finally, with the fieldwork completed and the draft report ready, we scheduled the exit interviews. Twice.

Then a third time, with each of the other two being cancelled and rescheduled.

Finally, the day arrived. I arrived in Internal Audit, and seeing Bob, said “Fantastic, today is the day. They’ve not cancelled or postponed. We’re ready.”

I looked closely at Bob. “Are you alright? You look tired.”

“I haven’t slept all week, I’ve been so worried about this meeting” was his response. Worried? Why? All our ducks were in a row, all the documentation was completed, the draft report was written, the findings reviewed, and the key points ready. All that was needed now was a conversation with the PMs, and to give them an opportunity to take the draft back with them and write up their comments, responses and action plans.

Focusing on the coming meeting, I put his comment away in the back of my mind, something for later.

We had our exit meeting. We outlined the audit, the fieldwork performed and the data and information reviewed. We presented our findings. The PMs read the Executive Summary, looked at each other, and after a few questions said “You’re right, we use our own methodologies. They are not the corporate-approved methodology. We will talk to our teams about how we will implement and use the standard methodology. We will need to train our people, and we might need some training also.”

Done. 

Yes. It was that ‘easy’. The data was there, the documentation was there, and we did not attack their methodologies or pick holes in what they were doing. We were not auditing the effectiveness of their personal leadership, and we were not questioning the performance of the projects (although we did look at status reporting, steering committee reporting, budgets to actuals, etc). We had a specific scope and we audited to that scope, cognisant that other issues may come up.

What I didn’t expect was that the primary finding of serious concern was that one of the auditors was not able to perform the audit. Having worked with Bob in the past, it all came together then. He simply was not capable of assertive support of any position. His default in any potential conflict was not to address the issue, but to seek someone who could deal with it on his behalf.

When all was done and the report was issued, I stopped by the Audit Directors office. I told him what had happened, and said I was deeply worried about Bob, his mental state and his fitness to be and Internal Auditor. Furthermore, there was the very real potential that Bob would bring Internal Audit into ‘disrepute’ within the bank by not being adequately assertive or able, when pushed, to deal with highly assertive individuals. In the worst case, such an auditor might miss a critical control and technical issue, or fail to push for acceptance and resolution of a critical weakness, potentially endangering the bank itself. The IA Director knew we had worked together in the past, in fact, all three of us has been at another bank at the same time in the past. He “inherited” Bob when we took over IA in this bank. He knew what he had, but there was little he could do directly.

We talked, and eventually, I said “You have to get him out of Internal Audit. He will have a nervous breakdown, or worse. This is not the right job for him.” The IA Director agreed and asked for my suggestion. My view was that Bob had a solid knowledge of retail banking, adequate IT knowledge, and understood both the bank and the banking sector. Firing him would only compound Bob’s issues and would be wasting an otherwise perfectly decent person and skill-set. “Find him another job in the bank. For you and for him”.

Checking in with the IA Director a couple of years later, I asked what was the final outcome with Bob. The news was all good. Bob was encouraged to apply for, and was appointed to, a role in the Retail Product Development team, and was to all reports thriving. Conflict was not an issue, because he was supporting product developers who were, by nature, positive and had the support of the executives. His knowledge of the bank and banking products served him well.

Most of all, a ‘wrong fit’ was rectified, and IA was seen as a potential source of good quality people for the business, and not tarnished as the home of people who were not able to provide the challenge actually needed in healthy organisations.

What are the attributes of a good Internal Auditor? There is a long list. Near the top of any list must be confidence in the correctness of the principles that the auditor is espousing; of effective control, process effectiveness, risk identification and assessment, and confirmation by the auditee of the findings and potential impact. Meekness is not a desirable attribute.

  

Be warned: Next to a battle lost, the saddest thing is a battle won

Be warned, the only thing worse for the United States in the short term than a Trump victory will be a resounding Trump defeat. After Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington was quoted as saying “Next to a battle lost, the saddest thing is a battle won.”

So Trump has declared that negotiations for a second Covid-19 stimulus package are over until he “wins the election”.  This should not be confused for anything other than what it is; the beginning of the Scorched Earth policy that will be implemented to the fullest if/when Trump loses the election.

Defeat is looming, and he knows it. He feels the rejection of the people, who are supposed to love him and all he has done for them. He knows that he will face accusations in multiple courts if he loses, and that the Republican Party will turn on him when he no longer has adequate leverage over individual senators and congressmen. He fears jail, he fears impoverishment. But mostly he fears exposure. That is why he was happy to pay $130,000 to a porn star to keep a fleeting affair secret. That is why he has stopped every attempt at the exposure of his tax records. He fears exposure and the destruction of the myth of the all-wonderful and all-powerful Trump.

And most of all he fears rejection.

And losing the vote will be the ultimate rejection. And they will pay for that rejection. Since he proved that he was quite capable of imposing horrible retribution on his closest family (his brother), no one should be in any doubt that he will impose even greater retribution on the entire country that rejects him.  On the morning of April 22, 1945, Hitler is supposed to have said "Everyone has lied to me, everyone has deceived me… the SS has left me in the lurch. The German people have not fought heroically. It deserves to perish… it is not I who have lost the war, but the German people."

I expect that exactly the same delusional thinking is going through Trump’s head right now, and that he will take as much of the United States with him when he goes. 

Halting the negotiations on a stimulus package may seem like just another negotiating tactic; it is not. This is his announcement that there are two choices; Trump, or destruction of Amerika. And he will carry through on that threat.

First, he will attempt to invalidate the election process (ongoing), then he will attempt to invalidate the election results (see the Atlantic and others), and finally, he will take down the country and leave a smouldering ruin for his successor.

So what does Scorched Earth look like between November and January?

The following is speculation of course, but I would not be surprised to see some or all of the following, but not in this or in any particular order.

1. Complete withdrawal from all negotiations with Democrats on any topics.
2. Refusal to allow any administration officials to participate in any transition meetings or planning.
3. All bills will be vetoed, regardless of content, either by a direct and explicit veto or by letting them sit on his desk long enough to the automatic veto to occur.
4. He will fire the head of the CDC and the FDA, for failing to bring a vaccine to market early enough to save him.
5. Ordering the immediate withdrawal of all American troops from any foreign bases and a “Home by Christmas” order.
6. Firing any and all generals who refuse, or who are seen as dragging their feet. Quite possibly firing hundreds of generals and senior officers as it becomes clear that the orders will not be fully implemented.
7. Notice to withdraw from NATO.
8. Executive Orders banning all Asians, Muslims and others from entering the United States (even though these will fail in the courts, the objective will be punishment, not implementation).
9. Cutting off all federal funds for all “Blue” cities immediately.
10. Closing all federal offices in “Blue” cities, except for “police” who will be tasked with…
11. …imposing close to martial law on “Blue” cities, including federalising the National Guard and putting them on the streets.
12. Fire much of the cabinet, with the objective of further slowing and collapsing the economy, and in retribution for a lack of adequate outward adulation.
13. Imposing immediate 100% tariffs on all imports, regardless of source (why? To destroy the stock market and economy, leaving a ruin for the new administration).
14. Firing hundreds if not thousands of federal civil servants who are identified as disloyal, either by having been accused of not being adequately compliant, or who are actively attempting to enact a peaceful transfer.
15. A war somewhere? A unilateral strike on China in the South China Sea? The only thing we can be certain of is that there will be no war with any country in which Trump has business interests, because
16. The flow of Presidential Pardons will be fast and furious, focusing first on his family, then on those who directly support his businesses. He will assert an ability to pardon for state crimes, though these pardons will fail in lower courts in 2021.
17. The only pardon he will hold back until the 20th of January will be Melania’s pardon, to make sure that she does not abandon him (which will happen in early February).

The list goes on. If it is possible, it will be on his list. He will not care about the economy, after all, the country rejected him, and especially New York and the markets will have rejected him, and that will make it personal. 

He has been compared with Hitler too often, and in most ways the comparison is completely wrong. He never served, and never held his Volk, his People, or his Nation to be anything greater than himself. He has never had a higher cause, and while Hitler may well be the very image of evil, Hitler did have a cause, however much the cause and the man were conjoined.

Trump is Trump, alone and only. And those that have sold their soul to Trump will find the bill coming due. Will they revert and put “Country first”, or will they believe that by staying loyal they will be able to seize the reins of the Trumpist “movement” and somehow command the loyalty of the Trumpist cult? Some certainly will take that route, and they will, perhaps, survive the culling that he will make even of those closest to him. 

Will those still around him be willing to stand up to him in those last days? I very much doubt it.

There will be senators who will have lost their seats and will be looking for some redemption in the history books. They might, but only might stand up to him. That of course will make things even worse, as they will only have proven themselves to be treasonous and disloyal. 

However this ends, it does not look good from here. There will be years of rebuilding ahead. The economy will be a shambles, and the incoming government will spend its first two years getting that back on course, all the while fighting against the Trumpist "Dead-enders".

The myth of the "Stab in the Back" will persist for years, and will be stoked by those who want to claim his mantle. 

Responding to "how do we get back to normal?"

Some days ago a message was sent to a group I'm in. "John" said to me after that he forwarded the message when another member of the group had insisted that he send the message. The message's first three lines were worth considering

Please just take politics out of it and read this with an open mind using common sense. Anyone out there who can tell me what our end game is with the covid 19? What is the magic formula that is going to allow us to sound the all-clear?

The person insisting that the message be forwarded is a Trumpist, and the entire tone of the message was confrontational. The message then had a long list of questions and statements that felt like it was leaning to a political position, i.e. stop trying to lock down, open up the economy, there is little else we can do about this. The message ends with the following two statements:

I'm struggling to see where or how this ends.
We either get busy living or we get busy dying.

So without repeating the entire turgid message, I'll provide only my response (with very modest edits to clean up grammatical errors, etc):

------------------

Okay John, no politics (I promise).

I consider the entire gist of this comment to be summed up in the first three sentences, and really the question is “how do we get back to ‘normal’, whatever that was or will be?”

The problem with this virus is that it is not yet fully established in the human population, and the more we know about it, the more potentially disturbing it is. Therefore, we are “waiting” for three things to happen, and we are taking, collectively and individually, various steps to reduce the impact until one or all of those things have been achieved/happen.

The three things that we are waiting for are:

1. An effective vaccine. Yes, I will be one of the people who will happily take the vaccine. I’ve been taking them my entire life, and for much of my youth, they were not optional. Cholera shots twice a year in some countries (antibodies do only last so long), Gamagobulin in some countries. Tetanus. And of course the standard ones. There was a time when approaching check-in for an international flight you had to provide a ticket, a passport, and a vaccination record. Those days will come back. We do not need to do that now because, until Covid-1, we were living in a magical time after most major illnesses had been ‘conquered’ and a new one had not yet arrived.

2. We have developed effective therapeutic responses that render the virus as dangerous as the common cold. We are not there yet, though treatment protocols are improving – thus we are seeing fewer critical cases. 

3. The third thing we are waiting for is for the virus to mutate into a host-bothering virus and not a host-killing virus. This is natural and will happen with Covid-19 also. But we do not know how long this will take (probably only a year or two, as the more virulent strain kills too many hosts, and vaccination pushes it to the outer fringes).

So those of us not actively involved in vaccine development are basically playing a waiting game. And in that time, some of us are trying to limit the risk of either infecting others or becoming infected. 

We now know that up to 25%+ of people who contract the virus will have longer-term negative impacts, and those will be a huge drain on the sufferers, their families, and society as a whole. So a combination of the initial unknowns of mortality coupled with the now-known longer-term impacts suggests that until 1 and/or 2 and/or 3 above are achieved, it is prudent to do all we can to limit the spread of the virus. That is impossible without completely closing a country, as New Zealand did, and bought themselves 100+ new case-free days (all as part of holding out until 1, 2, and/or 3 above is achieved).

Here in Greece the decision has been made to accept a certain number of cases (I have no idea what the number would be) in exchange for salvaging some of the tourist season. That has worked, a little. Yet even opening the country has not rescued the tourist season, but has, hopefully, reduced a little the damage. There will be spikes, as we are seeing Halkidiki with additional restrictions at this moment.

The recent flights from Zante carrying Covid-19 infected people back to the UK have tarnished Greece's well-earned image as a safe place to holiday. Meanwhile, Greek infection rates are higher now than during the 'first wave' in March and April 2020.

How long will it take to reach 1, 2, and/or 3? I don’t know, but there is a huge amount of progress being made on number 1, and there will probably be stage-4 successful vaccines ready by the end of the year. Greece has ordered 3 million doses, with the first to arrive in December (provided stage-4 trials are successful).

So with a vaccine, and with better treatment options, I think next year will be a “good year” (relatively speaking of course). I hope number 3 happens through the coming year also.