Freedom

Freedom! '90

WARNING-7 minute video

George Michael

I won't let you down
I will not give you up
Gotta have some faith in the sound
It's the one good thing that I've got
I won't let you down
So please don't give me up
'Cause I would really, really love to stick around, oh yeah

Heaven knows I was just a young boy
Didn't know what I wanted to be (Didn't know what I wanted to be)
I was every little hungry schoolgirl's pride and joy
And I guess it was enough for me (said I guess it was enough for me)
To win the race? A prettier face!
Brand new clothes and a big fat place
On your rock and roll T.V.
But today the way I play the game is not the same, no way
Think I'm gonna get myself happy

I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I told you so
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone else I've got to be
Take back your picture in a frame
Take back your singing in the rain
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes do not make the man

All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see
Is that I don't belong to you
And you don't belong to me yeah yeah

Freedom! (I won't let you down)
Freedom! (I will not give you up)
Freedom! (Have some faith in the sound)
You've gotta give for what you take (It's the one good thing that I've got)
Freedom! (I won't let you down)
Freedom! (So please don't give me up)
Freedom! ('Cause I would really, really love to stick around)
You've gotta give for what you take

Heaven knows we sure had some fun, boy
What a kick just a buddy and me (what a kick just a buddy and me)
We had every big-shot good time band on the run, boy
We were living in a fantasy (we were living in a fantasy)
We won the race, got out of the place
I went back home, got a brand new face
For the boys on MTV
But today the way I play the game has got to change, oh yeah
Now I'm gonna get myself happy

I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I stopped the show
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone I forgot to be
Take back your picture in a frame
Don't think that I'll be back again
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes do not make the man

All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see
Is that I don't belong to you
And you don't belong to me, yeah yeah

Freedom! (I won't let you down)
Freedom! (I will not give you up)
Freedom! (Have some faith in the sound)
You've gotta give for what you take (It's the one good thing that I've got)
Freedom! (I won't let you down)
Freedom! (So please don't give me up)
Freedom! ('Cause I would really, really love to stick around)
You've gotta give for what you take

Well it looks like the road to heaven
But it feels like the road to hell
When I knew which side my bread was buttered
I took the knife as well
Posing for another picture
Everybody's got to sell
But when you shake your ass
They notice fast
And some mistakes were build to last

That's what you get (That's what you get)
That's what you get (I say that's what you get)
That's what you get (for changing your mind)
That's what you get for changing your mind

That's what you get
That's what you get (And after all this time)
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes do not make me, oh yeah

All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see
Is that I don't belong to you
And you don't belong to me, yeah yeah

Freedom!
Freedom! (oh freedom)
Freedom! (my freedom)
You've gotta give for what you take
Freedom! (hold on to my freedom)
Freedom!
Freedom! (my freedom)
You've gotta give for what you take
Give for what you, give for what you take yeah
Yeah, you've got to give for what you, give for what you, give

May not be what you want from me
Just the way it's got to be
Lose the face now
I've got to live, I've got to live, I've got to live

I hope you all “enjoyed” my last two posts which were conspicuous by the lack of statistics, news etc.

Of course given my obsessions such posts could only last so long.  I hope at least a few of you have the fortitude to read this post to the end and of course I would expect at least a few of you to weigh in with your own critique.

First a small shameless plug about recent “discovery” by the media and the “experts” on the virus timeline. 

From my blog post of March 24^th:

“Now one thing seems very clear to me.  Gosh, this pandemic was likely well established in NY in early January, just based on my read of travel out of China worldwide that day alone.  While arguing and focusing on impeachment at that time our country was missing the greatest pandemic since 1918 entering our country. By the way not sure we will ever "know" for sure about my sister and her husband's infection, but my hunch is they were in fact early victims.”

First this:

From WSJ 5/5/2020

“” Coronavirus Timeline Is Upended as France Discovers December Case Finding suggests Covid-19 was spreading much earlier in Europe than previously believed.”

PARIS—French doctors have discovered a case of the new coronavirus dating from late December in a man who was hospitalized near Paris, the earliest publicly identified Covid-19 infection outside China.

The case, in a man with no history of travel to China, changes the timeline of the pandemic, suggesting that the virus was spreading in Europe at least weeks earlier than previously believed and more than a month before Italy’s outbreak. The finding is a crucial step in a global medical investigation that is scrutinizing how the virus originated in China and then spread to the West, infecting more than 3.6 million people and killing at least 252,000.

And this from Today’s Miami Herald:

Months before Florida leaders had any clue, coronavirus was creeping through the state

It was March 1 when Florida announced its first two cases of the novel coronavirus, a 29-year-old Hillsborough County woman who had traveled to Italy and a 63-year-old Manatee County man. But buried in data recently published by the Florida health department is an intriguing revelation: The spread of COVID-19 in Florida likely began in January, if not earlier.

State health officials have documented at least 170 COVID-19 patients reporting symptoms between Dec. 31, 2019, and February 29, according to a Miami Herald analysis of state health data. Of them, 40 percent had no apparent contact with someone else with the virus. The majority had not traveled.

Of course, I will leave readers to decide if my own thinking was “ahead” of the experts thinking, but I would add that one of the players in my sister’s ventilator episode has gotten a test in NY to see if he already had the virus….will keep you posted when results arrive.

Ok now to the meat of this weeks post. 

This week the big Coronavirus news was the latest “models” were predicating more death and misery with perhaps 200,000 deaths by August 1^st.  Of course, the news was filled with dread mainly because it was attributed to states relaxing social distancing “rules”.  As Phil Gocke has repeatedly stated “if it bleeds it leads”.

 

Click to copy

US infection rate rising outside New York as states open up

By NICKY FORSTER, CARLA K. JOHNSON and MIKE STOBBE yesterday

Take the New York metropolitan area’s progress against the coronavirus out of the equation and the numbers show the rest of the U.S. is moving in the wrong direction, with the known infection rate rising even as states move to lift their lockdowns, an Associated Press analysis found Tuesday.

New confirmed infections per day in the U.S. exceed 20,000, and deaths per day are well over 1,000, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. And public health officials warn that the failure to flatten the curve and drive down the infection rate in places could lead to many more deaths — perhaps tens of thousands — as people are allowed to venture out and businesses reopen.

“Make no mistakes: This virus is still circulating in our community, perhaps even more now than in previous weeks” said Linda Ochs, director of the Health Department in Shawnee County, Kansas.

Now I have no doubt that “opening up” our economy will result in increased transmission of the virus.  That is true whether we open now or in August, or September or later.  Why, well because the public cannot be expected to continue to self-quarantine “indefinitely”.  It will happen despite the “experts’ admonitions.  When the experts say we need to do this for 15 days, then 30 then 45 so we can flatten the curve (note flatten was to spread out infections, not STOP deaths) they cannot reasonably expect people to continue to accept moving goalposts.  But for some reason the press in general continues to push that narrative.  Good luck with that.

Observation 1.

Humans are social animals.  Regardless of your feelings about how we managed this pandemic it is simply impossible to expect humans to be isolated from each other for awfully long.  In addition, we cannot shut down forever without people seeking their “normal lives”.

OK moving on I took my own “ad hoc” look at how we in the US have managed this Pandemic response versus our past experiences with recent Pandemics.

I mulled this over and did a little of my own “research” on two large Pandemics that occurred during our own blog followers lifetimes (well those over say 60 anyway).  Here goes:

The first was that “Asian Flue” (which still runs around and infects and kills people, although we have large scale immunity and vaccines.  No fake news accepted).

Let’s look at two widespread pandemics one in 1957 the other 1968.

From Wikipedia:

1.    The strain of virus that caused the pandemic, influenza A virus subtype H2N2, was a recombination of avian influenza (probably from geese) and human influenza viruses.^[1][2] As it was a novel strain of the virus, there was minimal immunity in the population.^[1][3]

2.    The first cases were reported in Guizhou in late 1956^[1] or February 1957,^[4][5][6] and were reported in the neighboring province of Yunnan before the end of February.^[7] On 17 April, The Times reported that "an influenza epidemic has affected thousands of Hong Kong residents".^[3] The same month, Singapore also experienced an outbreak of the new flu.^[8] In Taiwan, 100,000 were affected by mid-May and India suffered a million cases by June. In late June, the pandemic reached the United Kingdom.^[3]

3.    By June 1957 it reached the United States, where it initially caused few infections.^[2] Some of the first affected were United States Navy personnel at destroyers docked at Newport Naval Station, as well as new military recruits elsewhere.^[9] The first wave peaked in October (among children who returned to school) and the second wave, in January and February 1958 among elderly people, which was more fatal.^[2][10] Microbiologist Maurice Hilleman was alarmed by pictures of those affected by the virus in Hong Kong published in The New York Times. He obtained samples of the virus from a United States Navy doctor in Japan. The Public Health Service released the virus cultures to vaccine manufacturers on 12 May 1957, and a vaccine entered trials at Fort Ord on 26 July and Lowry Air Force Base on 29 July.^[9] The number of deaths peaked the week ending 17 October with 600 reported in England and Wales. The vaccine was available in the same month in the United Kingdom.^[3] Although it was only available initially in limited quantities,^[10][3] its rapid deployment helped contain the pandemic.^[2]

4.    H2N2 influenza virus continued to circulate until 1968, when it transformed via antigenic shift into influenza A virus subtype H3N2, the cause of the 1968 influenza pandemic.^[2][11]

5.    Mortality estimates[edit]

6.    Excess mortality in Chile, 1953–1959. Flu seasons highlighted in gray. Note black spikes in the mortality rate.

7.    The case fatality rate of Asian flu was approximately 0.67%.^[12] The disease was estimated to have a 3% rate of complications and 0.3% mortality in the United Kingdom;^[3] it could cause pneumonia by itself, without the presence of secondary bacterial infection. It may have infected as many or more people than the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, but the vaccine, improved health care, and the invention of antibiotics contributed to a lower mortality rate.^[1] Overall, the pandemic caused 1 to 2 million deaths worldwide^[2] or 2 to 4 million.^[1] The CDC estimates 1.1 million deaths worldwide.^[13] According to a study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, the highest excess mortality occurred in Latin America.^[14] About 70,000^[1][11] to 116,000 people died in the United States.^[15] In early 1958, it was estimated that 14,000 people had already died of the flu in the United Kingdom of the 9 million who became sick.^[3] It caused many infections in children, spreading in schools and leading to many school closures, but was rarely fatal in children. The virus was most deadly in pregnant women, the elderly, and those with pre-existing heart and lung disease.^[1] According to research by Barbara Sands, some of the excess mortality attributed to the Great Leap Forward in Maoist China may have actually been caused by the 1957 flu.^[16]

8.    Economic effects[edit]

9.    The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 15% of its value in the second half of 1957.^[15] In the United Kingdom, the government paid out £10 000 000 in sickness benefit and some factories and mines had to close.^[3] Many schools had to close in Ireland, including 17 in Dublin.^[17]

Ok what happened in 1957 had lots of similarities as far as pandemic origins, world-wide spread etc.  Since it was not a “Coronavirus” it seemed a little easier (I guess) to create a vaccine.  But Jim, you might say, 200,000 dead if it happens as now “predicted” is one hell of a lot more than the 70,000 to 116,000 estimated in this pandemic.  Well, not really:

Population of US in 1957 was 177,751,476

Mortality at 70,000 Death

= 1 Death every 2,539 People

Mortality at 116,000 =

1 Death every 1,533 People

Now today's Corona virus:

Population of US in 328,200,000 today

Deaths as of today 72,000

Mortality = 1 death for every 4,558 people.

So let's place same mortality number's from the past and project against today's population.

Deaths at 1 death for every 2,539 vs today's population = 129,264

Deaths at on death for every 4,558 today=214,090

One other note, the average age in 1957 in the US was about 30. It is now 38.5.  With the coronavirus killing seniors at a high rate, it is likely mortality for everyone else in this pandemic is much better than 1957.

In other words the dead and dying today is not really much different than 1957 when adjusted for population.

I have a question for readers.

What did the Government do to the general population in 1957? Well GDP did drop by 15% per Wikipedia, but I do not recall (at the tender age of 5), no kindergarten, for sure Dad's  still worked, I played outside in Philly. We as a country obviously didn’t lock down, panic or tell people not to go to stores etc.  If any of my readers can call me out based on their memories…please do so.  I really want to know.

So maybe I was in a kindergarten fog in 1957, let’s move on to my Junior Year in High School:

Once again from Wikipedia:

The Hong Kong flu (also known as 1968 flu pandemic^[1]) was a flu pandemic whose outbreak in 1968 and 1969 killed an estimated one million people all over the world.^[2][3][4] It was caused by an H3N2 strain of the influenza A virus, descended from H2N2 through antigenic shift, a genetic process in which genes from multiple subtypes reassorted to form a new virus.

The CDC estimated 100,000 people died in the U.S.^[12] However, fewer people died during this pandemic than in previous pandemics for various reasons:^[13]

Mostly because some immunity against the N2 flu virus may have been retained in populations struck by the Asian Flu strains which had been circulating since 1957;

1.  the pandemic did not gain momentum until near the winter school holidays, thus limiting the infection spreading;

2.  improved medical care gave vital support to the very ill;

3.    the availability of antibiotics that were more effective against Pneumonia Complications.

US Population in 1968 200,700,000

Deaths Rate = 1 death for every 2,007 people

 Equivalent Death Rate to today’s US Population  =163,527 deaths

(The average age was still much younger than today.)

Once again it appears the death rate today, based on population size is not that much different than 1968.

Now 1968 was Vietnam etc.  That got headlines, probably not so much the flu. Perhaps Lyndon Johnson should have banned public protests of say over 10 people, maybe then he would have run and beaten Nixon.  HMMM?

Instead In 1968 I went to church and school, played football and track at Frankford High.  I do not recall anything except happy high school days.  No quarantine’s etc.  Did I miss out on something? 

So once again readers maybe I was I too busy having a “normal” life in 1968 to realize people were dying in “mass” numbers similar to today’s rates.

If I am wrong, I sure as heck really want to hear from any of my contemporaries what they did in 1968  to socially isolate to help “bend the curve”.

 How about it readers?

Oh but Jim, this would be much worse if we did not do mass quarantines.  Well the experts said we needed to bend the curve to spread death out.  Perhaps, all true but haven't we now done that?. Now suddenly we want to stop more deaths ....in total not just spread them out. The goal posts, listening to the media should change.  But for "how long"?  My guess it's driven by a new way society looks at this Pandemic.  What gives?

I have lots of theories, but let me throw out some one liners as my personal observations:

.

 1. Today we expect the Government to prevent death, particularly us “Boomers”.  I think back to my blog on spending and Medicare.  We have as a generation of boomer’s felt free to have our progeny “pay” for our longer lives.  Just as we expect them to give up employment and normal lives to prevent our “premature” death today.  Of course ultimately, no matter what the grim reaper will call us all home.

B.    We, as a society, of all ages now believe that governments number one job is not necessarily protecting our freedom, our right to assemble, or go to church, or to pursue our dreams.  It is to Keep us safe-at any cost.

C.    The news media feeds us news pieces7/24 and as Phil says “if it bleeds it leads” by constantly demanding to know what our Governor, President or the experts have you done to stop this?  Never mind at what cost our social lives, our pocketbook or even our right to lead our own live as we see fit.  Now our lives are subordinate to the good of society as a whole.  A not to subtle shift in social and political thought. The media in turn drives that narrative.

D.    We in general have come to believe we and our government are in control, and that we can control everything.  Fate, God’s, will and just bad stuff happens has no placed in our lexicon. If people die somehow the government must prevent it.

When did this all happen?  Well over the years many of our citizens have come to accept that is the society should all want.  It is the reality and I suppose I too have willingly accepted most of this reality.  I wonder now, when and why?

For yes I too wear my mask at the supermarket, and I have socially distanced the last two months as required by my Governor. So be it.

 But at least today I think…I’ll be damned if I will not see my Grandson on his birthday this Saturday. Yes, I will do this despite my Governor’s demand that under our new social distancing I am supposed to stay within 10 miles of home under our new “loosened” rules.  Yea right Gov…..make me.

After all I have only so many birthdays to celebrate with him in the limited time I have left!  I am only human after all.  I too, like George Micheal crave some "Freedom"

With that I bid you all

Adieu