Another day of enforced inaction on our daughter’s birthday. A beautiful Illawarra Autumn day. A day when a beach romp with your dog is a highlight. A day that comes with knitted-brow warnings to be patient and careful, hosing down prospects of restrictions being gradually lifted. Despite the cash intervention of the Job-keeper initiative, we are told it is likely that the jobless rate will escalate from 5.1% to 10%.
So, the little histograms on the right hand side are getting shorter. Only 41 new cases today (though fewer tests may account for some of this) for 6,400 cases nation-wide and the death toll still at 61. NSW has only 7 new cases for a total of 2,870 and remaining at 26 deaths. The big band sounds of febrile amplitude have given way to light strings. But beware the revival.
If norms in the new post-virus world are up for grabs then we all need to claim our agency as citizens to insist on a say in its design. We are in desperate need of some diverse, intelligent alternative voices and to not accept the spin served us. The vacuous POTUS today reviewed the early response to the pandemic and re-wrote history to serve his interests, manufacturing a little fake news along the way.
As far back as March 13 Peter Wehner wrote of Trump that his “misinformation and mendacity about the coronavirus are head-snapping… this is a massive failure in leadership that stems from a massive defect in character.” (Ideas. The Trump Presidency is Over.) He went on to describe the bill of goods Americans have bought:
“Trump is such a habitual liar that he is incapable of being honest, even when being honest would serve his interests. He is so impulsive, shortsighted, and undisciplined that he is unable to plan or even think beyond the moment. He is such a divisive and polarizing figure that he long ago lost the ability to unite the nation under any circumstances and for any cause. And he is so narcissistic and unreflective that he is completely incapable of learning from his mistakes. The president’s disordered personality makes him ill-equipped to deal with a crisis as any president has ever been.”
Over 23,000 dead in the US so far. World deaths stand at 119,686.
Awesomely Astute 