The interconnectivity of politics and the pandemic – Trump cowed by the all-powerful Twitter –Lawsuits pending in the aftermath of the siege – State of emergency in Tokyo – North Korea requests vaccine doses – The course of the virus in Germany, South Africa, and Zimbabwe –Variation in infection and mortality rates in individual states – Evening statistics
Considering that this journal is being written with the intention of recording the effects of the COVID virus on day-to-day activities and on social life generally, I’ve been focusing a great deal on political events of late. But that is unavoidable. Our current administration has politicized the national response to the pandemic to such a degree that it is thoroughly intertwined with political concerns and it is now impossible to disentangle the two. For many months whatever President Trump said or did had long-term effects on the health of society at large; the events of the past week have shown that they have the power to jeopardize our personal safety as well.
It appears, however, that Donald Trump is now relatively subdued as a result of the angry response that is occurring all over the country to the siege of the Capitol. In a pre-recorded video he acknowledged that he will not serve a second term and pledged to make a smooth transition to Biden’s administration. He also uttered a few phrases of faint disparagement of the rioters, in the manner of a bad actor performing in an indifferently written play, very different from the heartfelt fervor of an earlier video (since deleted) in which he assured them of his fondest love. It would appear that he has had – not the fear of God put into him – but the fear of Twitter; which is his spiritual equivalent.
Yes, Twitter has accomplished what I had thought to be unachievable by mortal man: it has managed to dent the overweening self-confidence of Donald Trump, which I had regarded up to this point as an impenetrable carapace. It forbade him from making tweets for a day. It has since relented, allowing him to post a statement yesterday (the patently insincere video mentioned above) but afterwards suspending his account for life. Facebook and Instagram have also blocked his accounts for an indefinite period that will extend to at least until the 20th. These, however, are less important to him; it is Twitter that is dear to his heart, and being deprived of the ability to shower the networks with meretricious lies for a bare 24 hours appears, for the time being at least, to have broken his spirit.
To be fair, he has more substantive difficulties to contend with as well. The Attorney General for the District of Columbia has indicated that he may be charged with his role in inciting the violence, along with his eldest son and Rudy Giuliani. Representative Katherine Clark, the fourth-ranking House Democrat, says that the chamber could vote to impeach the President some time during next week if the movement to invoke the 25th Amendment goes nowhere. (In all probability it is a non-starter, since Mike Pence has indicated that he will not support such an effort.) Nor will he be able to obtain the support of several of his familiar legal allies. Sidney Powell has been sued by Dominion Voting Systems for defamation, while Cleta Mitchell, a prominent lawyer who assisted Trump on his phone call to Brad Raffensperger, has been forced to resign from her law firm.
All of which means that it is possible to focus somewhat more on activities directly connected with the COVID virus itself, not only here but abroad. The national increases in case incidence and death toll have been so precipitous here that they have overshadowed what is happening in other nations, but the pandemic continues to rage everywhere. Japan has had nearly 7,000 new cases today, nearly 1,000 of them in the Tokyo area alone. Its incidence rate is still a bare 0.2% of the population (as opposed to our own rate of 6.7%) but the spike in new cases is straining the country’s medical system and has prompted the government to declare a state of emergency for Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures, during which bars and restaurants will be asked to close by 8 p.m., and residents will be asked to avoid non-essential outings and to work from home whenever possible. The state of emergency is currently set to last until February 7th.
North Korea, despite having claimed that there are no cases of COVID within its borders and never have been, has backed down and is now requesting its share of the vaccine doses allocated to developing countries. It still will not say how many people are affected. As early as March, the South China Morning Post reported that nearly 200 North Korean soldiers were dying from the coronavirus and thousands of others being quarantined. And Kim Jong-Un has gone to somewhat more extreme measures than other national leaders in enforcing his quarantine orders. An official who brought goods through customs in the city of Sinuiju on North Korea’s border with China, in violation of coronavirus-related quarantine measures, was executed without delay when these transactions came to light.
Germany’s death toll has risen, more than 1,000 for three days in a row. The total death count has more than doubled since the beginning of December. Lockdown measures are in effect until January 31st. Its total case count is nearly 1.9 million, about 2¼ % of its population.
South Africa, similarly, has had over 20,000 new cases in a day, probably the hardest-hit country on the African continent. Containing the pandemic is complicated by an influx of refugees from Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe, which shares a border with South Africa, instituted a national lockdown four days ago. Many workers travel back and forth over the border, and this order has led to widespread frustration. For many workers, the inability to travel across the border for the purposes of their daily occupations is equivalent to starvation. But the Zimbabwean government claims that there is no alternative: the recent Christmas festivities doubled the number of COVID infections in the course of a couple of weeks.
I have noted that our rate of infection is 6.7% nationwide (about 1 in every 15 in our population), but the individual states show a range somewhat greater than might be expected. North Dakota and South Dakota have a staggering rate of 12.4% and 11.6% respectively. On the low end are Oregon, Maine, Hawaii, and Vermont, with 2.9%, 2.1%, 1.6%, and 1.4% respectively. Our area is well to the lower end of the range, with 5.0%, 4.5%, and 4.4% for Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia respectively. New Jersey and New York take the lead in mortality rates (slightly over 0.2% in each). DC’s mortality rate is very slightly above the national average, and while Maryland’s and Virginia’s are significantly lower (slightly over 0.1% and 0.06% respectively).
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 89,321,122; # of deaths worldwide: 1,920,726; # of cases U.S.: 22,443,286; # of deaths; U.S.: 378,057.