Well-intentioned but injudicious medical treatment – President Bolsonaro and hydroxychloroquine – Dependency on appliances – Ivy League postpones autumn sports – Evening statistics
“The child was puny, white, and sickly, so they sent continually for the doctor who dosed him with calomel and James’s powder. All was done in love, anxiety, timidity, stupidity, and impatience. They were stupid in little things; and he that is stupid in little will be stupid in much.” (Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh)
And at that, Butler’s Ernest Pontifex was a great deal more fortunate than Carsyn Leigh Davis, aged 17, of Fort Myers, FL. She had had health issues since childhood, including cancer and an auto-immune disorder; so it is not surprising that her parents were alarmed when she, along with at least 100 other young men and women contracted that virus after attending a crowded church event, where masks were not worn and social distancing was not encouraged or even attempted. Her parents are medical professionals, but they acted like the most thoroughly ignorant of laymen. They gave her azithromycin in the days following the service as a preventative measure and when she started developing symptoms they dosed her with hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug that Trump claimed would be beneficial for treating COVID-19. Azithromycin is an anti-biotic, and thus of little value in combating a viral infection; and the claims on behalf of hydroxychloroquine have been debunked for many weeks now. Their ministrations did little good. On June 13th, three days after the church event, Davis developed symptoms that at first appeared like a sinus infection; her symptoms worsened, causing her parents to take her to a hospital on June 19th, where she was diagnosed with the virus; she began plasma therapy on June 20th, was intubated on June 22nd, and died on June 23rd.
I suppose I should not speak so slightingly of hydroxychloroquine, for who am I to decry the medicine of choice not only of Donald Trump but of Jair Bolsonaro as well? The Brazilian President claims that he is feeling well and that his fever has subsided as a result of taking his dose; and if he is willing to risk its well-documented side effects (heart rhythm problems and safety issues such as blood and lymph system disorders, kidney injuries, and liver problems and failure) I have no objection to his contracting any of these to prove his experimental zeal – in which sentiment, probably, I have the heartiest concurrence among the overwhelming majority of Brazilians. To do the man justice, he appears to be in robust health even now and there is no reason to fear that his countrymen will be deprived of the benefits of his supervision for some time to come.
I have undergone what might be described as an adventure, and not a very agreeable one of its kind. Yesterday evening my server lost connectivity, and at the same time the monitor for my desktop failed. It was strange to feel how isolated I felt as a result of the combination of these two circumstances. I could not respond to any Email, since my cell phone kept issuing messages that the server was not active whenever I tried to access Safari or Outlook, and I could not access any of my files, since I was unable to see anything of their contents onscreen. In the end all came out well; the server connectivity restored itself, as mysteriously as it had failed earlier, and I was able without difficulty to purchase and install a new monitor, which actually is better than the old one. Nonetheless it is a sobering experience to be reminded of the degree we have become dependent on our household appliances, and our electronic ones in particular. If I were a screenplay writer tasked with originating a new Twilight Zone episode, I would write one with the theme of how readily a man’s identity could be altered or even erased altogether by a skillful meddling of his personal desktop or laptop, or else how a non-existent person could be accepted as a reality through manipulation of the social media. Indeed, the latter has been done fairly frequently in real life; the slang term for it is “catfishing.”
The Ivy League has postponed all autumn sports – not merely football, but soccer, field hockey, volleyball, and cross country. The coalition of these colleges does not grant athletic scholarships, nor does it compete for the NCAA football championship. However, it could create a ripple effect among other colleges, particularly as several of them are weighing the option of conducting some or all of their classes virtually.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM — # of cases worldwide: 12,154,983; # of deaths worldwide: 551,173; # of cases U.S.: 3,158,417 # of deaths U.S.: 134,848. Today the worldwide case count surpassed twelve million – an increase of over a million in six days. The increase in the U.S. is over 60,000 – the worst day to date.