Who is responsible for our miserable Pandemic failures?
Don't read this if you want an easy answer.
On January 12, 2020, I received a notification about a new virus spreading in Wuhan, China. Since I had H1N1 symptoms in early 2010, and became interested in human viral response after learning of cytokine storms, I began following the news coming out of Wuhan. That news was chaotic, frightening and confusing before the CCP shut down the reports shared from average citizens. I saw people dropping like flies in the streets of Wuhan, the government building field hospitals for thousands in a matter of weeks, citizens being locked in their apartment buildings, bodies piling up, people wearing masks, streets being sprayed with disinfectant and general hysteria. It looked like a movie instead of reality. And, I began connecting with my friends who have similar interests and who work in virology and epidemiology. The numbers in Wuhan and other Chinese cities were rising fast, and the reality was that there was no way it had not already spread to other countries with the rapid transmission happening there. We do not know if the virus actually started in China or when/how/where it started period. We may never know. However, we do know what happened after January of 2020. We watched a perfect storm of failures as they swallowed us up like massive waves swallow small boats in a hurricane. So, who is responsible for these failures?
Our global leaders failed us.
Communism is basically strict rules regulating individuals in favor of the greater good. China’s version of Communism is very controlled, and by most accounts still favors those in power over the greater good. But, that is not the point here. Regardless of how much lying the CCP and President Xi’s team did or did not do in relation to the virus spread, they still took a country of 1.4 billion people, and locked them down successfully enough to prevent what should have been a wildfire of spread in their overpopulated cities. It didn’t spread for two reasons. The Government arrested people, treating them extremely harshly, for disobeying the mandates, and the people have community ingrained in them daily. They masked up and locked down for the greater good, partly under threat of punishment. I do not condone Communism. I would fight it if it came to our shores. I believe in equal opportunity and “liberty and justice for all.” However, just because Communism is oppressive does not mean that Community should be discarded.
New Zealand is the best example of an effective global leader operating with trust in its government and community health and well-being at the forefront of individual and group decision-making. They have a form of parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy, which means they have a hierarchy of leadership, functioning under democratic constitutional norms with a bit of monarchal pomp and circumstance thrown in for flair. So, they have three branches similar to the United States, and people vote for their representatives. But, they work together for the greater good and have the best case study for a virus response without needing to punish people. Their leadership acted early and quickly last Spring, and now they have one of the lowest rates of infection and deaths on the planet. Yes. They are an island. Yes. They have only 5 million people. But, their lives have been largely unaffected in the last year because they were smarter than most of the rest of the world.
Generally, it is okay to function as independent countries. On occasion, it is required of all humans to think and act as a global community. We didn’t do that. The Trumps, Putins, Bolsonaros, Xinpings and Johnsons of the world made sure we didn’t function as a global community. Even if you live alone on an island, you are still a part of a global community. Many of us have forgotten that.
The WHO also failed all of us miserably with their confusion, waffling and general mismanagement of communication to the world. It was beyond frustrating to watch their press conferences in the First Quarter of 2020 as the world cried out for declarations to be made that would cascade into smarter decisions made for each country.
For anyone afraid of a New World Order, I present to you the COVID-19 Pandemic as Exhibit A for why that could never happen. We are so quagmired in the tyranny of our biological response of “Us vs. Them” and “Kill or be Killed” that getting every country to cooperate in transparency is not possible. So, our first failures were worldwide, except for a few shining examples managing the virus effectively.
Our United States government failed us.
From removing the Beijing CDC representative in the Summer of 2019, and the well-researched, science-based Pandemic plan tossed, to general vacancies in key positions and the lack of science-based decision makers, we were left alone to our own devices as States, localities and individuals. While the Trump Administration focused on rallies and buying up judicial appointments, we were horrifyingly relegated to manage this on our own against a sea of ignorance, conspiracy and selfish cavalier individualism. There was poor planning and miscommunication at every stage and level. There were outright lies. We could not trust the CDC, the one organization we need to trust in a Pandemic, because it was being manipulated by the Trump Administration. No plan. No clear communication. No basic understanding of biology and health, due to years of lazy education. We had to have special graphics made to teach people how to wash their hands.
We learned firsthand what happens when a narcissistic, Authoritarian wannabe, reality TV star conman with limited intellect manages a crisis. He doesn’t, and he passed all responsibility to the States while demanding that they stay open, with myriad threats to do so, to save the economy, purposefully creating confusion and division.
It is unfathomable to me that our country, unlike our neighbor to the North, could not financially support its citizens while we better managed this virus. It is a ridiculous assertion that, in a country this wealthy, there is no money available to keep the economy afloat AND take care of its citizenry by keeping us safe from illness and death. Millions lost their jobs with a broken unemployment system ill-prepared to assist.
And, now, vaccinations are crawling because of that same inept leadership and those same broken systems. If we had not already witnessed moronic moves by the Federal Government between 2017 and 2020, it would almost feel like we were set up to fail.
Our State Leadership continues to fail us.
In March, because I was paying attention to what was being learned about the virus on a daily basis, I ensured that my family and friends were aware of the importance of avoiding crowded spaces, staying home as much as possible, getting extra Vitamin D/sunshine, adding extra Vitamin C and Zinc to their diets, having masks, hand sanitizer, gloves, thermometers and pulse oximeters on hand and paying close attention to the data. And, I began tracking the data that the Georgia Department of Public Health (GDPH) was publishing to their new Covid-19 Tracking page on their website. I am not sure what led me to do this, but I thought it was important to save the data and share it in a simplified format. I am so glad I did because data coming from Kemp and the GDPH became untrustworthy in April from my perspective. So, I have been sharing the daily numbers every day around 3pm, and I continue to do so. The only days I missed were days when the State made errors or had issues and the one day I was too sick to even open my eyes.
Also in March, there was a chorus of us reaching out to whomever would listen to shut the State down temporarily so that we could get a handle on what we were dealing with, and I focused my efforts on imploring State and City officials to get us accurate rapid field tests. It remains my fervent belief that if we have accurate, easy, rapid testing, we can better manage community outbreaks and re-open safely. Also, we already knew that asymptomatic carriers were helping spread the virus. Simple temperature-taking was not enough.
Despite a public outcry for action, Kemp continued to sit idly by as Georgians became sick, hospitalized and started dying.
Then, at the beginning of April, the now famous “game-changer” speech was given by Kemp that he and his crack team of science advisors were gobsmacked by information the rest of us had known for most of March. “Finding out that this virus is now transmitting before people see signs...those individuals could’ve been infecting people before they ever felt bad,” Kemp exclaimed. And, he used that information to order a statewide shutdown for all but essential businesses staring on April 3rd. At that time, the average daily case rate in Georgia was 334. During that shelter in place shutdown from April 3rd to April 24th, Georgia’s average daily case rate was 764. As a comparison, the average daily case rate for the last 31 days is around 6,000.
We began to learn a bit more about the virus, despite Government attempts to continue downplaying it, and it became clear that African Americans and Hispanic Americans were being disproportionately affected by the new Coronavirus. At the same time, Kemp was dealing with State Unemployment Assistance coffers emptying at a rapid rate.
So, the man who campaigned with ads asserting that he was going to round up illegals himself and blow up government spending, began planning to re-open the State after just three weeks. Kemp has long been known as a racist xenophobe, so is it coincidence that he was fine re-opening on the news of non-white populations being more affected and re-opening hair and nail salons first?
The same week that Kemp announced re-opening the State, the Georgia Department of Public Health changed the way they were tracking the data and visually representing the data. The changes made the numbers look less scary. Those of us who were tracking the daily data points noticed this. And, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) started reporting on these data/graphics manipulations and regularly occurring errors on the GDPH numbers.
So, in early May, I e-mailed the GDPH and asked if I could get their historic Covid-19 data. The following is that exchange.
ME: Where can I find the historical daily numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths for COVID-19 in Georgia since you began tracking in Mid-March? I cannot find it on your website.
GDPH: We don’t have historical data at this time, although that may change at some point. GEMA has tweeted out the numbers on their page every day if you’d like to use that to compile.
ME: GEMA gets their numbers from the GDPH. I have been cutting and pasting the daily update from the GDPH since 3/25. I just want to compare my historical data to your historical data to make sure I captured accurate information so I can make the best decisions for my business. How often should I check back to get that data?
GDPH: We post updates at 9, 12, and 7 pm every day. But the biggest changes usually occur over a 24 hour period, so I think if you chose one of those and then aimed for that every day it would be the most accurate reflection.
ME: I am already capturing the daily updates at Noon (now 1pm based on the new reporting schedule). I have been capturing those (cutting and pasting from the GDPH website) every day since 3/25. So, I have my data, but recently, I noticed that the data on the GDPH website and my data that I have copied from the GDPH website are no longer tracking. So, I wanted to see what the GDPH has for the three datasets (Cases, Hospitalizations and Deaths) historically so that I can see where our numbers have diverged. Is there another Government agency that would have the historical official numbers going back through mid-March? GEMA is simply sharing the GDPH numbers.
GDPH: There is a private organization that has been capturing historical data called the COVID tracking project if you want to check that out.
So, the GDPH claimed they had no historic data and no way for me to find out why our data was divergent at the same time that Kemp was re-opening the State. My State Department of Public Health sent me to an outside resource created by The Atlantic Magazine.
Understand this. I was already looking at the COVID Tracking Project to confirm my data as they were pulling the same data from the GDPH website that I was pulling. Along with other sources, I have used them as a comparative data accuracy analyzer since they launched. My data, and the COVID Tracking Project data match. Both of our datasets diverged from GDPH historical data on the GDPH website. For example, my data is very simple. I take today’s published cumulative number and subtract yesterday’s published cumulative number of the three data points (Cases, Hospitalizations, Deaths) to get the increase from one day to the next. This was accurately reflected on the GDPH website until Kemp re-opened the State and the State started showing the numbers differently. So, on April 7, I am showing 100 deaths based on the simple subtraction method. But, suddenly, the GDPH wasn’t showing any deaths near 100. They didn’t show deaths in that range until August 11. Their explanation is that they were backdating numbers to reflect day of testing vs. day of confirmed COVID positive test because it was taking so much longer to get test results back. But, they didn’t start tracking that way, so changing the way you are tracking data, in the middle of tracking that data, effectively renders previous historical data useless. And, it gives us no real way to understand the numbers. Why didn’t the GDPH know how to track this accurately and effectively from the onset? They are the Department of Public Health. Tracking public health is the majority of their job.
So, here are two failure points. One is found in the absolutely egregiously low testing and slow testing that has plagued Georgia since March. The other is found in the useless and now untrustworthy data being provided by the GDPH. This begs the question, who directed them to make the data confusing and untrustworthy?
In addition to general data manipulation, changing how and when data is reported, ongoing error (we had a day in the Summer where -14 people died according to the GDPH numbers), and low/slow testing, every Sunday and Monday are much lower numbers due to lower reporting, which effectively skews anything close to evaluating a 7 or 14-day average. Despite this, I still continue to post the daily data.
Many of us were pointing out the errors, discrepancies and misrepresentations of the State’s numbers. When you leave individuals and business owners up to their own devices in a Public Health Crisis, and then obfuscate the data we need to make informed decisions, that is criminal.
So, the state re-opened at the end of April to everyone but at-risk groups. And, the Shelter-in-Place has remained for at-risk groups while the super spreaders have been allowed to gather indoors, go shopping and visit friends and family, maskless and throwing social distancing requirements to the wind.
Group gatherings were still being held and are still being held because there has been no requirement or enforcement if there is a requirement. Restaurants closed and opened and closed and closed permanently. Schools closed and opened and closed in a vicious cycle that continues.
There has been no mask mandate, despite the clear science and proof from other countries and States that it works. Brian Kemp did go on a pointless and expensive “wear a mask” tour of Georgia that had little effect.
There has been no useful shutdown or quarantine policy in place, despite the clear science and proof from other countries and States that it works.
The Top Ten states with the lowest Covid cases as a % of the population have the most restrictive mandates. The Bottom Ten States with the highest Covid cases as a % of the population have the least restrictive mandates. This isn’t rocket science. The data is there.
We have little to no contact tracing, and it is a travesty, with so many using a smartphone, not to have technology doing the heavy lifting in this area.
Additionally, our hospitals are full right now because of the soaring cases of the last month. Our death rate is rising because of the soaring hospitalizations. And, many people still do not understand how the deaths can lag cases by many weeks. So, we are likely to see high death rates for many weeks to come.
Compared to other States, Georgia is at the bottom rung of the vaccination ladder currently. There is no clear direction or plan for widespread vaccinations, and at this point, the only way out of this is with accurate rapid testing and widespread vaccinations to prevent the ongoing wave of loss of life and livelihood.
There is no clear and effective communication about the virus or vaccinations. And, in the current environment where Conspiracy Theory gets more oxygen than Truth, it is no wonder that people can’t find out where to go or what to do or even if any of the vaccines can be trusted.
There are multiple points where we could have managed the virus effectively, but we didn’t have science-based communication, tracking, tracing, masking, quarantining and social distancing regulations in place, despite the science and data, anecdotal evidence and cries for a plan and action from the beginning of the Pandemic.
Brian Kemp’s negligent leadership left us to deal with our County and City governments, and, for the majority of 2020, as he was not mandating for the State, he also wouldn’t allow Cities and Counties to mandate for themselves, even going so far as to fight them publicly for mandating masks. So, all business owners and individuals were and are flailing in the wind trying to make sound decisions for businesses and families because we have had no useful direction, data or help from both our Federal and State Governments. If humans are expected to “do the right thing” in a crisis without any government interference, why do we have Police Officers and Government at all?
In my opinion, Brian Kemp's brand of misleadership is deadly, and he should be removed from Public Service as soon as possible. To quote him, “Yep. I just said that.”
We have failed each other.
When leaders do not lead, and we are left to fend for ourselves with untrustworthy data and untrustworthy disease “experts,” we are forced to police ourselves and each other.
Disinformation and conspiracy theory spread from the top down. Our leadership purposefully disseminated lies to downplay the virus and demonize quarantining and mask-wearing. And, the media perpetuated it by giving Trump and others a platform for that spread. It was devastating to realize that we had this level of misleadership, AND I was surrounded by disinformation and conspiracy theory-believing people who care so little about community, and so much about their own comfort, that they decried mask-wearing and necessary “shelter-in-place” protections as oppressive.
I am proud that I easily adapted to correct mask wearing, social distancing and limiting my time in public spaces to what was absolutely necessary. Whenever I thought I might have been exposed or had COVID-19 symptoms, I was tested and always tested negative. And, I worked diligently to keep friends, family, colleagues and businesses apprised of important data and information as I learned it.
I am proud of the stance I took in April that, as an Event Producer, I would not be responsible for gathering people until we had more accurate data and accurate rapid field tests or the virus was winding down due to vaccinations or hopeful eventual immunity. I lost tens of thousands in income in 2020 due to that decision. I am disappointed in others in my industry who didn’t take that same stand and continue to gather people indoors. I am actually ashamed of anyone who blithely continues to dine and drink with others inside restaurants and bars or at events. I do not keep my moral compass in my wallet, so I would rather starve to death myself than contribute to the illness or death of another for the almighty dollar. I am smart enough to figure out how to make ends meet without contributing to the widespread transmission of a novel virus that not only kills people, but also leaves many survivors with long-term debilitating illness.
I am proud of my constant calls for focusing on accurate rapid field tests and the fact that hundreds of people were trusting my data to keep them informed in a way that our State leadership was not.
None of that is to say that I did it all or am doing it all the right way. Certainly I have mis-stepped and course-corrected along the way. However, it is beyond belief that we, as a collective, have not been better and are not better than this ongoing series of mistakes, failures and misdirections made by the individuals comprising the collective. If I were watching a movie of everything that has transpired, instead of experiencing it, I would call the ridiculous individual responses far-fetched.
It breaks me to know how not far-fetched it is at all.
Now, I am smart, but I am not that smart, and the fact that I could think through this more thoroughly than our leaders at every level terrifies me. How can they be so inept? Has it been intentional? Are our leaders too afraid to enact protections during a Public Health Crisis for the greater good because they fear reprisal from citizens who care nothing for the greater good? Is it another effect of White Supremacy and wealth/power inequity that courses through our country?
Life is tenuous. From the moment you take your first breath, you are moving toward your last. Our National and State Government negligence, whether plain ignorance or planned, moved tens of thousands of US and thousands of Georgians to their last breath prematurely. I cannot speak to the intricacies of other countries or States failures, but Trump, Kemp and their enablers, should be held accountable for massive loss of life and livelihood in Georgia and the United States during this Public Health Crisis. If our government cannot help protect us during an emergency, then our government is useless.
Recently, I watched a rerun of “The Plague” episode of Little House on the Prairie. In it, the community was stricken with what was thought to be Typhus, and the town Doctor quarantined everyone to their homes immediately, and they all followed his quick and decisive action. Lives were saved and a community was spared from collapse because a Doctor in the 1800’s was smart, and the people of the town cared about their community and each other as much as they cared about themselves. It breaks me further to know that the world I want only exists in televised fiction.
How amazing would it be to have that level of leadership and community compassion in the age of so many scientific, medical and technological advances? We could easily manage any new virus. We will have to do just that, you know. This isn’t the first Pandemic, and it won’t be the last. And, as this virus continues to mutate in various directions to become more transmissible and potentially more deadly or debilitating, we aren’t anywhere near through it.
What happens next?
It is with great hope that I anticipate this new dawn of better leadership in our Federal government. And, I continue to awake each day hoping that we are moving toward a new dawn in my home State of Georgia. But, before we get to March of 2021, when all experts are telling us that the new more transmissible variant of the virus will be dominant throughout the US, we must…
Learn from this overwhelming perfect storm of failures.
Create science-based plans communicated clearly and enacted widely.
Make COVID-related data accurate, transparent, understandable and usable.
Utilize all healthcare facilities for accurate testing and vaccination 24/7.
Mandate masks immediately.
Distribute accurate rapid field tests in the billions throughout the US.
Shut down areas of high spread while we vaccinate people.
Provide financial safety nets for those suffering from COVID and/or job loss.
Remove from office all those who have worked so hard to harm us.
Take individual responsibility to educate ourselves through qualified sources.
Function as if we are a community, because we are.
So far, we have failed miserably. What happens next is up to all of us.
Data Sources:
The Georgia Department of Public Health
The Covid Tracking Project
Worldometers.info
Kaiser Family Foundation
Johns Hopkins University CSSE COVID-19 Data