The Pandemic Blog

We’re beginning to see some clear signs of what the world will look like going forward (I won’t say “post-pandemic”, because it’s not at all certain the world will ever be “post” this pandemic). Warning: It’s not pretty. If you’re looking for happy talk and reassurance, you’ve come to the wrong blog. One thing is becoming painfully clear in the US: People coming from countries that aren’t doing a good job of controlling the coronavirus aren’t going to be welcome in countries that are. Americans can’t travel to Europe, joining such paragons of public health response as Brazil and Russia. But there is one country whose residents can travel freely in Europe, even though they have the highest Covid-19 deaths per capita in the world: the UK. That is because the UK is still part of Europe through the end of this year. It’s a safe bet that they won’t be welcome there next year, unless they have a remarkable turnaround (fortunately for the UK’s population, the Johnson government seems...

Early in the Civil War, after Abraham Lincoln’s first choice for general of the main Union army proved inept, President Lincoln turned to a young, promising general named George McClellan to lead the army. McClellan did a great job of building up the numbers of troops, training them thoroughly, and instilling confidence in them. But having done this, he proceeded to keep the army in place, imagining that the Confederate forces were much larger than they were – and continually demanding even more troops and equipment before he would feel safe attacking the Confederates. What was McClellan’s concern? He simply didn’t want to be responsible for a big Union loss, since he knew the South had much better generals than the North did (and certainly much better than he later proved to be). Lincoln finally became exasperated, sending McClellan a telegram asking “"If General McClellan does not want to use the Army, I would like to borrow it for a time, provided I could see how it co...

There have been some pretty bizarre statements coming out of the Trump administration throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, but Mike Pence’s on Friday has to be one of the more bizarre. Pence spoke during the first press briefing put on by the White House coronavirus task force in two months (of course, that it’s been two months since the last briefing, and that the task force is meeting only a couple times a week, are two very telling facts. Of course, they don't have much to do anymore, since the pandemic is well under control now). Quoting from CNN ’s article “Pence said about half of new cases (are) among people under the age of 35, 'which is at a certain level, very encouraging news, as the experts tell us….As we know, so far in this pandemic, younger Americans are less susceptible to serious outcomes of the coronavirus…' " This is bizarre – but certainly not out of character for Pence - for two reasons: Pence seems to think there’s a shortage of...

Note from Tom: Jude Gamel, a recently retired critical care nurse who lives in Kentucky, started corresponding with me a few weeks ago about this blog. We hadn’t discussed his own experiences (and those of his former colleagues, whom he keeps in touch with regularly) treating Covid-19 patients previously. But yesterday, he was inspired by that morning’s post , which focused entirely on deaths from Covid-19, to describe, in two emails, what “successful” outcomes are – i.e. when the patient survives. In many cases, the patient might well wonder whether the physical, emotional and financial toll on them were actually better than dying. And there’s also a huge physical and emotional toll on the health care workers. His account is gripping. Jude’s first email I just finished reading you post for today. I would like to add or at least to comment on something that too often gets lost or goes missing in conversations about Covid-19 and I think it is particularly relevant to what we se...