Tag: COVID19

COVID19 Scenario: August, 2021 — ‘The Omega Variant’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Editor’s Note: This has been edited some since its original publishing.

Each time COVID bounces from one person to the next, there’s a chance it might mutate into something along the lines of the virus found in The Stand. It’s an admittedly microscopic chance, but it does exist. Throw into the equation people from all over the world in Tokyo at the moment and it’s easy to imagine a Stephen King-size clusterfuck.

While it definitely looks like we’re out of the woods — least in most of the First World — when it comes to COVID19, it’s still out there bouncing around with opportunity after opportunity to mutate. It makes you wonder what the reaction would be if COVID19 mutated into something far, far nastier than it is now. Given that August is the shittiest month, I’m working on the assumption that if it happens, it will pop out around August, 2021.

A lot would depend on how this speculative “Omega Variant” popped up. If it was localized to one place at first, then nations are on edge enough right now that it would probably be fairly easily controlled. But my fear is if an Omega Variant appeared, it would appear all over the world at the same time and all we could do is simply attempt to do some triage to an End Of The World type situation.

If variant of COVID19 appeared that was far more deadly than anything out there now, at first, the whole thing — at least in the English-speaking Western World — would, again, be seen through the prism of politics. The Right would scoff, saying “Here we go again.” They would do everything in their power to obstruct the American government from doing anything to mitigate a looming disaster, just like they did the first time.

It would not be until the Right saw some potential political gain that they would switch gears and start to demand something be done. Then, of course, it would be too late. Instead of 600,000 dead, we may be looking at something closer to 10-30 million. If things started to get that bad, it’s very possible MAGA would start to angle for a way to seize power via a coup — or something. They’re already halfway there now, if the country was felled by a severe second wave of COVID19, they might attempt to step into the breach.

So, it’s at least possible that at some point in the next few months (years?) we’re going to have to go through all of this again because an Omega Variant breezes past all our vaccines and starts killing people not in the thousands, but the millions.

But I’m wrong all the time. I’m sure the monster won’t come back for one more round. We’re going to cruise into a new Roaring Twenties, at least until we have a civil war or turn into a MAGA autocracy. This is all very speculative. It’s just if the COVID pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that when you’re dealing with a virus, all the narrative management in the world isn’t going to save us.

The Fucking MAGA Fascists Are Coming For Dr. Fauci


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One thing that does not give me a lot of confidence about the state of American politics is how the MAGA Right in the US is working itself up into a lather when it comes to Dr. Fauci.

This is all very surreal to me given that Trump’s dingdong incompetence directly caused about 500,000 excess COVID19 deaths. Now, it’s very clear what’s going on — Republicans know this and are using the age-old political technique of screaming at the top of their lungs about emails in an effort to deflect from their own weaknesses.

They know that every moment we’re yelling over Dr. Fauci’s emails is a moment we’re not thinking about what an utter disaster Trump’s handling of COVID19 was. They have a two fold goal. On one hand, they want to stir up the base with a 2 Minute of Fauci Hate every day so they will flood the polls to flip Congress to “hold him accountable.” Meanwhile, they want to control the media narrative so we’re all fighting over Dr. Fauci his emails and not Trump and his COVID19 mismanagement.

The thing none of us non-MAGA people are prepared for is how hysterical and ultimately bloodthirsty MAGA is going to become about Dr. Fauci. He’s a convenient lightening rod because he wasn’t cowed into submission by Trump and didn’t take any of his shit. Add to this the well-worn outrage machine that MAGA already has when it comes to emails and, well, look out.

The moment MAGA controls Congress, every moment they’re not cutting taxes for plutocrats or flooding the Federal bench with young hack MAGA judges or impeaching Biden and Harris for Not Being Trump, they’re going to be yelling at Dr. Fauci in committee meeting after committee meeting. It won’t matter what he says, it won’t matter what the facts are, they will strip mine his status as a political lightening rod until we reach Benghazi levels of stupidity.

In the end, all of this will fuse together so the usual suspects of MAGA will get involved. Ultimately, it will become MAGA orthodoxy that Dr. Fauci is a member of the Deep State and directly funded — and ordered — the release of COVID19 from the Wuhan lab because he wanted to bring down Trump. They’ll claim the emails prove this — somehow — and before you know it somehow Qanon, George Soros and Comet Pizza will be involved.

My fear is, of course, that someone is going to get hurt because of all of this. Then Republicans will be SHOCKED, SHOCKED I tell you that some “mentally unstable person” would do such a thing. They will mumble something about “thoughts and prayers” and then move on to whatever other batshit insane thing that can mentally stroke to make themselves feel better.

We Need To Talk About Dr. Fauci, COVID19 & The Wuhan Lab


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If you want some indication of how unstable the United States is right now just under the surface, look no further that how hysterical the Right is now about Dr. Fauci. He’s because such a lightening rod, such subject of vitriol that is its growing rather startling.

The issue for me is, we need to not poo-poo as much the idea that the biological lab in Wuhan had something to do with the first COVID19 outbreak there. The Right literally wants to murder Dr. Facui in cold blood right now as it is. They are hell bent to figure out some way whereby Dr. Facui is responsible for, or has financially benefited from, COVID19.

As such, if evidence comes to light that does connect the Wuhan lab to COVID19, there could be severe political violence in the United States in more ways than one. The reason why that link is so important to the Right is then they have a ready talking point for any and all criticism of how Trump handled the outbreak. They will be able to piviot to blaming the Chinese, or Dr. Fauci for this or that connection he may have had to the facility.

Any proven link between COVID19 and the Wuhan lab would cause such a political firestorm in the United States that it’s kind of frightening. It is now Rightwing orthodoxy that the lab was connected to COVID19 and that Dr. Fauci is some sort of nefarious, diabolical mastermind who, I don’t know, thought an outbreak was some sort of cure-all to Trump? (The exact reasoning for why he would — contrary to all available evidence — want an outbreak is one of the many dubious logical conclusions the far Right has developed.)

But we have to take this bullshit seriously. There are any number of surreal and dangerous things that might occur if any link was proven. So, as such, we need to take the possibility of such a link seriously and begin to figure out ways to mitigate the rage such a link would cause in certain parts of the American electorate

‘Night Monsters’ — #Lyrics To A Pop-Rock Song About #Covid19 Symptoms


I know nothing about music. I’m just letting off steam. This would be a slow, dark, methodical pop rock song.


Night Monsters
lyrics by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
please give credit if you produce or perform

night monsters
night monsters
come out at night
just out of sight
night monsters
night monsters

night monsters
knock you out for delight
the aches are there
the fear rears its head
at night with all its might
what are you going to do
when they’re let out of the zoo

night monsters
night monsters
comout out at night
just out of sight
night monsters
night monsters

night monsters
stare at your body
make you can’t move or make a sound
you feel like a clown
won’t allow a twitch
without some sort of hitch

(bridge)
when dawn arrives
we let out a sigh
hoping they’re gone
knowing they’ll be back
leaving us out of whack

night monsters
night monsters
comout out at night
just out of sight
night monsters
night monsters

My Personal Experience With COVID19


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In the end, it felt like a really bad Korean cold.

When I first went to South Korea, my body wasn’t prepared for the make up of colds there and every once in a while, I would be felled by a really horrible cold. It happened a few times and really, really knocked me out for maybe 24 to 48 hours.

Then I would slowly bounce back.

Well, when I got the Rona, it felt just like that. In fact, it was eerie how much I felt my body was telling me, “Don’t worry, we got this — we saw this shit before in South Korea.”

But, then, I do have an extremely over-active imagination.

Anyway, I got the Rona. I’m going to quarantine for about two weeks and then maybe get tested again. My elderly father is, well, elderly. For the moment, at least, I feel 100% again.

But, obviously, I’m still infectious so I can’t go anywhere or do anything other than read and write.

It’s a very surreal feeling.

Cancel Thanksgiving


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All things being equal, we need to cancel 2020’s Thanksgiving. I’m not an expert on viral transmission, so please ignore me with extreme prejudice, but it makes sense that Thanksgiving would be national superspreader event waiting to happen.

We’re already projected, as I understand, to reach 2,000-3,000 daily deaths by mid-December, so having a bunch of people — many of them elderly — cooped up in a home together without masks for a long weekend doesn’t seem like all that great an idea.

But, of course, since we have a deranged moron as our president at least until January 20th, there’s a good chance we will have zero national leadership on this subject. Any “canceling” of Thanksgiving will happen in fits and starts and according to where you sit on the political spectrum.

So, we really are going to have a “dark winter.” By January 20th, 2021, we may have a daily COVID19 death toll reaching something close to 10,000. It definitely seems as though at a minimum we,we are going to reach the 600,000 dead of the 1918 – 1920 Spanish flu very, very soon.

Was Trump’s COVID19 Announcement A ‘Controlled Roll Out?’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something isn’t right about Trump’s announcement that he has COVID19. The sequence of events doesn’t make any sense. You mean to tell me that within a few hours of Hope Hicks getting it, Trump is just blurting out that he has it?

This leads me to a spectrum of possibilities. On one end we have this whole thing is a politically motivated hoax. Trump wants to juice the base by having them think he has COVID19. He doesn’t do anything for a few weeks, then pops out stronger than ever and wins.

On the other end of the spectrum, is something far darker.

Trump’s taken a turn for the worse in the last few hours and the controlled roll out of this news isn’t part of a hoax, it’s a way of slowly letting the country know that Trump is seriously ill. Like, Nearer my God to Thee sick.

That would explain why Bloomberg, of all media outlets, found out about Hope Hicks. She prepped the way for this particular crucial piece of information to “accidently on purpose” pop out.

I think the key to knowing what’s going on is what happens in the next 24 hours or so. If we have proof Trump is pretty much fine, then I’m more likely to believe he’s known he’s got COVID19 for some time and he’s just be asymptomatic. If he mysteriously goes dark for a the next few days, then we know Trump is actually really, really sick.

The one thing I’m extremely nervous about is the likelihood of significant political violence from insane MAGA-Qanon people who think all of this is some sort of Deep State plot to hurt Trump.

Life After COVID19: A New Era Is About To Begin (One Way Or Another)



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Since the end of WWII there have been a number of major eras in the United States. They go something like this:

1945-1963
1963-1974
1974-1981
1981-1991
1991-2001
2001-????

The argument could be made a new era started either in 2009 with the Obama Administration or 2017 with the Trump Administration. And, yet, several of those post-war eras ended or began with a rather dramatic extra-political event that happened totally out of the blue without warning.

As such, a pretty strong argument could be made that no matter what else happens in the near future, the COVID19 pandemic, in itself, marks the delination between eras. And, yet, given the political instability in the United States right now, you could also make the argument that not until we finally figure out who POTUS is will the actual new era begin. No matter what happens with the election, we’re in for a new era.

If Trump wins (which he will by brazenly stealing the election), then we’re REALLY in a new era because, lulz, any and all pretense of America being a “free” country will end. We’re going to be nothing more than a managed democracy like they have in Russia and a new, darker era will have begun. Or, actually, if you wanted to be more technical about it, in hindsight, we’ll say that the “new era” began when Trump was acquitted by the Senate and everything else was simply us catching up to what happened.

Things grow far more complicated if Biden somehow miraculously wins despite Trump throwing everything including the kitchen sink at the election to steal it.

I say this because then the macro trends that have led to us finding ourselves in this clusterfuck to begin with will be momentarily paused, or at least become less obvious while we all sigh a huge sigh of relief. We’ll probably have a few months to enjoy a return to “normal” before House Trump strikes back in some way and fucks everything up again.

When, exactly, the over due “new era” begins will thus be far more muddled and difficult to pinpoint at the time. We’ll mark the “before times” of before the pandemic, but it won’t be until House Trump comes roaring back in some way that the thing that was going to happen anyway — fascist America — happens.

I still contend that the only way House Trump doesn’t formally establish Trumplandia is something so unexpected and tragic that no one, regardless of political point of view, will be very happy about it. Whatever it is would have to be jaw dropping. Something along the lines of President Ivanka screwing up a war with the DPRK and being blamed for millions of deaths. (That may very well happen with her dad in his stolen second term, but, lulz.)

Anyway, the point of all of this is America is a fascist state and we’re deluding ourselves for a few months while we wait for Trump to steal the 2020 Election.

Most of my posts to this blog these days begin with hope then simply return back to a very dark reality — the moment Trump was acquitted by the Senate, he attained absolute political power in the United States and there’s not a goddamn thing we can do about it.

I say this in the context of knowing Trump is a huge self-own artist and he’s literally the only person who could somehow screw up the absolute certainty that the United States becomes little more than a vassal state of Russia.

DPRK, WTF?



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Out of the blue, I’m hearing a lot of chatter about the DPRK doing something against ROK. What it could possibly be, I have no idea. In fact, it’s not so much them doing something at this point but WHY would they do something against their brothers to the south?

The Sister
Kim Yo-jong may, somehow, in an unexpected position of power. The DPRK is a blackbox, so the idea that Kim Jung-Un is actually secretly dead is not a weird as you might think.

Trump
It’s possible the DPRK can see what we all see — that Emperor Trump I is an invalid moron — and they may feel it’s now or never. If they don’t strike the ROK now and try to get some sort of border adjustment, it’s just never happening.

Covid19
Maybe things are a lot worse in the DPRK with Covid19 than we know and this is kind of a deathrattle freakout.

But there are some problems.

All of them involve the U-S-A.

Trump is just too both moronic and bonkers. If he felt he might be able to win re-election as part of a Rally Around The Flag war against the DPRK, he would likely go at it with great gusto.

And, then, well, things escalate and NYC, or LA are vaporized in a limited nuclear exchange between the two nations.

I just don’t see any of that happening.

It’s just another time where the DPRK wants some attention.

#COVID19 #Pandemic Threat Assessment For March 24th, 2020: A Darkness At Noon

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We are so doomed.

Trump thinks he can pander to the Religious Right by getting everyone in church in some sort of Trump-As-Christ event around Easter. He thinks everything will wrap up around Easter, we can go back to normal and we want to praise him, praise him, praise him at the polls when November rolls around. That it also gives the markets some sense of security and stability by giving them a definite ending is a twofer.

I guess it might work.

It might work because the MAGA base is such a death cult that even if a few million people die because of this harebrained idea, they will simply shrug and say at least he owned the libs for them. In fact, I would say the ONLY thing that will prevent Trump from cruising into a second term is well, Trump. I could see Trump finally snapping around Easter when it becomes apparent that not only is this not going to wrap up then, but he’s going to be directly blamed for people dying because, well, they went to church for Easter at his behest.

He’s such a self-own artist that it will be Trump himself who brings down House Trump — if that is even possible at this point. Trump going bonkers is pretty much the only thing I can possibly thing of that might bring down House Trump. Otherwise, there’s nothing we can do. I don’t want him to go bonkers because, well, we could all die when he decides to nuke us to oblivion. If he did go bonkers and House Trump fell long enough for a free-and-fair election to happen, it would be rather surreal, to say the least. House Trump is so absolute in its belief that The Thousand Year Trump has been established, the Fourth Reich has been born, that if this even momentarily proves not to be the case, a lot of people are going to be gobsmacked.

The normal rules of politics will kick in with brutal force and Trump will continue to tweet from the sidelines complaining it was a combination “stab in the back” of “the Chinese and liberals” that brought him down. Don Jr. will court the MAGA base and, well, there will be talk of impeaching-and-convicting everyone necessary to get Don Jr. back as president as soon as possible.

I do think Trump will pardon about 20 people — including himself! — the moment we it’s obvious he’s lost even the Electoral College. He may not even leave the White House willingly and that will be the first crisis of the new administration. But I also think Trump’s never leaving office. For him to leave office for any reason — legal, political or self-own — something so jaw-dropping would have to happen that is simply beyond my ability to predict.

We’re stuck with The Thousand Year Trump for about 30 years until the browning of America crosses paths with the decline of the Baby Boomers and finally someone like, say, AOC, topples House Trump and we go back to “normal.”

Fuck you if you’re MAGA. You cocksucker.

I do think, in passing, however, that a lot of these older celebrities who are dying these days are dying of COVID19. Their families simply don’t want their legacy to be how they died instead of their career. I don’t think it’s any sort of “conspiracy,” I think it’s just basic human nature.