Salem Political Snark

Minto Brown dog park should be open during COVID-19 crisis

Woof, woof. That's the sound of our dog agreeing with the title of this blog post. For some unknown reason, parks in Salem are open, but the Minto Brown off-leash dog park is closed.

I took this photo today at the entrance to the parking lot that serves the dog park. My wife and I, along with Mooka, our dog, were disappointed to see this barricade and sign saying "This Area is Closed Until Further Notice." 

But it wasn't a total surprise, since I'd read this letter to the editor in the Sunday Statesman Journal.

Closure of dog park disappointing

I was stunned recently when we went to the dog park at Minto-Brown Island Park and found it barricaded.

This has been one of the few activities where we have been able to get exercise and have social interaction while maintaining social distance.

I think it is counterproductive to eliminate healthy opportunities that represent less danger than going to the store. And anyone who doesn’t see this as essential doesn’t own a dog.

John Huff
Salem

I totally agree with Huff. Especially since right next to the barricade and closed sign was this contradictory notice.

OK, but that already was being done by visitors to the dog park, as far as my wife and I could tell based on our visits to the dog park before it was closed. So again, what's the reason for closing it?

If you agree that the dog park should be open, tell this to City Manager Steve Powers, members of the City Council (including Mayor Bennett), and other city officials by sending a message to them: [email protected]

Grocery shoppers are touching items that other people may have touched, yet grocery stores are open. Sure, at the dog park dogs run up to strangers and often they get patted. But it's difficult for me to understand how this is a greater risk than touching a can of beans that someone else may have handled.

A few weeks ago the Washington Post had a story, "How to pet dogs during the coronavirus pandemic." Basic message: don't worry very much about it.

Given the unknowns about the disease, experts recommend that people infected with the coronavirus stay away from pets, as they should from people. So the most conservative approach would be to refrain from touching others’ dogs, because its owner could be asymptomatic.

But based on available evidence, there’s little reason to avoid petting, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. (If practicing social distancing, make sure the owner is on the other end of a leash at least six feet long.)

“We’re not overly concerned about people contracting covid-19 through contact with dogs and cats,” said Gail Golab, the AVMA’s chief veterinary officer.

Environmental contamination via surfaces appears to be a secondary route of transmission, and “the virus survives best on smooth surfaces, such as countertops and doorknobs,” Golab said. “Porous materials, such as pet fur, tend to absorb and trap pathogens, making it harder to contract them through touch.”

We only encountered a few people during our late afternoon visit to the dog park, which usually is a popular place on a sunny Sunday. I did ask the couple on the right side of the photo above, who were throwing a ball for their dog, whether they thought the dog park should be open rather than closed.

"Absolutely," the man said. He told me that exercising dogs is OK under Gov. Brown's "Stay Home, Save Lives" order, so he didn't understand why the City of Salem has closed the Minto Brown dog park. 

There certainly was no problem with maintaining a 6 foot distance between unrelated people at the dog park, because the place was almost deserted. However, the rest of Minto Brown park was busy. When we took our dog for a walk on some paved trails, we passed many other people with their leashed dogs. 

And on the paved trails there isn't a whole lot of room between people going in different directions. So it makes no sense to allow people to walk their dogs on a narrow trail, but forbid them to use the dog park with much more available open space between people and their pets.

Survey finds Oregonians anxious about coronavirus crisis

Today DHM Research released the results of an online survey of 507 Oregonians aged 18+.
Download COVID Survey--Annotated--March 2020

Not surprisingly, it found that people are anxious about the coronavirus, worried about their financial situation, feel that things will get worse for at least another month, disapprove of how Trump is handling the federal response, and approve of how Governor Brown is handling the state response.

But as you can read below in the summary of findings that I copied from the survey report, there's some surprises. Young people say they're more concerned about the coronavirus than people 65+. But maybe this has more to do with the impact on jobs rather than health.

Here's the key conclusions of the survey. I've highlighted in red some findings that struck me as particularly interesting.

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KEY FINDINGS

Many Oregonians are feeling anxious during this unprecedented public health crisis.

The survey started by asking a standardized index of questions that access generalized anxiety disorder (GAD-7). 19% of Oregonians have moderate-to-severe levels of anxiety and 12% have severe levels.

Anxiety levels vary by demographics and attitudes about coronavirus. Young people, those with lower income and less education are especially anxious. Anxiety levels are also higher among people worried that they will be infected with coronavirus and feel that their household is not prepared. It is impossible to say if these concerns are the cause of anxiety (or anxiety causes these concerns) but the connection is notable and strong.

Oregon’s “right track” numbers are down slightly.

For decades, DHM has asked Oregonians if the feel the state is headed in the right direction or on the wrong track. In this survey, 40% said it is on the right track, while 41% said it is on the wrong track. The right direction percentage is down only 5-points since DHM last asked in late 2019.

Consistent with past findings, there is a significant partisan divide. 58% of Democrats feel that this state is headed in the right direction compared to 32% of Republicans, and 30% of non-affiliated and other party voters.

There is a large increase in the number of Oregonians worried about their personal financial situation.

DHM has been asking Oregonians since 2011 how worried, or not, they are about their personal financial situation. The percentage who said that they are somewhat or very worried peaked at 69% in 2012. This fell slowly but steadily over the last decade, to a low of 50% in late 2019. Now, 63% say that they are worried. Given the great many people who have already lost their jobs due to coronavirus, the number of Oregonians experiencing financial distress will almost certainly increase.

Lower income Oregonians are the most worried. 73% of those with incomes below $50k are worried compared to 60% of those with incomes between $50-100k and 45% of people with incomes above $100k.

Most Oregonians are worried that they or someone close to them will be infected with coronavirus.

• 69% a family member not in the household

• 60% a household member

• 57% a close friend

• 53% you personally

• 47% someone who relies on you for medical care

40% of Oregonians say that they are not prepared to deal with a coronavirus infection in their household.

While most (59%) say that they are prepared, a significant number of Oregonians are not. The groups most likely to report that they are not prepared are younger with lower incomes. For instance, 46% of Oregonians between ages 18–29 say they are not prepared compared to 30% of those ages 65+. Similarly, 50% of Oregonians with incomes less than $50k are unprepared versus 24% with incomes above $100k.

Many Oregonians expect to need help in the coming days.

• 41% may need help paying for basics needs like food, medicine and utilities

• 36% may need help paying for their rent or mortgage

• 35% may need help getting to the store

• 29% may need help getting to medical appointments

• 28% may need help picking up prescription drugs

22% of Oregonians say that the news coverage of coronavirus has been exaggerated, while 24% think that is has been underestimated.

Views on this vary by political party. Just 10% of Democrats feel that the news coverage has been exaggerated compared to 37% of Republicans and 24% of non-affiliated and other party voters.

The vast majority of Oregonians (82%) say that they know where to find credible information about coronavirus.

While a majority of all demographic groups say that they know where to find credible information, younger Oregonians and those with less education are less confident. 69% of Oregonians between the ages 18– 29 report knowing where to find credible information versus 93% of those ages 65+. Likewise, fewer people with a high school degree or less (73%) know where to find credible information compared to 90% of those with a college degree.

Many Oregonians are changing how closely they are following the news, or turning the news off, because of coronavirus.

Nearly two-thirds (64%) of Oregonians say that they have spent more time paying attention to the news to keep up with developments about coronavirus, while 24% have stopped paying attention to the news because of anxiety about it.

Most Oregonians say that they know what key terms, like social distancing, mean. But a consequential minority are unsure.

The survey asked Oregonians if they know what the following terms mean:

• Social distancing: 88% yes; 10% maybe; 2% no

• Quarantine: 87% yes; 11% maybe; 2% no

• Self-isolation: 84% yes; 13% maybe; 3% no

• Shelter in place: 76% yes; 19% maybe; 5% no

Young people say that they are more concerned about coronavirus than others.

The survey asked Oregonians if they are concerned more about coronavirus, less or about the same as others in their life. Overall, 20% said that are more concerned, 23% less, and 51% the same. However, 29% of 18-29 years old report having a greater level of concern, while only 11% of those ages 65+ feel that way.

Democrats (22%) also report having more concern than Republicans (11%).

Oregonians believe that problems associated with coronavirus will continue to get worse for at least another month.

The survey asked Oregonians if the problems associated with coronavirus will be better, worse or about the same in one week, one month, six months, 12 months and 18 months.

• One week: 12% better; 76% worse

• One month: 39% better; 51% worse

• Six months: 74% better; 14% worse

• 12 months: 76% better; 11% worse

• 18 months: 75% better; 10% worse

President Trump and Governor Brown get mixed reviews for their handling of coronavirus, largely driven by partisan differences.

42% of Oregonians approve of how President Trump has managed coronavirus, while 52% disapprove (and 40% “strongly” disapprove). By party, 78% of Republicans approve of his job performance, while just 12% of Democrats and 45% of non-affiliated and other party voters approve.

A majority (55%) of Oregonians approve of how Governor Brown has managed coronavirus, while 38% disapprove. Opinions about Brown’s job performance are less intense than those of President Trump. Just 18% of Oregonians “strongly” disapprove of her management. By party, 75% of Democrats approve of her job performance versus 31% of Republicans and 52% of non-affiliated and other voters.

Don't fall for Trump's latest coronavirus B.S.

A bullshit detector should be mandatory equipment for everyone who watches Trump's coronavirus press conferences, which was held today in the White House Rose Garden for some reason (maybe so the roses could be fertilized by the crap that came out of Trump's mouth).

It's difficult for me to pick the most disturbing thing Trump said today, given how many candidates there are.

But I'll start with what irked me the most: Trump's repeated claim that if there are only 100,000 to 200,000 coronavirus deaths in the United States, that's a good thing, a success, because supposedly there could have been 2.2 million deaths if the United States had done nothing to stop the pandemic. 

That figure of 2.2 million came from a study conducted by the Imperial College in London. The shocking number reportedly helped lead the White House to strengthen its social distancing efforts, which was a good thing. But Dr. Birx, the White House's coronavirus coordinator, has said that data doesn't support the estimate of 2.2 million deaths from an unchecked outbreak.

Nonetheless, at today's press conference Trump seized on the 2.2 million figure as evidence that 100,000 or 200,000 deaths in this country would be a great success, because even the Idiot-in-Chief knows that 200,000 is a lot less than 2.2 million.

Well, try telling that to the families of the 200,000 dead Americans. Or to the soon-to-be dead people themselves. Are they supposed to be saying "You're doing a great job, Mr. President," as the sycophants Trump surrounds himself with at the press conferences repeat ad nauseam?

Remember, Trump is the guy who said not long ago, when there were 15 cases of coronavirus in the United States, that soon the number would be zero. Earth to Trump: the number now is 141,096 with at least 2,469 deaths. (OK, that's actually New York Times to Trump.)

So Trump isn't exactly a great public health expert. If he was, in February he wouldn't have sent 35 tons of personal protection equipment (PPE) to China even though real experts were warning that the coronavirus was coming to the United States. Now all that PPE is desperately needed by medical personnel in this country.

This Financial Times graphic shows that currently the United States (red line) is on the track where coronavirus deaths double every three days. Which means, if that trend continues, that in 18 days, the week after Easter, our country would have 160,000 deaths.

If anybody thinks that would be a success for Trump, they're like the diehard Trump supporter who I de-friended on Facebook today after she downplayed an earlier version of this chart that I shared in a Facebook post. Facts don't lie, but Trump does, and his supporters let him get away with it.

I told this person that I have zero tolerance for anyone who ignores the reality of the horrible tragedy that is unfolding both in our country and around the world. I can't stop Trump from spreading his B.S. in his press conferences, but I can do my best to stand up for public health truth in my personal life.

Yes, it's good that today Trump backed off his goal of "opening the country up for business" by Easter, now saying that it could be June before this happens. But he only did this because the coronavirus crisis is something that Trump can't lie his way out of, like he does with everything else.

People are getting sick. People are dying. Many more people are going to get sick. Many more people are going to die. 

But today Trump used his very limited brain power to insult reporters and make wild accusations about a hospital in New York City somehow not needing hundreds of thousands of masks because... he didn't say, just that someone should look into why the hospital says it needs that many now, when before they only needed 10,000 masks.

New York magazine says:

The Trump administration dithered as the coronavirus swept the planet, and because of its delay, has had to scramble to provide hospitals with the equipment they need to save lives and protect patients and health care workers, such as face masks and ventilators. State officials, doctors, and nurses have been pleading for more of both. Trump suggested on Sundaythat hospitals have been hoarding ventilators and that something more nefarious may be afoot when it comes to their mask supplies.

Trump noted suspiciously that hospitals are now asking for many more masks than they used to, before the coronavirus appeared. “How do you go from [10,000] to 20,000 masks [prior to the pandemic] — to 300,000…” he said, “Something’s going on. And you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door? … And we have that happening in numerous places.”

“I don’t think it’s hoarding,” he later added, “I think maybe it’s worse than hoarding.”

Trump provided no evidence to support this accusation. It is true that some people have been stealing masks and other medical supplies from hospitals, but Trump’s insinuation that theft is to blame for hospital mask shortages during this pandemic, at a time when hundreds of hospitals across the country — and countries across the world — are all begging for more masks, is insane.

Yes, insane. That's Trump, an unstable insane person who, sadly, is in charge of the federal government until he gets kicked out of office this November for gross incompetence. 

City of Salem giving out parking tickets in a deserted downtown

Well, at least the City of Salem is heeding Trump's call for business as usual during the coronavirus crisis. Parking tickets are still being given out in the downtown area, even though spaces are plentiful now and visitors are few.

This evening downtown resident and property owner Carole Smith let me know about this dubious policy. Here's what Smith said, along with three photos she took today during the lunch hour, which, as she says below, usually is the busiest time for downtown.

Last week I ran into a parking services officer downtown and I asked him “You aren’t giving out parking tickets, are you?” He said “No, the city is paying us to walk around all day." 

Today a friend talked to a parking services officer and she said they WERE giving out parking tickets. What an awful city.  Parking limits are suppose to be implemented to TURN OVER PARKING SPACES. It is not supposed to be a revenue source for the city. It is ONLY about parking management, not revenue.

I was out for a walk today and took some photos of parking downtown. You can park wherever you want. There are open parking spaces everywhere. Most stores have been closed for a week or more. So why is the city issuing parking tickets? Is it just meanness?  

Bad city, bad greedy city! This is the busiest corner in downtown and NOBODY is here.  

Lullu closed two weeks ago. The barber shop closed down about a week ago. We are working with our tenants, putting them on 1/2 rent to defer rent to the future. We are ALL losing money, so why is the city still issuing tickets?

These photos were taken at 12:35 pm today, during lunch hour, normally the BUSIEST time of the day for parking downtown.

Trump wants people to die so he can be re-elected

I can't believe how many times I've said, "Trump can't do anything worse than what he did today." But he does. And today was the latest example of appalling worstness.

During the daily White House coronavirus briefing, where Trump hogs the microphone while other officials cower in the background, doing their best to keep a poker face as Trump rambles on semi-coherently, our Idiot-in-Chief announced that he wants to make saving lives a distant second priority to resuming business as usual by the end of March.

Why? Well, because he doesn't want the country to be in a recession, or even depression, when the 2020 presidential election happens in November. 

A Politico story about this has a right-on headline: 'Way too early': Health officials warn about perils of restarting economy. Here's how it starts out.

Rattled health officials are trying to fight off ascendant voices around Donald Trump pressing the president to restart the economy as soon as Monday to stem severe business and job losses.

The prospect of resuming typical business so soon has horrified these public health leaders, who see the debate as premature amid a crisis that the administration is just beginning to wrangle, according to eight people with knowledge of the administration's discussions about its coronavirus guidelines.

Health experts are contending the fallout will be worse if the White House declares victory now, only to have the virus resurface weeks or months from now. The government, they argue, has yet to definitively answer key questions that would dictate how to reactivate the economy: Do those who recover from coronavirus become immune? How do underlying health conditions affect the severity of the virus? And, most important, how widely has it spread?

Others have stressed the political risks facing Trump and his reelection campaign if the outbreak worsens significantly, warning that it would be catastrophic if the virus made a comeback closer to the November election — especially after Trump declared himself a “wartime” president and assured the public that his administration was in control.

“It is way too early to even consider rolling back any guidelines," said Howard Koh, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and former top Obama administration public health official. “With cases and deaths rising by the day, the country must double down, not lighten up, on social distancing and related measures.”

It was clear to me that what Trump wants to do is have states feel free to relax restrictions on social distancing and business closures, since he seems to believe that it is only New York, New Jersey, California, and Washington state that have large numbers of COVID-19 cases. 

But a Bloomberg map shows how untrue this is. Florida, Louisiana, and Michigan all have over a thousand confirmed cases, and that number likely is going to rise markedly over the next few weeks -- as it will in most places around the country.

Also, keep in mind that it wasn't that long ago that the United States had 15 cases, which led Trump to say that the number would go down to zero soon. As of today there are over 42,000 cases. So Trump has zero credibility as a public health prognosticator.

Here's some of the tweets that were in my Twitter feed this afternoon. I've added in a bit of commentary after each one.

I totally agree with Ari Berman. In today's White House briefing a reporter asked if any of Trump's health experts agreed with his intention to roll back social distancing recommendations in order to supposedly spur the economy. Trump side-stepped the question somewhat, but the answer clearly was "No." Which is so freaking scary.

Nice ironic tweet, Jason Gilbert. 

David Atkins gets it exactly right. The economy will be much better off if the coronavirus outbreak is brought under control by strict social distancing measures over the next few months, as compared to allowing cases and deaths to keep on rising for a much longer time.

Good point, Michelangelo Signorile. This tweet made a feel a bit better. And pleased that I live in Oregon, where Governor Brown is taking the coronavirus outbreak seriously.Wow. Thanks, Andrew Lawrence, for sharing this astounding sentiment by the Texas lieutenant governor. Actually, I'm a grandparent, and there's no way I want to die so my granddaughter can have a better economy. Plus, I'm 100% certain that my granddaughter feels the same way.

Hopefully Trump will realize that sacrificing seniors isn't a good way to win re-election, since they are a large share of his base. And the Fox News audience.

I also hope, while realizing this is unlikely to happen, that Trump will change his mind and start listening to the doctors on his team about the need to preserve social distancing and selected business shutdowns for as long as it takes to start bringing the coronavirus outbreak in this country under control.

Experts agree: Trump horribly mismanaged the U.S. COVID-19 disaster

Two days ago my daughter lost her job as sales manager for a small business in southern California. She's shocked.

Her company's financial problems arrived very suddenly because of the COVID-19 outbreak. As I described in a previous blog post, with no retail outlets being open, with the companies that owe them money being unable to pay, and with them being unable to pay their suppliers, every employee has been furloughed.

I blame Donald Trump. For good reason.

Trump is why the United States is facing a massive disaster. Lots of sickness and deaths. Economic recession, if not depression. Shortages of all kinds of stuff, including the personal protective equipment needed to keep our heroic health professionals from contacting the coronavirus themselves. 

At first I was tempted to write a post about Trump's failure to manage the COVID-19 outbreak that was filled with profanities. That's how upset I am about the damage our Idiot-in-Chief has done to this country. 

My daughter's travails, though serious, pale in comparison to what millions of other people are going to have to endure. Her husband still has a job. Their family finances are fairly sound. Today she told me that if they stick to buying basics, they should be fine. There's a chance her company could get back in business if things improve by next September.

So my outrage at Trump is based on concerns that go way beyond how my wife and I, along with my daughter's family, have been affected. I'll never forgive Trump for making a bad pandemic situation so much worse than it needed to be.

But rather than rant more about this from my personal perspective, I'm going to quote two health experts.

First, here's some quotations from a piece dated today in The New Yorker, "The Coronavirus and Building a Better Strategy for Fighting Pandemics." I've highlighted some notable quotes in red.

I recently spoke by phone with Dr. Ashish Jha, a physician and the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, who has been tracking the coronavirus story closely over the past couple months. He has been especially outspoken about the Trump Administration’s slow response to the threat and also the scandalously slow pace of testing in the United States.

...You recently told Bloomberg News, “We’re so far behind this thing at this point. And the reason we’re so far behind is because we’ve had so little testing. This is such a rapidly moving infection that losing a few days is bad, and losing a couple of weeks is terrible. Losing 2 months is close to disastrous, and that’s what we did.” Can you explain the scenario where we have more testing starting two months ago, and what you think that would look like today?

Oh, my God, if we had got on top of this thing two months ago, America would look very, very different. So, let’s walk through that scenario. Imagine that when the W.H.O. put out its test kit [in January] we either took it or built an effective test ourselves.

We would have then ramped up those tests. The data by late January was very clear that we were going to see a lot of these infections in the United States, and, actually, we had started seeing the first cases from travellers from China. We would have started testing people who had symptoms.

Initially, it was the travellers, because that is how it got introduced. We would have isolated those people. We would have had contact tracing, which is really critical. Everyone that had been in touch with them would have been monitored, and any of them that showed symptoms would have been tested.

If we had done that extensively across the United States, I believe we would have got on top of this infection. We wouldn’t have broad community spread the way we do right now, and I don’t know that we would have a lockdown right now.

I could imagine in some communities the infection might have got a little out of control, and you would close schools and businesses for a couple of weeks, but where we are right now, with this broad, almost national—should be national—shutdown, it’s all because we let this infection get ahead of us.

And what it would have taken to be on top of it was literally what we learned in first-year public-health programs about how you deal with outbreaks. It’s what we have done for hundreds of years, which is identify people infected, trace their contacts, monitor them, test them, and isolate whichever ones are positive. It’s a little chain.

It’s a standard thing. It is what South Korea did. It is what Singapore did. It is what Taiwan did. And they are not out of the woods. But they have not had to shut down their schools or do the kinds of extreme things we have had to do because we haven’t done testing. I think what your readers need to know is that we are in this position today because we wasted two months not getting an infrastructure together for testing Americans who need to be identified with having covid-19.

And here's some passages from a WIRED piece dated yesterday, "The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains Whats Coming." Again, I've highlighted in red some significant quotes.

LARRY BRILLIANT SAYS he doesn’t have a crystal ball. But 14 years ago, Brilliant, the epidemiologist who helped eradicate smallpox, spoke to a TED audience and described what the next pandemic would look like.

...People say Contagion is prescient. We just saw the science. The whole epidemiological community has been warning everybody for the past 10 or 15 years that it wasn't a question of whether we were going to have a pandemic like this. It was simply when. It's really hard to get people to listen.

I mean, Trump pushed out the admiral on the National Security Council, who was the only person at that level who's responsible for pandemic defense. With him went his entire downline of employees and staff and relationships. And then Trump removed the [early warning] funding for countries around the world.

...We are being asked to do things, certainly, that never happened in my lifetime—stay in the house, stay 6 feet away from other people, don’t go to group gatherings. Are we getting the right advice?

Well, as you reach me, I'm pretending that I'm in a meditation retreat, but I'm actually being semi-quarantined in Marin County. Yes, this is very good advice.

But did we get good advice from the president of the United States for the first 12 weeks? No. All we got were lies. Saying it’s fake, by saying this is a Democratic hoax. There are still people today who believe that, to their detriment. Speaking as a public health person, this is the most irresponsible act of an elected official that I've ever witnessed in my lifetime.

But what you're hearing now [to self-isolate, close schools, cancel events] is right. Is it going to protect us completely? Is it going to make the world safe forever? No. It's a great thing because we want to spread out the disease over time.

Progressive policies will win the war against COVID-19

Have you tried to buy toilet paper? Good luck with that. There isn't any available.

Here in Salem, Oregon, a friend reported there's none at Costco today. The shelves were bare at several grocery stores I went to this week. Amazon has none, aside from a bunch of ripoffs trying to get people to buy masqueraded paper towels with a cautionary notice: "Don't worry if this product doesn't fit on your usual toilet paper dispenser."

Of course it won't! It's a freaking paper towel! That's the free market at work. Or rather, not working. 

Sure, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, these are unusual times. But what we're seeing are fundamental conservative principles being tossed aside because... they don't work. If conservatism is the answer to making societies function well, then why are progressive policies being embraced by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress these days?

Massive government spending to stimulate the economy 
Reliance on government public health experts
Government mandated paid sick leave for workers
Government loans for small businesses
Direct government cash payments to every family

More examples could be given, but you get the picture. Government is the common denominator in almost all of the policies being used to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and keep the United States economy from sinking into a depression.

Problem is, Trump has spent the past three years decimating government programs that now are key to keeping Americans alive and well. And his instinctual distrust of international collaboration made him refuse the World Health Organization COVID-19 test kits that were ready to go early on in the coronavirus outbreak.

That delay in testing is the main reason the United States now faces a massive increase in COVID-19 cases. A Democratic president would have been eager to accept the help of the World Health Organization, which is-- horror of horrors, to conservatives -- a United Nations organization.  

What's been painfully apparent is that Trump hates the government that he is the head of. He's spent three-plus years denigrating the "deep state," which is nothing other than skilled government employees. Now he needs them to fight the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.

Totally unsurprisingly, the mismatch has led to a horribly bungled response that will lead to many lives being lost that could have been saved if we'd had a progressive president in the White House.

Americans aren't happy with how the Trump administration has been handling the COVID-19 pandemic. A recent poll found that 53% aren't satisfied with the U.S. government's current response to the coronavirus outbreak, with 39% not satisfied at all and 14% not very satisfied.

Only Republicans are satisfied with the federal government's response, with most Democrats and Independents decidedly unsatisfied. This bodes well for progressive victories in the 2020 election. A majority of Americans realize how important it is for the federal government to be firing on all cylinders in the war against COVID-19, and are unhappy that this isn't happening.

My fear, though, is that Trump will use this national public health emergency as a reason to delay the November election, especially if, as is likely, it looks like he will lose to Joe Biden. That could, and should, lead to massive protests.

Sure, we aren't supposed to congregate in large groups, and are supposed to stay at least six feet apart from other people. But if Trump tries to subvert our democracy by cancelling the 2020 election, I'd be pleased to risk getting COVID-19 by taking to the streets with fellow outraged citizens.

I'm confident that voters will choose progressives over conservatives in a fair and open election. Hopefully that's what will happen this fall. Trump's dream of a second term will be deflated with a resounding POP!

 

My daughter clues me in to why small businesses need help fast

Last night I enjoyed talking with my daughter by phone. Except when I didn't. Which was when she gave me a disturbing rundown of the challenges the small company she works for faces because of the worldwide coronavirus outbreak. 

She and her family live in southern California. Her company (she's the sales director) makes a product that is sold in retail outlets in the United States and other countries, almost all of which aren't owned by the company. 

But the dynamics she described to me must apply to huge numbers of small businesses all across the United States, notably including restaurants, since a number of states (including Oregon, where I live) have banned selling all but take-out food.

A few months ago sales for her company were great, she told me. The future looked rosy. Sure, they'd been concerned about the coronavirus cases in China, and then in Europe, but alarm bells didn't ring with full force until recently.

Yesterday she spent much of the day taking calls from retailers that had bought her company's product. The message was, "We aren't going to be able to pay you what we owe." For sure not now. Maybe not ever. And with many fewer people getting out to shop, along with some malls closing entirely, sales projections look dismal.

Unless something changes the company is heading toward laying off half of its employees. Even worse, there's a chance the company may not even survive, though it has been in business for about thirteen years. 

I was shocked. 

I hadn't fully realized how many small businesses basically exist month by month, lacking enough reserves to get them through months of a unusually severe financial shock like what's been caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 

Her boss has checked into getting a loan to tide them over until sales pick up again. However, the initial response from their bank wasn't very encouraging. 

This is why Congress and the rest of the federal government need to act fast to provide financial assistance to small businesses. A CNBC story on this subject is encouraging, but I'm worried that what's being planned could be too little, too late.

President Donald Trump and Capitol Hill are working on multiple fronts to make sure the U.S. Small Business Administration has the ability to offer small business owners across the U.S. as much as $50 billion in loans to stay afloat during the widening economic shutdown caused by the coronavirus. One huge issue goes beyond the money: The SBA has never faced a challenge of this magnitude in working with lenders to grant loans.

...In its more general lending program, known as 7(a) loans, the SBA has averaged 50,000 loans a year and $30 billion.

Now if it’s to keep America’s small businesses from ruin, the SBA and its private-sector lending partners will be tasked with getting out to entrepreneurs almost double that annual loan amount, and in a fraction of the time.

“Almost twice the number of dollars in half the time,” Hurn said.

And even $50 billion may fall far short of what is truly needed.

There are roughly 7 million business within the small and mid-sized sector in the country with employees (meaning not sole proprietorships). If the SBA and its lending partners provided $1 million loans on average up to $50 billion, that would help 50,000 companies.

My daughter and I agreed that while some assistance to large companies may be needed, small businesses should be the main focus of efforts to prop up the United States economy, along with direct assistance to individuals. 

The cruise ship industry, for example, should be allowed to go under.

Those ships are floating disease incubators in the best of times. I can't see any real societal benefit to helping them stay in business. Airlines deserve some help, probably. But they are better suited than small businesses to weather the financial disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

Here's another excerpt from the CNBC story. 

According to a National Small Business Association survey of its members conducted last week, 3 in 4 small business owners say they are very concerned about the economic impact of COVID-19, and nearly half have already experienced reduced customer demand for their products and services.

More than half are now anticipating a recession in the coming 12 months compared with just 14% in January. Thirty-eight percent say they are not confident in the financial future of their business compared with just 15% in January.

“We’ve got to triage this,” Hurn said. “If the business was thriving until mid-February and it’s fallen off a cliff, and there are a lot of them, with 20-30-40-50 employees, they won’t have the reserves to make payroll,” Hurn said. “Those are the people we can help.”

Salem's city officials need to WAKE UP about COVID-19 danger

I'll be blunt and red flag colorful.

People are going to die if Salem's Mayor, City Manager, and City Councilors don't freaking WAKE UP about the danger COVID-19 poses to everybody in our city, but especially to those who are over 60 and those with underlying medical conditions.

With St. Patrick's Day coming up, those city officials need to be screaming from the rooftops of social media, Statesman Journal, Salem Reporter, local radio stations, and Portland TV stations that Salem residents need to stay out of bars, restaurants, and other crowded gathering places until the COVID-19 outbreak has stabilized.

Which will be a while. 

Poltico has a good story about the danger we face because of COVID-19 indifference among young people, and, I'm sure, some older people.

The nation’s top infectious diseases expert has a stern warning to young people: Don’t get complacent about statistics showing that serious coronavirus cases and fatalities are skewed toward the elderly and those with underlying health issues.

“You are not immune or safe from getting seriously ill,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” when asked if younger Americans should be concerned about contracting the virus, which Fauci has repeatedly said is more lethal than the average flu.

...Fauci said it was critical for young people to understand that they can be a carrier for the virus and spread it without showing symptoms or feeling ill themselves.

“Even though you don't get seriously ill, you could bring it to a person who would bring it to a person that would bring it to your grandfather, your grandmother, or your elderly relative,” he argued. “That's why everybody's got to take this seriously, even the young.”

...“I would like to see a dramatic diminution of the personal interaction that we see in restaurants and in bars,” he said. “Whatever it takes to do that, that's what I would like to see.”

Well, Salem's Mayor, City Manager, and City Councilors could get off their asses and start the above-mentioned screaming from the rooftops about not congregating in crowded places like bars and restaurants where you can't stay at least six feet from other people.

This is personal for me.

My wife, Laurel, and I are over 70, as are most of our friends. Laurel has asthma, so likely would suffer more if she was infected with COVID-19, or coronavirus. The more people there are wandering around Salem who have COVID-19, even if they aren't showing symptoms, the more likely the disease will spread rapidly.

The time to work to dramatically slow the spread is NOW. So where's the leadership at the City of Salem? Very difficult to see, as a good Salem Breakfast of Bikes post talks about today. 

This weekend has seemed like it might be a critical one for reducing the transmission of the coronavirus and the incidence of full-blown COVID-19. It has been dismaying to read accounts of St. Patrick's Day weekend revelry, of long brunch lines, and of crowded airports.

Locally, the City still likely deferred too much to the State guidelines, which have seemed tentative and behind the best information from Italy, Spain, and France, even Seattle, and did not recommend or even demand stronger measures. People in Europe are the proverbial "travelers from the future," begging and imploring for us to take stronger measures before it's too late. There is increasing evidence of asymptomatic transmission, and so without large-scale testing, we should be assuming that there are many more cases here than we know about.

At this point the problem is really about community capacity and slowing transmission, since it seems likely many, perhaps even most, of us will come to be infected over the next several months.

UPDATE: This tweet expresses my feelings exactly.

 

Salem Chamber of Commerce apparently trying to hide $25,000 in PAC money

In tonight's blog post I planned to focus on the curious case of Brad Nanke suddenly deciding that he wanted to run again to be the Ward 3 city councilor, even though back in September of last year he told the Statesman Journal that he wouldn't seek reelection in 2020. 

Salem City Councilor Brad Nanke will not seek reelection in 2020, planning to cap a nearly two-decade run representing southeast Salem after his term concludes.

Nanke, in his fifth term on the council, has more than a year left to influence policy: His current term ends Dec. 31, 2020.

"Five is enough," he told the Statesman Journal on Thursday.

But an update to a Salem Reporter story by Saphara Harrell about who has filed to run in local races shows that at the last minute, Nanke changed his mind under pressure from somebody.

Trevor Phillips, a Salem Health emergency room doctor, is running against Brad Nanke for the ward that represents south and southeast Salem. Nanke, who has been a councilor for nearly two decades, gathered enough signatures to get on the ballot on Tuesday, March 10. When reached Monday, Nanke said he was pressured to run again.

Interesting.

My strong suspicion is that the Salem Chamber of Commerce, along with the Oregon Home Builders Association and Home Builders Association of Marion & Polk Counties, was part of the pressure. After all, Nanke works for the home builders associations, according to the Statesman Journal story.

He said he doesn't have any future political plans at the moment, but left the door open for future political involvement after he retires. Nanke works with the Oregon Home Builders Association and the Home Builders Association of Marion & Polk Counties.

Well, Trevor Phillips, Nanke's opponent in the Ward 3 race, shouldn't be shy about pointing out to voters that for six months Nanke showed no interest in running for another city council term. Then he did, under pressure. This doesn't show much commitment to representing the people who live in Ward 3.

What it shows is commitment to whoever pressured him to run again. Which likely wasn't his wife, as the September 2019 Statesman Journal story indicated.

In an interview, he said he likes to tell his wife, Denise, the dishes have been building up in the sink for 19 years, and he needs to take care of them.

..."It'd be nice to spend some time with the family,” Nanke said Thursday. He said he'd like to see his wife more often, and his son is getting married.

It's an open secret that the Salem Chamber of Commerce and related business groups is desperate for conservatives like Nanke to take back control of the City Council, which currently has a 6-3 progressive majority on the nine member council (eight councilors plus the Mayor).

So here's what's turned out to be the headline of this blog post rather than Nanke deciding to seek reelection: the Chamber of Commerce sure seems to be trying to hide a $25,000 contribution to its Create Jobs PAC from Mountain West Investment Corporation, a major builder based in Salem.

Last month someone alerted me to the contribution, sending along a screenshot of the transaction on the ORESTAR reporting system.

This person thought it was curious that the $25,000 Mountain West Investment contribution was made to the Create Jobs PAC, since the Salem Chamber of Commerce had been promoting a different PAC, the Build Jobs PAC, on its website.

Well, when I searched ORESTAR this evening for either the Create Jobs PAC or the Build Jobs PAC, neither PAC turned up. But using my blogger instinct, I typed in "Build Jobs" without the "PAC."

What turned up was a new Chamber of Commerce PAC, the Build Jobs Coalition. Its effective date was February 25, 2020.

And where did the Create Jobs Coalition get almost all of its money? Why, from the Create Jobs PAC -- namely, the $25,000 Mountain West Investment contribution that would have been completely disguised absent the screenshot I got, because according to ORESTAR the Chamber has shut down both the Create Jobs PAC and the Build Jobs PAC.

Now, I said in the title of this blog post that the Chamber is apparently trying to hide the $25,000 from Mountain West Investment. I used that word only because I can't be sure about the motivation of the Chamber of Commerce.

Maybe it just was a coincidence that a month after the $25,000 contribution was made to the Create Jobs PAC, the Chamber siphoned that money into a new PAC, then shut down the Create Jobs PAC, thereby making it very difficult for anyone to trace the source of the $25,000.

Maybe. But I doubt it. 

My suspicion is that Brad Nanke's decision to seek reelection as the Ward 3 city councilor is linked to the $25,000 Mountain West Investment contribution. We know from the Salem Reporter story that Nanke was "pressured to run again." Some of that pressure may have included a commitment by the Chamber of Commerce to fund his campaign in a substantial way.

Currently Nanke doesn't have a election committee. At least, I wasn't able to find one on the ORESTAR system. So we'll have to wait and see if a donation is made to Nanke's reelection campaign by the Chamber's Create Jobs Coalition. If so, it will be clear that this money, in effect, came from Mountain West Investment.

Thus if this happens, Nanke, who works for two home builders associations, will have his campaign funded in large part by Salem's largest builder. Not a good look, for sure.