Author: hankkalet
Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.
The Struggle Worsens for those who Struggle in Normal Times
We watch the news: Job losses. Ventilator shortages. Drive-through testing sites at capacity. New York is running out of hospital beds. This is what why public health officials say we need to flatten the curve — to slow the spread of the coronavirus and allow us to provide healthcare without being overwhelmed, which is likely to lead to shortages and rationing. It’s what we’ve witnessed in Italy, and we would be foolish to assume that it can’t happen here.
But we’re healthy. We’re stocked up, prepared for the most part. This is not the case for all. The Times today reports on what it calls the “most vulnerable,” those in refugee camps who have fled war and famine and are packed into camps that lack even the most basic sanitary conditions. “(I)nternational health experts and aid workers,” the Times reports, “are increasingly worried that the virus could ravage the world’s most vulnerable people: the tens of millions forced from their homes by violent conflict.”
South Brunswick Sees More Coronavirus Positives
The number of positive coronavirus tests in South Brunswick has reached 13, with five additional residents being diagnosed today, according to the township Office of Emergency Management.
The five were among the 846 new COVID-19 cases announced earlier today by the state, bringing the state total to 3,675.
Social Darwinism Rears Its Ugly Head
Trump & Co. Look to the Cost-Benefit Analysis to Justify Leaving the Vulnerable to Battle COVID-19 on Their Own
Donald Trump, much of the right, many on Wall Street, and centrists like Thomas L. Friedman are ready for the economy to “return to normal” (whatever that means) at the cost of an untold number of lives.
The New York Times this morning wrote that this group has begun “questioning whether the government had gone too far and should instead lift restrictions that are already inflicting deep pain on workers and businesses.” This is despite a consensus among health officials and scientists that “the best way to defeat the virus is to order nonessential businesses to close and residents to confine themselves at home.”
The argument being made by these folks, bluntly, is that the costs to the economy outweigh the benefits of saving lives.
“We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself,” Trump said during his briefing yesterday, and while he did not say it specifically, it is clear that he has started applying a cost-benefit analysis that privileges capital and the stock market over the lives of Americans, especially those who are most vulnerable.
COVID-19 Cases Continue to Rise in State
The number of cases in the Garden State is approaching 3,000 Gov. Phil Murphy said during today’s daily press briefing, with cases in Middlesex County passing 200.
South Brunswick reported yesterday that a seventh person tested positive in the township, even as residents continue to bunker in in their homes under orders from Murphy.
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