Up To Date with Ethan Callender Entry 1: COVID For Business

Up to Date With Ethan Callender Entry 1: COVID for Business

Welcome to Up To Date with Ethan Callender. If you came here for political hot takes, that’s great! If you came here for social spit takes, that’s also great! If you came to read serious descriptions of the news, you’re s*** out of luck. The news is real, sure, but our team aims to deliver it in the most humorous way possible. But that’s enough about me. It’s time to get started.

COVID-19 has been raging around the world for all of 2020 up to this point. However, the worst effects have been felt in the United States. Over a hundred thousand Americans are dead from this virus, with millions of survivors as well. However, even some of them are permanently damaged in various organs, such as the heart and the lungs. With all this going on, you think Americans would come together, put aside their differences, and not be partisan and über-political for once. That didn’t happen. America made a global pandemic a political squabble, and we are now a laughingstock in the eyes of the world. Where did things go wrong, and how can the ship of state not become the next Titanic?

Well, things first went wrong at the very beginning of this pandemic, and the problem began at the very top. According to this extensive Vox timeline, the first time Trump downplayed the virus was back in late February of this year, repeatedly saying that it was under control. Given the situation just a few weeks later, I’d say that claim didn’t hold up well. Then, on February 27 and 28, the tone was set for Trump’s response to COVID-19. That response was to claim that the Democrats were politicizing it and that everything would be alright. He also propped up the stock market, which would soon have a very rough month. That was a thing.

Then, s*** hit the fan in March, and by the end of that month, a majority of states had issued stay-at-home orders. The economic consequences of this were, to put it mildly, terrible. The unemployment rating spiked up above 20%, but has since fallen. Of course, it also reduced the spread of the virus, and things slowly got mildly better for most of the country over the next month or so. And then, somebody decided to protest about not being able to get a haircut. The reopening movement spread like wildfire after this, forcing governors’ hands into allowing a premature re-opening phase in June and July. Sure, the statistics were favorable to limited reopening, but not what states like Florida, California or Texas did. For them, this re-opening has been a fiasco. 

In fact, According to health news site Stat News, if the US did exactly what Australia, Singapore, or South Korea did to curb the virus, 99% of our deaths could have been avoided. What Australia did involved efficient and large-scale testing as well as a leader who wasn’t touting unproven drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and telling his people to inject bleach. So, everything we didn’t do, basically. Whatever happened to Just Say No? Whatever happened to fighting public health threats? Whatever happened with our leaders? Well, seeing as the GOP might as well rename themselves The Trump Imperial Ass-Kissers (you know, like a really pathetic sports team), there has been a surprising amount of pure incompetence and possible negligence from the political class, regardless of party. Looking at you, Governor Gavin Newsom of California.

If more Americans can start to understand the importance of thinking about things other than themselves, the masks will be worn and the virus will fade. Unfortunately, due to pathetic leadership and an outright selfish culture, America unintentionally threw itself to the wolves. We will recover from this mauling, I can tell you that. However, the road to a new normal will be far longer and more difficult than it needed to be.