HEROES OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

While heroes abound during this pandemic, here are some obvious villains:

• SARS-CoV-2 is the name of the virus causing the disease, COVID-19.

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  China:  after all, it started there, and they initially tried to keep it under wraps.  While still controversial, speculation indicates that the 1918 Spanish Flu also originated in China.  But this was the H1N1 virus, which is linked to pigs.  This virus also caused the next most recent pandemic in 2009-10, called the Swine Flu, which first began in Mexico.

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  President Donald Trump.  If he took any kind of precaution to combat this pandemic by using the Defense Production Act to first focus on rapid tests and personal protective equipment, and promote mask-wearing, you wonder if the USA could have gone the way of South Korea.  Both nations experienced its first COVID-19 death at the same time.  Trump is also responsible for the attitudes expressed by Republican governors and congresspeople.

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  Scott Atlas, coronavirus advisor to Donald Trump.  He came from Stanford's Hoover Institute.  But you need to appreciate the situation there.  The campus is as liberal as you can get.  The Hoover Institute is a long-time conservative bastion of historic value and balance.

The heroes of this pandemic are the frontline workers, particularly those who toiled in hospitals.  Some of them were at an age where the mortality rate was high.  Yet they went to work anyway, spending long hours, wearing masks and other protective equipment, all day, then returning home, fearful of spreading this dreaded virus at home.

Let me here give Donald Trump some credit, for he signed off on Operation Warp Speed, which succeeded in developing several vaccines which appear to show good promise.  Thus another group of heroes are the scientists and their staff for accomplishing this task.  Of special note is Moncef Slaoui for leading this effort.

Fortune magazine ranks the 25 most influential heroes:

• #1  Li Wenliang:  this doctor from Wuhan China was the first to sound the alarm on 30 December 2019, but was silenced by the government, only to himself becoming a COVID-19 patient, passing away on February 7 at the age of 33.  By early June five more Wuhan doctors succumbed to this virus.

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  #2  Chris Gregoire:  a former State of Washington governor, she brought the city of Seattle together and operated a science-based response to help slow the virus spread.

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  #3  Jack Ma:  cofounder of Alibaba (China's Amazon), advocated U.S.-China cooperation, and donated thousands of test kits and a million face masks to the CDC, plus 1,000 ventilators to New York State.  He also way back in April had donated 18 million masks, 3 million test kits and thousands of ventilators to over 100 countries.

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  #5  Anthony Fauci:  became the trusted administrative figure in a White House trying to ignore the pandemic.  How he survived in that environment was a profile in courage.

• #10 Bill Gates:  five years ago Gates warned us to be prepared for a pandemic.  He did by putting money in 2017 behind research that eventually let to eight COVID-19 vaccine candidates.  He also funded public health infrastructure in Africa and South Asia for the onslaught.

You can see the whole list if you wish.  This publication I think came out more than six months ago, so more recently, others have risen.  The majority, however, are unsung, and there will be many more.

The New York Times this morning introduced Ambient TV (ATV), a new concept in watching Netflix/Prime/etc programs.  They say that prestige shows like Mad Men and Game of Thrones are so complex that they demand your attention.  ATV, like Taco Chronicles, Dream Home Makeover and Emily in Paris are fluffy and simple like background music so you can mindlessly watch while doing something else, like household chores.  Said Kevin Fallon in The Daily Beast about Emily in Paris, monotonous, slow and annoying.  I can't wait for more episodes.  I might add:  cute and an attractive travelogue on the safe side of Paris.  It only got 64/60 ratings from Rotten Tomatoes, but it's all in what you're looking for in life.  Taco Chronicles earned 100/94 and Dream Home Makeover, if I read it right, was given a 0% score from audiences.

Song #35 is Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner, composed in 1851, and orchestrated in 1856.  Wagner was controversial in his day, being vocally anti-Jewish.  His works inspired Adolf Hitler, and might have been used in concentration camps to re-educate political prisoners.  Not a popular composer in Israel.

With all that negativity I could have selected his Bridal Chorus, but that would still be honoring someone was not a terrific human being.  You have heard of this tune, for it is also known as Here Comes the Bride.  Usually, this song is paired with Felix Mendelssohn's Wedding March.  Maybe on another day I would have eliminated Wagner from my favorites list.

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