The Trump Miracle Cure, the VP’s Fly, and Climate Change
CNN’s fascination with the VP debate overlooked the Miracle of the Coronavirus Cure. Trump seems to have said that God gave him the COVID-19 infection so that he could discover and prove the Miracle cure, Regeneron’s REGN-Cov2. “It was a blessing from God.” This was a claim of Biblical Proportions, Lenny, that affects millions of voters (Ghostbusters). I guess the virologists at Regeneron who created it, and volunteers actually involved in a scientific test of it, don’t count. I had stopped commenting on Trump’s presumed mental condition, since I am not a psychiatrist. But many have wondered what Trump would look like on steroids, and this was actually it. So God and Miracles, does he want to become the next Pope if he is not reelected? By the way, Trump invested 450 million federal dollars of our money in Regeneron to manufacture this drug. Trump used to own stock in the company, run by a friend of his. No wonder he is pushing it. There are 70 other companies developing monoclonal antibodies to the Coronavirus. Update, next day: Regeneron has applied for EUA, Emergency Use Authorization.
“As a leader, I had to do it.” Nobody mentioned that 24 people, so far, in Trump’s orbit also had to get sick in this exercise. Unfortunately, the White House isn’t doing any contact tracing to allow those who are infected but pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic to isolate so that they do not infect anybody else, except for those who work in the White House. The NY Times is trying to identify everybody in the Saturday, September 26, Barrett infectorama audience, probably to contact them about any illness. As of tonight, the exponentially growing Coronavirus breakout has reached 24 people, and caused the Joint Chiefs to quarantine. The officer who runs with the nuclear football is one of those infected.
A real miracle occurred at the VP debate. Despite dragging out every redirected answer, VP Pence only had almost exactly the same airtime as California Senator and Democratic VP Candidate, Kamala Harris. Pence showed that he is just as good as Trump at dodging questions, lying, interrupting, and counter attacking while changing the subject. Master Trump has taught you well, Luke, er, Mike.
But to some, the debate was upstaged by The Fly, which landed on Pence’s perfect white hair, for two minutes. After some reflection, I realized something was out of kilter. As an ex Rocky Mountain trout fly fisherman, I know that flies hatch at good fishing times. They also bring the fish up. But wait, Salt Lake City is at 4,200 feet, surrounded by famous skiing resorts and mountains. By the second week in October, fishing is usually over, due to the snow starting. This Fly must mean that summer has been drawn out, evidence of Climate Change. Sure enough, the high temperature in Salt Lake City today was 83 degrees.
VP Pence waffled the question of Climate Change, saying something about the uncertain science. This, when the story yesterday was that the Trump Administration was delaying the preparation of the Fifth National Climate Assessment for 2022, which takes two years to prepare, and is required by Congress every four years. With a record number of Atlantic storms, going into the Greek alphabet for enumeration, and a record number of landfalls, and storms superheating to Category 4 in 27 hours, do we really need a climate report?
For over a month, we have have not had breathable air in California, with a record 5 million acres burned, many started by a 14,000 Lightning strike storm, and an extra long fire season. That is 8,000 square miles burned. Like an 80 miles times 100 mile area. 150 million trees have died in California due to drought and the pine bark beetles not being frozen to death in the winter. These are giant dead pine trees, still standing, and unmovable by a rake. California has been in a drought forever. Every year in California is another among the top hottest years. The Southwest has been under an historic heat wave all summer.
The Fly was a sign, and it picked the hardest head to try to convince of Climate Change. Pence said that they would follow the signs. It was a sign that we all saw, but which nobody understood. In ancient Pantheistic religions, locusts, birds, beetles, lightning, storms, floods, and fires were signs of our fate. They and flies still are.
(Disclaimer: actually, I have no idea what fly fishing is like in October. The Aspen Center for Physics closed its Summer Program at the end of September, and I had to get home to teach. But its a good story, despite the fly in the ointment. By coincidence, I am about to Zoom to the Snowmass 2020 Conference, to plan the next decade of high energy physics, another way that I used to get to Aspen.)
