Pat Buchanan has a very thoughtful article today at The American Conservative. In it he reflects on the possible consequences of Covid-19 for the New World Order: Will the Coronavirus Wipe Out the New World Order? We can only wait and see, but even now the consequences appear to be such that change may be inevitable. Here are some extended excerpts:
Dr. Brian Monahan, attending physician of Congress, told a closed-door meeting of Senate staffers this week that 70 million to 150 million Americans—a third of the nation—could contract the coronavirus. Dr. Anthony Fauci testified that the mortality rate for COVID-19 will likely run near 1 percent.
Translation: between 750,000 and 1.1 million Americans may die of this disease before it runs its course. The latter figure is equal to all the U.S. dead in World War II and on both sides in the Civil War.
Chancellor Angela Merkel warns that 70 percent of Germany’s population—58 million people—could contract the coronavirus. If she is right, and Fauci’s mortality rate holds for her country, that could mean more than half a million dead Germans.
... Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch seemed to support Merkel, saying between 40 percent and 70 percent of the world’s population could become infected.
Again, if Fauci’s 1 percent mortality rate and Lipsitch’s estimate prove on target, between 3 billion and 5 billion people on earth will be infected, and 30 million to 50 million will die, a death toll greater than that of the Spanish Flu of 1918.
There is, however, some contradictory news.
China, with 81,000 cases, has noted a deceleration in new cases and South Korea appears to be gradually containing the spread of the virus.
Yet Italy, with its large elderly population, may be a harbinger of what is to come in the West.
As of Thursday, Italy had reported 12,000 cases and 827 deaths, a mortality rate of nearly 7 percent. This suggests that the unreported and undetected infections in Italy are far more numerous.
...
What does the future hold?
It may one day be said that the coronavirus delivered the death blow to the New World Order, to a half-century of globalization, and to the era of interdependence of the world’s great nations.
Tourism, air travel, vacation cruises, international gatherings, and festivals are already shutting down. ...
As for the “open borders” crowd, do Democrats still believe that breaking into our country should no longer be a crime, and that immigrants arriving illegally should be given free health care, a proposition to which all the Democratic debaters raised their hands?
The ideological roots of our free trade era can be traced to the mid-19th century, when its great evangelist, Richard Cobden, rose at Free Trade Hall in Manchester on January 15, 1846, and rhapsodized: “I see in the Free Trade principle that which shall act on the moral world as the principle of gravitation in the universe—drawing men together, thrusting aside the antagonism of race, and creed, and language, and uniting us in the bonds of eternal peace.”
In the pre-Trump era, Republicans held hands with liberal Democrats in embracing NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, and most favored nation trade privileges for China.
In retrospect, was it wise to have relied on China to produce essential parts for the supply chains of goods vital to our national security? ...
Closer interdependence upon Britain and France he sought all the while knowing Britain at the time was the main industrial country supplying the world.
ReplyDeleteAdmist this, Communism came to be in a library there.
With all that then and now as it concerns the US, as he was chiefly concerned with Britain, exactly how has other countries, save for our blood and military weapons, the world's currency not ignored, become dependent upon the US for products?
Ya see, that's the rub.
All true, but the differences in culture ... It matters.
DeleteAnd culture is likely the nub, as prog-lefties do not think culture matters, what with multiculturalism and celebrate diversity 24/7/365.
DeleteMulticulturalism means, in effect, no culture, i.e. nothing in common shared amongst a people whether language, religion, folkways, holidays, history, arts, institutions and achievements of the nation's people because the country is merely a place on a map, no longer a nation-state.
"Celebrate diversity" is equally pernicious as it reinforces the banal notion of superficial difference, and therefore, to celebrate nothing in common.
Denial of reality is at the core of liberalism, for philosophical reasons with deep roots.
DeleteFWIW:
ReplyDelete1- My girlfriend runs a Los Angeles paralegal office for Chinese immigrants.
2- I won't say how the immigrants get here or where in China they came from, but whatever you can imagine, you're correct.
3- I've had flu symptoms for about 2 months. Normal years I have flu symptoms for less than 2 weeks. My symptoms this year are no different than any other year, just dragging on longer...
4- My girlfriend has no symptoms at all.
Now consider this: Hepatitis B is endemic in China. Of the 350 million individuals worldwide infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV), one-third reside in China. Having control of your borders is important for any nation. Health is a national security issue.
DeleteBuchanan's claim about damage to the new world order is on point. Certainly, America's decision, if it can be called that, to off-load, farm out, so much of our economy for reasons of greed and specious efficiency to what is at heart a tenth world nation seems, in hindsight, to have been ill-advised.
ReplyDeleteChanges will be made on that front. In fact, they are already happening (let the market decide). China is and should pay a price for unleashing, what is it, the third pandemic on the world in the last twenty years because of their backwardness in sanitation, etc.
As to the rest of what Buchanan says, I don't know. A range between 70 million and 150 million isn't a range. It's guess. Same goes for Lipsitch @ Harvard, who appears to be the Lawrence Tribe of epidemiologists. A range between 40 and 70% isn't a range. It's sorcery.
Funny thing is they all use those qualifiers, so we can never say they're wrong. I said "might!" "Could." At least the quacks on the global warming front have the sense to make hard predictions, which, of course, are always wrong. But nobody holds them to it.
I'm not saying caution isn't called for. The school where I teach just shut down. In a day. Students were told to vacate. This was a panic decision. They could have waited a week or two--students aren't in danger--so professors, and students, could have made rational adjustments. But no, the sky is falling.
I understand the need to take precautions, especially with the elderly. As to the rest, well. It seems to me that a lot of this is driven by liability fears. Trash lawyers are waiting in the wings, drooling.
Hysteria is the new normal.
I forgot to add on last sentence " ... and not free trade."
ReplyDeleteNow comes this report from the PRC’s state organ, Xinhua, via Fox News:
ReplyDeleteNow that the number of new people infected with the coronavirus in China is slowing down, the country's Communist Party is ratcheting up threats against the West, with a particularly nasty warning about access to life-saving drugs aimed at the United States.
In an article in Xinhua, the state-run media agency that's largely considered the mouthpiece of the party, Beijing bragged about its handling of COVID-19, a virus that originated in the city of Wuhan and has spread quickly around the world, killing nearly 5,000 people and infecting thousands more. The article also claimed that China could impose pharmaceutical export controls which would plunge America into "the mighty sea of coronavirus."
The disturbing threats made during a global pandemic as well as the scary consequences if that threat becomes real highlight just how tight China's grip is on the global supply chain. Already, the Food and Drug Administration has announced the first drug shortage related to the coronavirus. Though it did not disclose which drug was in short supply, the FDA did say it could not access enough raw components needed because they are made in China.
More here:
https://www.foxnews.com/world/chinese-deny-americans-coronavirus-drugs
I heard somewhere that Trump is preparing an executive order on Buy American for a lot of health related stuff. That too is a matter of national security.
DeleteThe George HW Bush start of NAFTA finalized under Clinton was the full on acceptance of off shoring all our manufacturing of most everything. Supposedly this was inspired by Reagan, but Reagan, not HW, used tariffs to protect.
DeleteOur leaders sold out Americans on lies and this is the result.
China: You want your blood pressure meds even though many are adulterated and would not be accepted if it was a US company making it? Tough luck, you have no manufacturing.
How in the heck intelligent people allowed China, a nation that on a good day is an adversary of the U.S., to gain control of components we need to make life-saving drugs and the drugs themselves should be the subject--it kills me to say it--a Congressional investigation.
DeleteMaybe the Brits will now think again about letting Huawei into their computer brains.
This whole thing has inspired articles reminding us of those facts, like this one the other day: Wall Street Elites Made Us Dependent On ChinaWall Street Elites Made Us Dependent On China
DeleteOur problem with many Rx pharmaceuticals is that China has been making the APIs, the active pharmaceutical ingredients, used in our making the finished pharmaceuticals here.
DeleteThere has already been considerable concern about that as they do not have adequate oversight nor does our FDA have adequate resources to cover and monitor the myriad API manufacturers in China. A while back a great number of -sartan drugs (blood pressure) had to be recalled because the Chinese-manufactured API had been contaminated.
@Titan 28:
DeleteSee the article I just linked in comments. It's about money and not giving a sh*t about fellow Americans. Remember 'conservative' Bill Kristol and other NeverTrumps saying we need to replace our lazy ass population? A nation of pundits and speculators is their preference.
Thank you for the WSJ post. The comments are illuminating as well, since they add additional context.
DeleteI'll have to check the comments. I'll admit, I would have told you off the top of my head that France and Germany had government health care, but they don't. OTOH, there's more involved, and the two big interrelated problems are transparency and cost. I'd love to see a comparison of us to those two countries.
DeleteMark, with all respect, France has government health care. Here is how theirs works.
DeleteThe French health care system is one of universal health care largely financed by government national health insurance. ... Most general physicians are in private practice but draw their income from the public insurance funds.
More here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_France
Thanks for the clarification. And reading a bit more I can see that.
DeletePuerto Rico used to do a lot of manufacturing of US pharmaceuticals, and then their tax breaks were taken away under Clinton, and it moved to China.
ReplyDeleteTrump will be using Coronavirus as a way to get US pharmaceuticals and equipment made in the US again. The only question is how he will be doing it.
Healthcare will be a huge topic in the upcoming elections.
ReplyDeleteFor those without a subscription to the WSJ, Monica Showalter has extensive quotes from Sternberg's article: Europe's Coronavirus Fate Is Already Sealed.
Here's a sample:
What accounts for these divergences in health-care resources requires more study than a single newspaper column can provide, but a few early hints emerge. One is the observation that the U.K. and Italy are significantly more dependent on direct government financing of health-care than is France or Germany.
Government accounted for 79% of total health-care spending in the U.K. in 2017, according to Eurostat, and 74% in Italy. Germany and France both rely on compulsory insurance schemes with varying degrees of subsidy and government meddling, but outright government expenditure amounts to only 6% of total health spending in Germany and 5% in France. Covid-19 in this sense is a test of how much one trusts central health planners to make wise long-term decisions that boost resilience in the face of unusual dangers.