Gus Steeves joins Richard Morchoe on the September, 2023 Long Hill Report.

Met with Gus Steve to discuss the issues of the day.

Richard Morchoe and Conversations With welcome Mike Carnevale for the F...

Gus Steeves joins Richard Morchoe on the February, 2023 Long Hill Report.

Moon of Alabama brings some sanity to balloon gate.

Moon of Alabama has a post that goes into depth regarding the balloon that went from the Pacific to Atlantic.

The hysteria from both parties was ridiculous.

I shall never accuse anyone in politics of sanity, but the award for less hysteric goes to the Middle Kingdom.

the article is well worth your time. You can read it here. 

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/02/china-rejects-shoot-first-talk-later-attitude.html#more

Pay to Play in Thinktanklandia

 It has come to pass that General John Allen,  president of the Brookings Institution might have illegally lobbied on behalf of the wealthy Persian Gulf nation of Qatar.

Up on Long Hill, we are not surprised. We covered think tank footsie in 2014.

You can read it at our sub stack page:

The Think Tank Pay to Play Did Not Begin With General Allen

Gus Steeves joins Richard Morchoe on the May 5, 2022 Long Hill Report.

Rapid Antigen Testing is absolutely necessary January 2021 column from the Greater Sturbridge Town & Country Living

 Testing, Let's Not Flunk This Time

 

By Richard Morchoe

 

In the August issue, your columnist was beating the drum for a grassroots movement to bring about a regime of rapid testing for Covid-19.  The groundswell of support was truly sleep inducing.  The definition of quixotic is exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical.  C'est moi.

 

If a Nobel prize winner and a couple of members of congress can't rouse the country, what should one expect?  Up on Long Hill, we got the message that it was time to move on.

 

And, why not? We had a dip in cases and some reopening phases and vaccines were promised and it would soon be the Brave New Normal.

 

Then came the new surge and the locking down is coming back.  Governor Baker is in crisis mode again and one should not be surprised if he mandates we wear a mask in the shower.

 

The chief executive of our neighbor to the west, Andrew Cuomo, will not be out-panicked by Charlie.  His New York Excellency shut down indoor dining even though his own contact tracing data has restaurants and bars accounting for only 1.43 percent of Covid-19 exposures.

 

There is a feeling of deja vu about all this.  In the June issue, we noted that Andrew was faced with stats that said the infections happen inside the home.  Did he think reality shifted between then and now?

 

But, but, you say, the vaccines are on the way.  It's almost over.

 

Your columnist heard on the radio that the fastest a vaccine has ever been developed is four years for mumps.  If that is so, the speed at which the cure is being developed now seems miraculous.  Yet, the resources being thrown at the development are such that, if ever in history it could happen, now is the time.

 

It just might be.  There is no dearth of optimism and it all might come to pass, yet, it is not certain.  The rollout will not be at the speed of light.  Dr. Vivek Murthy, Joe Biden's Surgeon General nominee says it is more realistic to assume it would be closer ”to mid-summer or early fall when the vaccine makes its way to the general population."

 

So, back up on Long Hill, we are again beating the drum for testing.

 

Back in August, the advocates of mass testing were easy to ignore.  Lately, the face of rapid testing has been receiving better media exposure than the people previously crying in the wilderness, and well he should.

 

Michael Mina is getting traction in the battle for testing and with his credentials that is understandable.  From just a part of his bio:

 

"Dr. Michael Mina, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and a core member of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics (CCDD). He is additionally an Assistant Professor in Immunology and Infectious Diseases at HSPH and Associate Medical Director in Clinical Microbiology (molecular diagnostics) in the Department of Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School."

 

Switching radio channels while driving, I came upon WGBH's local Morning Edition show and host Joe Mathieu was talking to Mina who was making excellent sense.

 

In the discussion with Mathieu, Doctor Mina stated, "yet we never figured out — and even attempted to figure out — how to use testing strategically across this country."

 

If we think about the coverage that has been ongoing, he is right.  The PCR test is administered reactively upon suspicion of infection.  There is no one telling us all to get tested and when.  When would be as often as necessary, which is a question open for discussion.

 

Mina wants us to do rapid, mass testing and in his conversation with Mathieu, it did sound a bit radical.

 

The radio show took place November 23, 2020 and Mathieu asked, "could we have enough tests by Christmas?"

 

 Dr. Mina answered: "If we could have 10 to 20 million of these tests every single day across all of America, that would be enough to stop the outbreaks across the United States. It doesn't take a lot. 10 million might sound like a lot to the average person, but actually it's really not a huge number of the tests. The US government, if it wanted to act in a coordinated and thoughtful fashion about what are the best strategies to fight this virus, could produce the manufacturing capacity for what I estimate to be less than .01 percent of the cost that this virus is actually taking across our country in terms of a dollar sign."

 

Obviously, it is too late for Christmas, but the sooner we start the better.  In August, your columnist called for a Manhattan type project to get testing going.  If Doctor Mina is right, we could have opened up the country by now.  He explains how it works, 

 

"If we can get these up to 50 percent of households and ask 50 percent of people in this country to use a test twice a week — they wake up, they brush their teeth on a Monday and a Friday and they take a COVID test — it doesn't take full buy in; you just have to get half of a community. And so we could actually start to see it in weeks the prevalence would half, and then half again and half again. We won't use these to completely eradicate a virus like this. It's extremely difficult to eradicate a virus, but we can use this to open the economy back up, to get the whole prevalence of the virus down and be able to be safer as we move about the world again."

 

If we take his point about eradicating a virus, the implication is that it cannot completely be done, then we must face that opening up will not be perfect, but as it is inevitable, we must do the best we can; testing now, vaccinating eventually, and, actually living life again.

 

Mina has been on other radio shows and in the press.  It is wonderful to see the exposure and one has to ask why now?  It does seem odd, so we referred it to our official think tank, The Long Hill Institute for the Study of Why Now. Their answer, why quibble?   just be glad someone is paying attention and hope it is not just for the nonce.

 

Lest one think your columnist a skeptic, that is something he admits to.  That is not all I am.  Due to my age, I have probably had more experience with vaccines than most people alive today.  Going overseas decades ago, you had to have your shots.  The army pumped a lot of stuff into my arm when I arrived at Fort Dix.  

 

There was the polio scare.

 

A man related to my family by marriage came down with it.  Life would shortly end in an iron lung.  His son, also afflicted, would survive and be brought back to health by a rigorous regimen.

 

Children were told not to play with the neighbors’ kids due to fear of spreading the disease.

 

Then, one Sunday afternoon, our family went to a building up from Weymouth Landing and joined the line in front.  Eventually, we entered a room and the doctor took the arm of each child and gave a shot of the Salk Vaccine.  No more would our parents worry that after playing with friends we would come home infected.  

 

Today, polio does not exist, almost.  It is not the fault of the developed world, and with luck, we shall get there.

 

The memory of that fall day, more than 60 years ago, is better than many recent memories.  No one hopes that the science on this vaccine works more than I do.

 

Please note, there is something as citizens we can all do.  Your columnist is in monomania mode and hopes you will share his current obsession.  Dr. Mina suggested going to https://www.rapidtests.org/, click on where it says write your rep at the top and help light the fire.  It is easy to do.  I pestered family members and now I'm bugging you.