A Pandemic Survivor's Omnibus II

THE “PANIC OF 2020”-3

D. J. LOOKED OFF ACROSS the pasture land we could see from this porch, and relaxed back into his Adirondack. “Even though I've been doing real estate deals in foreign countries for decades, when you have to deal with governments as part of a daily job – well, you get to find a side of them that is not as pleasant.

“These 'heads of state' are nice enough to talk to in general. A few seconds or minutes with someone and you'll know exactly what they are like. Some never learned what manners are, but are still diamonds in the rough. Others know all the 'now-you're-spozed-to's' and still are complete asses beneath all those 'proper' pleasantries.

“Like this current Chi-Com leader. Nice guy in general. If you like the people who are into global domination and you don't mind the occasional 'shiv' in your back. He's just playing the cards he was dealt, with his own style.

“A short background history here – Communism and what they call 'Socialism' these days – neither of those have ever worked, anywhere. This guy Xi came in right after a handful of people got busy converting China over to a capitalist model. Sort of.

“Because the state owns all the land in China. And it's all top-down management. So if you have a guy that doesn't know what he's doing – like old Mao, who ended up 'accidentally' killing tens or hundreds of millions of Chinese because he didn't understand economics or farming or manufacturing. And he purposely killed off everyone who was in charge – which meant all the people who knew how to do anything were soon dead. So he left that country in a mess.

“This guy Deng came in, he and another seven of his cronies. They got tired of being broke and studied how Hong Kong, Macao, and Singapore were prospering, all right next door to this nation of starving Chinese. So they figured out what these areas were doing right, and started getting foreign investments into China, setting up corporations to run everything. They leased the government-owned land to their Chinese farmers and allowed them to keep any profit after taxes and expenses. And all the sudden there was a lot more food around, and people had money to buy things. Plus, there were factory jobs to go to, and things started getting better. Building a middle class.

“Then Tienanmen Square happened and that was from all these people thinking that because they could make all this money, they also had things like free speech rights, rule of law, and so on. Meanwhile, the 'old guard' didn't see things that way. So it became a mess, and old ways returned - using the 'tried-and-true' methods of disappearances, prison camps, and censorship.

“Xi comes along after all this and figures that he can leverage all this manufacturing and get these sweetheart deals as a 'developing country'. Grab the bulk of the supply lines for the world and then squeeze.

“When I got in, I saw that the deals we made earlier were a mess. We'd lost all these jobs. And China wasn't playing fair at all. Here they were becoming a World Power by using our money to build their military. And fidgeting with their money valuation, requiring companies hand over their technical expertise if they manufactured there – a bunch of stuff that the U. S.-founded companies wouldn't do anywhere else or for anyone else.

“And the Chi-Com's even made the companies self-censor themselves if they wanted to manufacture there. It got so bad that the NBA was going to lose millions by not playing for Chinese people in their own stadiums, if they said anything against the Chinese government. Even if it was said in our own country.”

The President stopped at that, and sipped some more of his iced tea. Since it was almost empty, it suddenly refilled.

As I said, Sal makes an excellent hostess. Of course, I kept quiet and smiled.

D. J. looked over at me and grinned. “Not only is she a looker, but I've never tasted better tea – especially a bottomless drink. She must make you very happy.”

My own smile turned into a grin. “I'll be sure to pass your compliments over to her.” (Of course, she was obviously listening in, as we both knew.)

D. J. mused for a bit, then continued. “So, that's the basic villain of the scene. We found out that they had almost cornered the market in all the masks and safety gear internationally. All in addition to producing the most of world's pharmaceuticals. And when their own lock-down happened, they simply bought up all the medical mask product of their own factories at wholesale prices and held onto them. But the rest of the planet didn't have any real stockpiles. So when their virus made its way over, that started this mad scramble for supplies.

“And our great companies started retrofitting assembly lines to produce what we needed – right here on our own soil. A great bunch of guys. But you can get more done by asking nicely than chasing with a stick. When you stop chasing, they quit running. Ordering and chasing people is such a lot of work. I never thought we needed a lot more federal bureaucrats to get in the way. Because you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. All you have to do is ask. And then make sure to tell everyone how great they are when they come through on their promises.

“OK, so meanwhile China hid almost all of the data about the virus, and started 'graciously' shipping medical supplies to these countries, but charging them something like eight bucks each for a fifty-cent mask.

“But the worst part was their usual quality-control problems. Most of those masks, equipment, and supplies didn't work, and so they finally quit shipping them at all, so they could re-inspect everything.

“Meaning, the rest of the world had to tough it out.

“Of course, our American ingenuity started fixing things in days and hours. I helped them out by getting the crazy regulations off their back, so these needed products could wind up in the hands where they were needed. Good old American ingenuity meets demand with supply. Within weeks, we had masks and gowns and ventilators. Tons.

“Oh – much later we found out that the Chi-Coms had even ripped off a very promising drug that would fix this particular virus that someone else was developing. And they tried to patent it under another name. That would have been the perfect solution to world domination – except their ploy didn't work, just like most of their other pandemic corner-the-market approaches. Flawed.”

I stopped his story at that point. “Wait, now we're still dealing with millions dying in the U. S. – I didn't see where that happened.”

“Because all the models and papers were very wrong. Very. These authors all had records of calling every outbreak the wrong way – all super-alarming. We couldn't trust most of the data coming in from almost anywhere at first. But all we had was these Academic opinions – that were based mostly on Chi-Com reports. But China and Iran fudged their data to make themselves look good. Garbage in, garbage out. So when the rest of the countries were reporting their statistics as accurately as they could, then it quickly made those two countries look worse and worse. Lying is a slippery slope.

“Eventually, with front line doctors reporting on what they had experienced, it turned out that this virus was more infectious, but otherwise had a middle-low range mortality for a flu-type SARS-Corona virus. And one of the benefits of this was to teach us how to handle the annual flu season we had. We actually had fewer deaths from flu if you took off the padded statistics.”

C. J. took a sip of his tea. And waited.

After a while, I couldn't stand the suspense.. “And what did you learn?”

“The technical details we learned were few, but major: Keep the people with other major illnesses, particularly the elderly with impaired immune systems, quarantined and locked down from all visitors and don't transfer others in there – all while keeping them stocked up with everything they needed. (Some said to build them arboretums where they could garden even during the winters – we took that under advisement.) The few governors who violated those rules created the bulk of the 'attributed' deaths for the nation. Very sad.

“Another key lesson was to shut down the borders for about six weeks or so during any pandemic, depending how it was going in their country. One mathematics professor was able to work out from all our shared data that the whole curve was about 70 days from start to finish. First infection to herd immunity. Lock down or no lock down. Later, other scientists worked out the same result through a different analysis process.

“So the total lock downs didn't prove to be necessary after all. Which was good, because that six week period also turned out to be about how long people will put up with being told they can't work or operate their business or go to church.”

I had to ask, “So those lock downs resulted in protests?”

“After a couple of months. And pretty peaceful, in general. Mostly just for the worst state governors. Of course money and power are similar – they don't corrupt people as much as they just expose the basic person they are. Some governors turned out to be a bit extreme, others were pretty sensible. And law enforcement people will just go so far – since they live in those communities, too. So the worst actors quit getting any support for their edicts and pronunciamentoes and so on.

“Now this didn't mean people with upsets didn't voice them. When you put a lot of people out of work, they have every reason to go out and vent. What else do they have to do, anyway? So there were some violent outbreaks in a few cities. But that's not the majority of the country, and not the people who had 'essential' jobs. You have to remember that old joke – 'Why do you only protest on the weekends? Because I have a job.' And again, don't look to the fake news people for accurate data. They've always hyped. Always.

“All the people wanted to do was to get back out into the sunshine and warm air – the natural antiseptics for any flu. Instead of being cooped up in their home which is a breeding ground for infection. You should have seen how beach-loving Californians objected to being kept inside when their warm weather returned.”

I'd finished my own tea, and watched it refill. Plus, felt a small kiss on my cheek. A reminder of how Sal was planning to “proof” my writing after this story-telling was done. I reached up and touched that spot absent-mindedly.

“So, D. J. we've got a nice villain here. And the suspense is building. People in revolt. Nation on the edge of self-imposed destruction. Nice.”

The President just raised an eyebrow, and waited.

“OK, here's the part where you tell us another big clue to how this mystery is solved....”

IV“I call it like I see it. And if I can't see it, I make it up.”

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